PART SEVEN: Force for Liberty or for Oppression? Iraq, Afghanistan and Beyond

“If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca, 4BC-65AD

In Part Seven I intend to arrive at some conclusions in light of Parts One through Six. I will also shed some light on the use of our military abroad in keeping with our Founders warning against involvement in foreign intrigue and entangling treaties. Many will be quick to point to the Monroe Doctrine, Theodore Roosevelt’s Big Stick Policy, and John Polk’s Manifest Destiny as some examples contrary to the advice of the Founders. You would be correct on this point. Our Constitution does not prohibit treaties or involvement in foreign wars, but the process was deliberately made cumbersome and slow. Let’s keep in mind that, while the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were novel and revolutionary, the people of the time were still anchored in that time and were implementing something completely new. Parting from the premise that America got itself off course in its foreign policy and the consequent use of its military, I intend to suggest that we are now at a point where the decision models of the past can be improved upon.

I’ve often pondered the question of why we tend to make the same mistakes, display the same behaviors, and seemingly do not learn from history. Pick up any book on ancient history and the full range of our behaviors will be on display. Altruism and barbarity, genius and ignorance, freedom and tyranny, are all present. The actors and costumes may change but the themes and motives do not. Why? We are each a product of our time and place, conditions and attributes. Each of these fit within the bounds of a group’s dominant cultural traits. Keeping this in mind, I would argue that we, as individuals, often embrace similarities without due consideration of the differences. Personal and cultural biases, then, are the principal contributors to counter-productive or ill-fated analysis and policy development. The consequence of which can explain most of America’s ill-fated forays internationally.

“The theory of cognitive dissonance does not picture people as rational beings; rather, it pictures them as rationalizing beings…. The more a person is committed to an action or belief, the more resistant that person will be to information that threatens the belief, and the more he or she will attempt to bolster the action or belief.”
Elliot Aronson, The Social Animal

In Part One I addressed the inherent danger of a large standing army. The Founders were insistent that such an army would eventually represent a force for oppression of the people. Today’s military and law enforcement need to be cognizant of the oath of office its members took to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

“We were Americans, we came and went, filled with self-importance, and in the end we were irrelevant.”
Gail Sheehy, Spirit of Survival

In Parts Two through Six I visited our role in Vietnam with emphasis on the many human errors and lost opportunities that led us into an unnecessary and costly war. I then introduced an overview of Latin America and discussed our involvement in Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala. In Panama our national interest was in a canal. We supported the government of El Salvador in its battle against a communist insurgency directly assisted by Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Guatemala, on the other hand, was a throwback to the worst days of the Vietnam conflict. In Guatemala the interests of United Fruit Company were paramount. These interests did not affect national security but our support of the dirty civil war was allowed by policymakers in the name of economic opportunism, conflicts of interest and cronyism in Washington DC. Hopefully these will represent the last vestiges of colonialist exploitation.

This now brings us to our present involvement in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In each of these countries we are being held hostage by individuals in Washington DC and on the ground. These individuals are supported by a cast of thousands of bureaucrats that, by and large, are eager to comply with the policy development process. This ethnocentric process tends to favor consensus and usually discards positions considered “outside the norm”. There are always the few and intrepid voices like that of General McCrystal but, in the end, policymakers are only interested in the arguments that bolster the decision they want to make or have already made but not announced.

“Compliance…best describes the mode of behavior of a person who is motivated by a desire to gain reward or avoid punishment….In compliance, the important component is power – the power of the influencer to dole out the reward for compliance and the punishment for noncompliance.”
Elliot Aronson, The Human Animal

In Iraq our political-military analysts failed to properly assess political and cultural conditions, not to mention the repercussions in Iran and Syria. We were not prepared for the insurgency nor for the high levels of terrorist activity. Special Operations forces had to be diverted from Afghanistan to contend with the “growing problem” in Iraq. One senior civilian leader after another failed to make inroads with their Iraqi counterparts. The monetary aid that was dispersed seemingly achieved little and resulted in billions of dollars that were unaccounted for or entirely wasted. The military eventually won the battles but it is evident that our civilian leaders do not have a clue about how to get the coalition government up and running.

Afghanistan started logically enough as a counter-terrorism campaign: Destroy Al Qaeda and its supporters, the Taliban. Our government had the support of the people and the mission made sense. The fact that efforts there languished in the shadow of operations in Iraq demonstrates that America’s projection of conventional power is limited. Our operations have required that we use significant numbers of men, women and equipment out of the Reserves and the National Guard. Furthermore, all of these assets and the active component are used in repeated assignments overseas. Something President Clinton assured us would not be necessary with the downsizing of our military forces in the mid-1990s.

Once major combat operations came to an end in Iraq the current administration conducted a strategy review in Afghanistan. We would apparently use the Iraqi playbook and place more boots on the ground. The President and his Generals changed the mission. No longer a surgical counter-terror effort, a counter-insurgency strategy would be pursued instead. By definition, the latter includes “nation-building” activities which cost money we don’t have. We would create a new Afghanistan made in our own image.

Ironically, America is repeating exactly what President Johnson did in 1964. Prior to 1964, President Kennedy had limited our involvement in Vietnam to an advisory role and, in 1963, there were 16,300 advisors in South Vietnam. President Johnson increased that role to 23,300 advisors in 1964 prior to putting a half-million more boots on the ground. A war without a strategy led by Generals who failed to lead resulted in an unqualified military and political defeat. The worst consequence of this exercise in futility by our military and civilian leaders was the unjustifiable loss of fifty thousand American lives.

There are poignant reasons that explain America’s lackluster political record in combat since World War II. First, it has nothing to do with the performance of our uniformed men and women and everything to do with their leaders. Secondly, it has nothing to do with a lack of education or political skills among our military and civilian leaders. The reasons have everything to do with an inward looking culture and political worldview that distanced itself from our Founders.

The United States committed to World War II reluctantly but completely. It was total war bent on the destruction and defeat of Nazi Germany and its Axis partners. Soldiers went to combat for the duration of hostilities; those who came home early were either seriously wounded or dead. We mobilized all of our resources and there was no doubt the war was our one and only priority. Our enemies were required to surrender unconditionally.

Korea was divided at the 38th Parallel when the Soviets took control of Korea from that point North; the US occupied the territory to the South of it at the end of WW II. The Soviets and the US withdrew in 1949 but Stalin still had designs on Asia. The North attacked the South in 1950 and combat lasted until the armistice of 1953. Our political leaders, fearful of China, refused General MacArthur’s request to invade North Korea. Millions on both sides died and the results were a stalemate. We did not fight to win.

In Vietnam, America’s military were not allowed to fully wage combat operations outside South Vietnam. Invasion of the North was taboo because we again feared China’s involvement. Our Generals did not demand a decisive victory. The latter seems to hold true for Afghanistan. Like Vietnam, our forays into Pakistan are clandestine and limited. Al Qaeda and the Taliban combatants hide in Pakistan until they are ready for another offensive. In Vietnam we could not secure the South and attack the North. In Afghanistan we cannot secure all its provinces and we cannot decisively attack the enemy hiding in Pakistan. We are not fighting to win.

“Sanctified by authority and armed with power, error and usurpation bid defiance to truth and right....”
Josiah Quincy, 1774

President Eisenhower’s warning of the dangers posed by “...an immense military establishment and a large arms industry...” is more relevant today than in years past. Any bureaucracy will naturally push toward its intended purpose and then some. The military must fight and the large complex of defense industries must continue to produce articles of war. The only restraint on this process is the will of the people as exerted through Congress. The major restraint should be found in the appropriations process but that has not been the case since 1913. The creation of the Federal Reserve, a de facto Central Bank, has allowed our politicians to borrow money to finance projects that would have lost out to domestic priorities. The lack of transparency guaranteed that the political ruse would succeed. Fast forward to the present and we can see that all our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are financed with borrowed money, most of it from the People’s Republic of China. This is the first constitutional issue; the Founders clearly were against the temptations of a central bank and warned against indebting subsequent generations of Americans. We are not only in debt but our savings and investments have been systematically devalued by the actions of the Federal Reserve.

The second constitutional issue has to do with the process of going to war. While it is only the Congress that has the authority to declare war, our process has degraded to the point where the President has too much leeway to commit our military to combat operations. No longer are we witness to robust debate over the arguments for or against. Too much is obscured behind veils of secrecy that only alienate the People from the process. A majority of those sitting (i.e., not serving) in Congress do not have a working knowledge of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers yet they sit and vote in favor of more debt and more foreign military adventures. Why? Because they are not spending their money, they are spending our money. By and large their sons and daughters do not serve in the military, therefore it is the blood of the People that becomes a cheap commodity in the affairs of violence.

“Justice is as strictly due between neighbor nations as between neighbor citizens. A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang.”
Benjamin Franklin, 1785

The Branch of government most at fault has been the Legislative Branch. It has consistently raised the debt ceiling allowing for more borrowing. In its regulation of the purse it has failed to limit the Executive Branch’s forays into undeclared wars. Therefore I would suggest that the solution to our economic crisis requires that we withdraw from Afghanistan and only station our military abroad when there is a clear and present threat to the US. Considering our arsenal of weapons we need not station our military anywhere but here at home.

Finally, the amount of federal spending and the size of the federal bureaucracy needs to be drastically reduced. A good starting point would be the findings of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (see http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/).

It is certain that if you and I fail to inform ourselves and fail to act we will be complicit in the final destruction of America’s great experiment: Can man rule himself? If the People cannot act responsibly and expect as much from our elected leaders we deserve to be oppressed and hounded by tyrants. After all a tyrant always has an opinion.

It is time to start living within our means. It is time to fix things at home. It is time to let other nations settle their own problems. For now the reversals to democracy in Latin America argue that the affected cultures are, for now, incapable of self-rule. Unfortunately, America is headed in the same direction as the rates of ignorance and corruption increase and the sustaining ethical values of our nation plummet to levels where “anything goes”. Will we be able to demonstrate once more that we can rule ourselves or must we fade away in an historical “blink of an eye”?