The Americans Should Have Known

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by Anwaar Hussain

They should have known that the wages of war were high for all and not just for the victims.

The Americans should have known that there is no stopping a man who believes he is right and is willing to die for that belief. Like the critical mass theory, if this belief is shared by a sufficient number then no amount of firepower brought to bear on such men is enough to snuff out their spirit. This is the gravest miscalculation made by the head honchos ruling the roost in the great United States of America. Like fools they have rushed in where angels fear to tread.

Even if the Americans were unwilling to listen to voices of sanity from across the world asking for caution and prudence, for their own interest they should have fed bits of historic facts into their super computers and asked for an answer.

First Afghanistan. Afghan Pathans make up nearly half the population of Afghanistan, are the second largest ethnic group in Pakistan and the chief targets for the American-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. To be sure, the Pathans have been subdued for brief spans of history but have invariably bounced back on their enemies with renewed vigor and venom.

They wear their weapons as clothing accessories, and are renowned as equally for their fierce blood feuds and hatred of enemies as for their loyalty to friends. In their blood feuds only, their patience is known to be as great as their mighty Hindukush. Proud warriors and one of the most resistant tribal peoples on earth, the Pathans have withstood the military might of Alexander the Great, Mogul Emperors, the Soviets and the British in the past. “He is no Pathan who does not give a blow for a punch,” maintains one of their proverbs. The Americans should have known.

Pathan society revolves around a strict code of ethics, known as Pukhtunwali (“the way of the Pathan”). This unwritten code includes hospitality and protection of one’s guests; extending refuge to a fugitive; the right of blood feuds or revenge; bravery, single-mindedness, justice, and persistence; defense of one’s property and honor; and defense of one’s women. Above all, the ability to defend his property and household is vital to a Pathan’s honor. And according to their culture, death is not too high a price to pay for one’s honor. Before occupying the Afghan’s land, the Americans should have known.

Though their loyalty to Islam is fierce, but Pathan culture often seems to supercede Islamic orthodoxy. The rise and fall of Taliban is but one brief twist of history in this rugged part of the world. Taliban or no Taliban, resisting foreign occupation of their lands is a way of life for them. After the exit of the Soviets from Afghanistan, the Taliban phenomenon could hold their interest for only as long. If there were no foreign occupiers soon enough, the Pathans would have had to invent some to go on with their way of life. Their tussle with the Northern Alliance was nothing but a poor substitute of this fact. The Americans should have known.

The Americans should have known too what was known to Europeans since the days of Alexander. Afghanistan is a land of mountains, ferocious warriors, uncompromising Islam, vicious tribal rivalries and a political complexity that entwines bloodlines, chivalry, religion and history into a mix as unfathomable to the outsider today as it has ever been. In the early 19th century it was a land of great mystery, at the dawn of twenty-first it remains only more so. It should have been left alone to find its own natural equilibrium.

Iraqi nationalism is no different. In Iraq today there is a very strong element of national pride of the Iraqi people, who do not want to be victims of what amounts to a brazen colonial domination by the US led forces. Whether the Shias or Sunnis, no significant faction in Iraq wants to be dominated by a foreign imperialist power. In the historical memory of the Iraqis, like that of the Afghan people, Britain and America feature not as kind, friendly, democratic patrons, but as bloodthirsty tormenters and exploiters.

To their horror, in Iraq too the Americans have discovered that their enemies want to fight them. Gone are the days of raining fat bombs on a helpless bunch of human beings strung out in the coverless Iraqi desert. No more Bunker-Busters and Daisy Cutters. There are no targets for such weapons. Like mirages, the Iraqis now disappear and reappear at will from the same deserts and collect American scalps like so many war trophies. Ironically the so called “War on Terror” has turned out to be “War of Terror” for the Americans. That deceit and subterfuge has a limit, the Americans should have known.

They should have known too that the wages of war were high for all and not just for the victims. All wars have unintended consequences….more so when political leaders, having personal axes to grind, set in motion events that end up wounding the pride of an already aggrieved nation. Someone should have told the Americans that morally wrong aggressive military actions surely earn a violent reaction.

They should have known that the so called “war on terrorism,” will stir anti-American sentiments in a vicious way. Indiscriminate bombings, death of innocent bystanders and unjustifiable tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan will inflame the tinderbox of even ordinary Muslim’s sentiments. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan in quick succession, turning a blind eye to the doings of the state of Israel and now threatening Iran and Syria in no ambiguous terms, only confirm their worst suspicions. That is, that Washington is intent upon destroying not just terrorists, but a way of life in Muslim societies. The number of Muslims having such beliefs is increasing at an alarming rate across the Muslim world. If not done already, this number may be about to cross that critical mass. Americans need to know.

Muslim grievances center on the perception that America exerts its power without a thought for the value of Muslim lives, whether for Palestinians in their desperate refugee camps, Iraqis gunned down in the “turkey shoot” of Desert Storm, or innocent Afghans sniped off the plains of Afghanistan. The clumsy American actions have almost ensured that Bin Laden becomes a legend to tens of millions of victimized Muslims and a model for further action against the West.

The results of endless attempts to impose America’s will by force upon a resentful and hostile people are becoming clearer by the day. It is naïve if the Americans have still not grasped the facts on the ground. It is high time to sit up and take note of the diversity of the opposition forces and the depth of their popular support.

Both the Iraqi and Afghan resistance is waging the type of campaign that has been waged historically by people battling against foreign occupation. Unable to match the overwhelming superiority of US firepower, the resistance fighters rely on one vital strategic advantage: it is their country. Their aim is to make it intractable for the occupiers.

It’s a guerilla war on in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Someone needs to tell the Americans that rooting guerrilla fighters involves the use of intense violence and draconian measures against the population wherefrom it springs. In the ensuing chaos it is hard to distinguish between friend and foe. Mass sweeps and arrests, the use of spies and informers, torturing of suspects to extract information and hair-trigger responses to non-threats invariably leading to loss of innocent lives results in more hatred for the occupation forces. This generates, in turn, an increase in support for the guerrillas, further resistance by the civilian population, intensified tyrannical measures, and a spiral of violence that always spins out of control.

The Americans need to realize before it is too late that the logic of occupation is naturally despotic. That the brutalized and impoverished people of Iraq and Afghanistan need facilitators to help them decide their own fate, not occupiers. It is another matter that the Americans and their side-kicks are not even left with enough credibility needed to act as facilitators.

The Americans must know that the world, having finally taken off the blinds of 9/11, has now seen through their plot. The world now knows that far from benefiting the Iraqi and Afghan peoples this whole operation is an unashamed imperialist robbery of their resources. The Americans call for denouncing as “terrorists” those who fail to greet the US invaders as “liberators” is now increasingly being met with derision. People still remember Vietnam, Algeria, southern Africa, Kashmir, Chechnya and every other part of the globe where oppressed peoples fought, and are fighting, to throw off the bondage of colonialism and foreign occupation. The Nazis too routinely condemned anyone who resisted German occupation in the Second World War as “terrorists” What is the difference?

The Muslim world has a long history of opposing colonial rule that will not be erased by empty rhetoric about democracy and liberation. There is still time for the Americans to go back to their country and put their own house in order first. Otherwise not too far in future, like in Vietnam, they would cross the point of no return. Then they would be giving the world their standard argument that “…we could not possibly leave that part of the world after investing so much of our blood, treasure, and reputation there.” That would inexorably draw American-led forces to the eye of the storm. If America is discredited now, it would be dishonored then. An orderly withdrawal is the only sane policy and the only politically and morally justifiable way to extricate from the deepening quagmire.

It is patently dishonest of the British not to have informed their American cousins of what one of their great countrymen, Rudyard Kipling, had to say about Afghans.

“When you’re wounded and left,
On Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out,
To cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle,
And blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd,
Like a soldier.”

Wish Kipling had visited Iraq too.



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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


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