When your country or your people are involved in a war you have a few choices. You volunteer for military service, you “support our troops”, you hope, you “trust our leadership”, you hate the enemy, you love your country, yellow ribbons, the works… But what if you wake up one morning and you realize that your country is involved in a hopeless war? What if you get a distinct feeling that the “leadership” is as clueless as you are? That they really have no idea what we’re fighting for, what the objective is, how do we pay for it, what the metrics of success are, and most importantly, what is the exit strategy. And you know, deep in your heart, that it’s unimportant who you vote for, you’ll most likely get more of the same.
Worst of all, what if you start getting the impression that the war was already lost, and that we’re all going through the motions of getting budgets, sending troops, pretending that we have “allies” (although it’s quite obvious that we, Americans, are putting up most funds, lives and efforts on the line) and an occasional, very local, victory.
Why have we lost? Simple: we have sacrificed our soldiers, our money, and our way of life. We have only our land to lose, and I’m not completely sure that the land won’t be next. How is that?
Four thousand soldiers dead. Five years. No end in sight.
Half a billion dollars per day for the war in Iraq. Total cost of over a half a trillion dollars, and counting. Probably less in Afghanistan, but still. Our “leadership” at the Pentagon estimated the cost to be fifty billion dollars. Imagine that. What does this have to do with losing the war? Again, simple: with the money we’re throwing away in Iraq, we could have better education, stronger economy (at least we could fix the sub-prime crisis), better access to medical services, better infrastructure. Are we losing or what?
We are getting humiliated every day at the airport, to avoid a second September 11. Do we feel safe? I think not. So we strip, we board airplanes with small little containers of liquid, in transparent plastic bags, to accomplish what? Not sure. (The one positive thing that came out of this is employment for hundreds of thousands of illiterate losers, who no specialize in opening bags and directing crowds that have no other way to go).
And for what? So Iraqis have a democracy? Who are we kidding? Imagine that: the Sunni Democratic Militia, vs. the Shiite Republican Forces running for places in the Parliament? Elections in Iraq with no violence? When hell freezes over.
And why is it? Simple still. We never had a good idea of who our enemies are. We, Americans, always think that problems are defined in our terms, and therefore the solutions are defined in our terms as well. But truth is, neither the problems nor the solutions are defined in our terms. The one and only decisive American victory in the battlefield was in Second World War, when the solution was “out of the box”. In all subsequent engagements, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the outcome was and still is not very encouraging.
Another country that’s lost the long term battle but unfortunately doesn’t know it yet, is Israel. Israel has been investing its money, young men, and its future in fighting a hopeless war. War against a culture it really doesn’t understand and can’t relate to. Pay attention: Israel has a GDP per capita of $26,200 per year. Compare to $4,200 for Egypt, $5,500 for Lebanon, $4,000 for Syria and $2,900 for Iraq. At such high GDP, Israel has complex government systems, transportation, education, communication and industry. In short: losing doesn’t have to be in the battlefield. It can be in the classroom. It can be on the roads, at the hospitals. And guess what. It’s happening already. Education, medicine, services are going down. Good people are fleeing. Why sacrifice your life and your children for an endless, hopeless war? And mind you, the neighbors? They do just fine on pitta bread and hummous. Who’s winning here?
Same with Iraq and Afghanistan. America is bleeding literally and figuratively speaking, and the Iraqis and the Afghans are “business as usual”. The American financial system is in trouble, people are losing their homes. Who’s winning here?
And is there hope? I don’t see it yet. For as long as the world looks at some terrorists as “freedom fighters”, “guerrilla warriors”. For as long as the world thinks (mistakenly) that it’s buying some peace and quiet by “respecting” different cultures. For as long as terrorism is rewarded with states, rights, money. For as long as we’re not united against any shape or form of terrorism, we have no hope. No matter how justifiable the cause is, terrorism should never be considered as the means to accomplish it. Never. Killing women and children, on purpose, taking hostages, keeping millions of people in fear for their lives, and their livelihoods, is not acceptable as a form of fighting.
Are we there yet? Not even close…
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