|
aljazeerah.info Opinion Editorials |
|||
|
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
|
|
'War is never a humanitarian enterprise' By Michael Jansen Jordan Times, 3/27/03 AS ARMOURED units of the US 7th Cavalry regiment charged up the highway from Basra towards Baghdad, a website devoted to the life and times of the regiment's most famous, or infamous, commanding officer cheered on the troops. The banner headline on the home page of the site declared in bold red type: “Custer would have been proud and right up front leading today's fighting 7th.” Indeed, he would. George Armstrong Custer was born in 1839 in Ohio and raised in Mason, Michigan, a whistle stop town on the way to Saginaw. He graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1861 and promptly entered the Civil War on the Union side, although he affected the long hair and manners of the southern gentry. He had what soldiers call a “good war” and rose rapidly in seniority. But after the war, he was reduced to his substantive peacetime rank and had to make his way up the ladder again, slowly and painfully. Nevertheless, he was always called “general” by his men. This gave him notions of grandeur and contributed to his downfall in one of the most disgraceful cavalry charges ever made. In 1867, Custer became an “Indian fighter” and played a part in numerous battles leading to the occupation of traditional lands of the native population of the United States and the subjugation of the Sioux nation to Washington's rule. It is, therefore, appropriate that Custer's regiment should be taking part in the current US war to subjugate the Iraqi nation and take control of Iraq, a country founded on an ancient civilisation. In his final battle, however, Custer did not prevail. On May 17, 1876, he and his men were massacred in the Little Big Horn valley by Sioux warriors fighting under chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Custer attempted a frontal attack on the Sioux encampment, with the aim of wiping out those resisting US domination. The Sioux had carefully planned their defence and marshalled 5,000 braves to meet Custer's men. The battle, called “Custer's Last Stand”, was a prime example of military folly. Custer and his men suffered defeat and died because he committed the cardinal sin which no military commander should ever commit: he underestimated his enemy. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks seem to have done the same thing when they designed the Iraq campaign. First and foremost, both Custer and the Bush administration did not take into consideration the fact that their “enemies” were/are fighting for their own territory, the Sioux for the Dakota Black Hills, the Iraqis for the “land between the two rivers”, known as Mesopotamia. These are sacred lands to which these two very different peoples have deep spiritual and historical connections. While Custer was out to kill Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and Franks to eliminate Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, “nationalism” motivated the Sioux and inspires the Iraqis to resist. Today, shades of long dead Sioux, Commanche, and Apache warriors killed in engagements with the white man's technologically superior cavalry may stand behind Iraqi fighters sniping at US and British troops and lobbing mid-20th century bombs in the direction of their 21st century armour. Little Big Horn and the Battle for Baghdad are about the same thing: the right of peoples not to be occupied by aliens and swamped by alien culture. Second, US planners based their strategy on the performance of the Iraqi army in the last war. They thought that the Iraqis had learnt nothing from the 1991 campaign. Arrogance does not become military planners. Since 1991, the Iraqi armed forces are said to have been cut by half. According to military analysts, the US assessment was that downswing meant the government could not sustain such a large force due to a five-year stoppage in revenues from of oil exports and to sanctions. While these factors may have spurred the reorganisation of the country's armed forces, the Iraqis seem to have realised that a smaller, more professional army is preferable to a large, unwieldy force which is poorly trained and poorly armed. Today, US and UK forces are facing a combination of forces more motivated than the regular conscript army. These include the “fedayeen” (guerrillas), the ruling Baath Party's militia, and 100,000 Republican Guard troops, the majority deployed at the outer defensive ring round Baghdad (about 90km from the capital), and units of the elite Special Republican Guard, concentrated in protected bunkers on the outskirts of the city. To topple the government, the stated war aim of the US and UK, the invaders must overcome these forces and take Baghdad. This could be an expensive business, particularly for the 4.5-5 million people who live there. Third, Rumsfeld's campaign strategy relies on three elements: overwhelming power, speed and information dominance. His aim was to overwhelm the Iraqi armed forces, particularly, elite units close to Saddam Hussein and prompt them to mount a coup against him. This process was meant to be accomplished by the rapid movement of troops into the country, accompanied by pinpoint bombardment of selected “regime targets” in Baghdad and command and communications sites, rendering the regime deaf, blind and dumb. Rumsfeld's strategy was implemented successfully, but failed to produce the desired result: quick capitulation or a coup. Fourth, Anglo-US forces concentrated on taking territory that is empty desert rather than population centres. Indeed, the invaders bypassed the port of Umm Qasr on the Kuwait border and Basra. But Iraqi fighters in these cities have been waging guerrilla warfare against the invading forces. As a result, Basra, on day five/six of the war, was declared a military target. This amounts to a serious strategic defeat for the US and UK, because they have pledged not to attack civilians and civilian areas. Also, US and British forces have moved forward so quickly that they have long supply lines vulnerable to attack by small, mobile Iraqi guerrilla units. Fifth, the US failed on the diplomatic plane to prepare the way for the ongoing assault on the core country of the eastern Arab world. Russia, China, France and the states of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America oppose this war. The US and Britain have no mandate from the Security Council to wage this war. It is a war outside international law, a violation of both humanitarian and customary norms. This being the case, the US and Britain do not have full freedom of action on the military plane to bring the war to an early conclusion. The US and UK are also prisoners of their own rhetoric, which claims that they are out to “liberate” rather than capture, kill and maim the Iraqi people. Every image of a shattered Iraqi body, every statistics of killed and injured, every gutted building is a reproach to these humane warriors. The “zero death” doctrine, put forward by Colin Powell while he was joint chiefs of staff must now apply to Iraqi civilians and soldiers as well as US soldiers. Finally, on the public relations front, the “shock and awe” strategy, designed to frighten the Iraqis into surrendering or overthrowing their leadership, has shocked and awed world public opinion into taking an increasingly antiwar stance. At the present time, the US and UK are blamed for the fact that Basra's 1.7 million people have been without sufficient and clean water since last Friday and that no food and medical aid has reached the city so far. No number of high-level military briefings at the $250,000 centre designed for US Central Command by Hollywood can hide the guilty “collateral damage” inflicted on innocent civilians by war. War is not a humanitarian enterprise; no country which wages war on another should claim it is involved in a humanitarian effort. If the country under attack has not harmed or threatened the attacker, as in the case of Iraq and the US, war amounts to straightforward aggression. No one but ignorant and uninformed citizens of Mason, Michigan, believe the US is waging a war of self-defence. Custer did not go to war to liberate the Sioux, but to kill them and take their land.
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.
|