US imperialism and its
allies learned a hard lesson from their unsuccessful adventure in
Vietnam. Escalating US troop involvement to nearly half a million
serving at the war’s peak, drawing on forced enlistment
(conscription) to rotate nearly three million personnel serving
throughout the war, and incurring over 200,000 casualties proved to
be a politically destabilizing, consensus-challenging endeavor.
Military planners
recognized that unless they were able to generate a broad consensus
for war or guarantee a short, decisive duration, the draft risked a
politically volatile backlash. Consequently, they opted for
developing a volunteer army and a war-friendly culture to legitimize
its use.
But they drew an even
more important conclusion. Where imperialism fought a foe defending
its homeland, the costs were usually far too great for the US public
to tolerate. Certainly US engagement in the world-wide, anti-fascist
war of 1939-1945 enjoyed unwavering popular support. But US forces
never fought on Japanese soil and only briefly in a crippled Germany.
When engaged in
supporting a rump regime in Korea, the US military achieved, at best,
a stalemate. The same boots-on-the-ground approach in Vietnam
collapsed before a people deeply resentful of US occupiers.
After Vietnam,
imperialist war planners devised a tactic of relying more and more
upon surrogates. Understanding that local populations furiously
opposed foreign occupiers, the US sought to impose its objectives by
creating and supporting mercenary forces who could claim, at least
tenuously, to local status. From supporting UNITA or FNLA in Angola
to creating, arming, and aiding the Contra movement in Nicaragua, the
US preferred waging aggression with surrogate forces. An effective,
massive propaganda effort “legitimized” the client armies as
“freedom fighters.”
Probably the most
successful use of the post-Vietnam tactic was in Afghanistan, where
US covert services armed a reactionary tribal opposition to
destabilize a secular, modern government and, as a result, gave a
decisive, strong impetus to an emergent Islamic fundamentalist war
against secularism of all kinds. The jihadist movement found its
legs, its confidence as surrogates against an urban-based Afghanistan
government supported by the Soviet Union, then a bulwark against US
imperialism.
After the demise of the
Soviet state, the US cautiously employed its “professionalized”
and volunteer military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and once more in Iraq.
Still, military planners hoped to quickly train a surrogate force and
just as quickly evacuate US ground forces, leaving client states with
militaries sufficiently armed and motivated to crush any domestic
resistance to a US-friendly regime.
While the tactic held
the promise of minimizing domestic resistance by using a compliant
media to construct the false narrative of democratic change and
humanitarian intervention and while the tactic hoped to generate
tolerable US casualties and minimal material costs, resistance
movements once again proved to be far more determined, and stability
far more elusive, than the best minds of the military or covert
services imagined.
Fourteen years in
Afghanistan and twelve years of propping up a client state in Iraq,
manufacturing a failed state in Libya, and sparking a devastating
civil war in Syria are testament to a failed policy.
More importantly, the
failure is part of a continuous, irreversible decline in US
imperialism’s ability to impose its will in a world of stiffening
anti-imperialist resistance and growing inter-imperialist rivalries.
Nothing underlines this
new reality more than the latest events in Afghanistan and Syria.
Despite a massive
concentration of weaponry, superior pay, and the best US training,
the Afghan surrogate army suffered its worst defeat ever at the hands
of the Taliban in the siege and occupation of Kunduz. All reports
indicate that the Taliban forces were inferior in numbers and weapons
and that the US-trained government forces had little stomach for the
fight.
US officials have been
obliged to announce a delay in the exit of troops from Afghanistan in
the face of this defeat. President Obama has decided to pass on the
Afghanistan quagmire to the next President, just as President Bush
passed it on to him.
Russian engagement in
Syria has inadvertently exposed the lies and failures of US actions
in that country. Since the Obama administration began encouraging and
assisting the overthrow of Syrian President Assad, the government and
the lapdog media have claimed the existence of a democratic, moderate
opposition. From late in 2011, US and UK military leaders began
planning armed action against Assad. A surrogate army (the Free
Syrian Army) was projected as an alternative to the fundamentalist
jihadists seeking a feudal-theological state (Qatar and other Gulf
states intervened, pretending no such distinctions). Weapons were
diverted from Libya and CIA training began in earnest with a
projected military force numbering in the tens of thousands.
After the ISIS threat
emerged, the US and the other interventionists further pretended that
its client fighting forces were equally engaged against ISIS and the
many other groups fighting Assad who were designated “terrorist”
by the West.
In reality, the US
“freedom fighters” were virtually non-existent or collaborating
enthusiastically with the jihadists. Their sole target was Assad.
The Obama government
has conceded that of thousands vetted by the CIA program only a few
hundred remain on the war front. Most have shared their weapons with
or joined the jihadists or left Syria with the thousands of
immigrants. The half-billion-dollar program is a disaster, with the
US administration pledging to pass the remaining weapons and
resources on to existing fighting groups in Syria.
The spectrum of the
Western media reports that, especially since the Russian
intervention, there is extensive cooperation, coordination, and joint
action between all elements of the Syrian anti-Assad forces—so much
for the ruse of an independent force in opposition to fundamentalism.
As the Wall Street
Journal reports: “…the Homs Legion of the Western-backed Free
Syrian Army… together with the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham and
Nusra Front [Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate] has formed joint command
in Northern Homs.” The Washington Post has identified a
similar unholy alliance of jihadist and “moderates” that was
crafted into a Nusra-led Army of Conquest. Only the most
gullible continue to believe that there is a significant difference
between Western-backed “freedom fighters” and their jihadist
allies.
Western liberals can
make believe that US involvement in Syria is for some greater good,
but the facts speak clearly. As with Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya,
tens of thousands are dead, infrastructure is devastated, and the
social fabric is irreparably torn simply because imperialist powers
seek more compliant, more subservient states. The facts expose the
lie that the US and NATO seek the values of democracy, freedom, or
the other values that prove so persuasive to those apologizing for
self-interested regime change.
Anti-imperialists can
draw a small consolation from these tragic, morally repellent
aggressions: the US tactics have failed to achieve their goal of
creating global fealty to US interests.
Zoltan
Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
