100 Years – Cuba To Iraq
The Spanish American War of 1898 represented the very first time that the US intervened outside the North American Continent. As a consequence of success in Cuba and the Philippines, and the very first experience at annexation and as an occupying power, the US established a naval presence abroad, with bases in the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba etc. In 1903 US leased out Gauntanamo Bay from Cuba. Korea should have taught US the hard lesson that land wars are not winnable in Asia, yet Vietnam followed not more than a decade later. The lessons of the killing fields of South East Asia had been taken to heart, the temptation to return the favour of a proxy war because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could hardly be ignored. No logic was applied before entering Iraq in 2003, even worse there is no exit strategy from the cauldron even in 2007.
The Afghan war of the 80s was very well fought by US planners using Pakistan as a proxy, in the process Pakistan’s social fabric disintegrated. The tenuous peace when it came was an unmitigated disaster for Pakistan. With the US pulling out lock, stock and barrel, and leaving the front-line State not only to pick up the pieces, but to contend with battle-hardened militants from many countries spread all over the borders adjacent to its north-west frontier areas, with over 3 million refugees in the country, with forces hostile to Pakistan in control in Kabul, and the ISI’s corridors fueled with visions of a crescent of Islamic Renaissance. When the US (and other world powers including China) were backing Pakistan, the Afghanistan war had been winnable, bereft of their support and without the resources to sustain the peace even what to talk of war, it became “mission impossible”. “Adventurism” should have been shunned, Pakistan’s populist road of supporting the Taliban was a one-way road to disaster. If anyone had suggested in the late 90s that the US would chose to enter Afghanistan physically in less than a decade, he would have been classified as demented and confined to an asylum. After 9/11, while US retribution was a necessary certainty, given the history of Afghanistan the country’s occupation should never have been an option.
Prosecuting the “war against terrorism”, the US effected “regime change” by running the Taliban out of town in late 2001. With the “Northern Alliance” incapable of ruling except in Kabul, the US cobbled together a coalition of like-minded NATO countries, most of whom lack the stomach for a fight. Since the US maintains that the “prisoners of war” (POWS) captured in the “war against terrorism” are not “prisoners of war” according to the Geneva Convention, Guantanamo Bay with its grey status, became the perfect depository. Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, whom Bush Jr sub-consciously imitates, was one of the leaders (as a volunteer Colonel) in the US contingent to Cuba in 1898, his 1st Volunteer Cavalry, known as the “Rough Riders”, fully participating in the two-month campaign that saw Santiago fall and Spanish forces in Cuba surrender. Roosevelt caught the imagination of the public by personally leading the charge up San Juan Hill. Once the war was won, disease threatened the contingent with more casualties than in actual fighting. Alongwith his fellow senior officers, Roosevelt signed a joint letter to the Expedition Commander, Gen Shafter, for immediate evacuation. Ordered so by President McKinley, the entire US contingent was brought home and kept in splendid isolation for a few weeks before receiving a heroes’ welcome in Manhattan, complete with ticker tape.
Having fought a war and suffering the privations, death and disease that is a soldier’s lot, Teddy Roosevelt, when he ultimately became President in his own right, used his experience in Cuba to change the entire dress and equipment of US Army, well before the First World War. A committed interventionist, as President he established the US as a major naval power. The US made the difference between victory and defeat in both the World Wars, young Americans giving the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of others. The later part of the 20th century after World War 2 became one of repeated interventions, specially the “Cold War” to fend off communism. Have we come a full circle after the first intervention in Cuba a hundred years or so earlier? Will the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq chasten the US and hasten its exit from these theaters of war? Not while George W Bush, Jr is the US President! The Democratic Congress rode into town in January this year wanting the US out of Iraq, four months later they have had to accept Bush Jr’s stubborn commitment to war and pass a US$ 120 billion authorization without any exit timetable.
What a tragedy that someone like Andrew Bacevich, Professor of Boston University, and a great opponent of interventions, particularly of the Iraq war, should lose his son, Lt Andrew Bacevich, Jr, in Iraq the other day. As the author of “The New American Militarism”, a proponent of all sections of society equally bearing the pain of wars, Bacevich feels that after the termination of the universal draft in the US, the rich have been paying the poor to bear the burden of their wars. Even though opposed to the war, Bacevich did not say anything to stop his son from doing his duty in Iraq. This type of sacrifice is typically American, to fight and die for your country even when you do not believe in the cause. The list of dead announced daily by the Pentagon represents every strata of society.
The present-day version of “Rough Riders” are in no league with the “Originals” of 1898, never having heard a shot being fired in anger. That makes Bush Jr’s “Rough Riders” more blood – thirsty than those who have experienced war and therefore too eager to go to war at the slightest pretext. Having found them to be paper tigers, the American people have started to show them the door, starting with Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and other neo-cons. Paul Wolfowitz fell the other day as the President World Bank indulging in charity at home at World Bank expense. Only Vice President Dick Cheney still remains unaccountable, his former Chief of Staff “Scooter” Libby awaiting sentencing for lying through his teeth, the Public Prosecutor having asked for a minimum of 3 years. Give credit to both US democracy and the judicial system that they can take on the administrations’ titans!
As the only Superpower in the world at this time, and with the UN powerless to act effectively and in time, it falls to the lot of the US to intervene when necessary, the key condition being “when necessary”. Unfortunately this judgment was lacking when to send men and women into battle, intervention must only be when intervention becomes necessary! Besides the needless sacrifice of its youth, the US public should always remember that they bear the fate of the entire world in their hands when they decide whom to give their vote to at the ballot box.
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