No more boots on ground
By: Tushar Anand
Has the US changed its stance on the Global War on Terrorism? The American history is fraught with a long list of wars. It has been engaged in a war as short as lasting upto 10 weeks (The Spanish-American War Of 1898) to as lengthy as lasting upto 20 years, (The Afghanistan War). Needless to say, no any country in this world has such a vast experience and tremendous expertise of waging and surviving a war as US.
World War II -A turning point
During the World War II, US adopted a stance of neutrality and was completely out of the conflict for the first two years. What triggered it for officially entering into the war was the destructive Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor in 1941. The World War II thus ended in 1945 after the disastrous US Nuclear Bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, compelling Japan to surrender. But was this going to be its last major powerful victory?
The US had won almost all the crucial wars it fought before 1945. However, it failed to carry forward this momentum after that. Post the Second World War, America fought five major wars including Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan in addition to some minor wars in Somalia, Libya and Yemen. With the exception of the Gulf War of 1991, America lost all other wars ignominiously.
The setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan
Healing with the fresh wounds of 9/11 attacks, the US invaded Iraq in 2003 with a clear motive of toppling down the brutal regime of dictator Saddam Hussein. Saddam was accused of producing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq and his consistent non-cooperative approach towards the UN investigative officials provided a strong base to these allegations. Fearing that Iraq might turn out to be a second safe haven after Afghanistan for the terror outfits, or a launchpad for attacks against America, the invasion was paramount for the Bush administration.
This followed the establishment of a stable democratic government in Iraq and Saddam Hussein was ousted from his regime. Although, the WMDs were never found in the investigations carried out by the apex investigative agencies, Saddam was sentenced to death in 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for the Dujali Massacre.
Though Iraq now had a stable government, the sudden power vacuum caused by the death of Saddam, gave rise to an insurgency. Between 2004 and 2011, thousands of Iraqi civilians and US soldiers became the victim of these insurgents. In 2014, fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) even captured and executed the judge who had sentenced Saddam Hussein to death.
After the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Bush declared that the US was going to wage a war on terror and this would begin from the country where the seeds of the attacks were sown – Afghanistan. In October 2001, the US and NATO troops invaded Afghanistan. They had two prime objectives of this invasion – killing of Osama Bin Laden and the disruption of the terrorist training camps of Al-Qaeda and the military installation bases of the Taliban regime.
In Afghanistan, the American troops faced difficult terrain, deep valleys, formidable mountains and caves which were the hideouts of Bin Laden and his associates. This explains why it took ten long years for the troops to hunt him down. Similarly like Iraq, Afghanistan was also provided the required help to establish it as a representative democracy. For the leaders of Afghanistan, the US turned out to be a cash cow.
That the US did an expenditure of $2.5 million as a military assistance alone provides a strong base to this fact. But to a shock, the government of Kabul fell in no time into the hands of the Taliban when the US and NATO pulled out their forces in 2021. This was highly unexpected, most unfortunate and indeed a setback for a nation that had burnt midnight oil for the welfare of Afghanistan. It is therefore a no longer hidden fact that a huge amount of capital went into the pockets of the corrupt Afghan leaders who left the country and its people in turmoil.
What lies ahead
Fatigued by the inconclusive and deceiving wars it fought in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the Biden administration now seem to have changed their historical stance on the matter of waging a war or being engaged in a direct military standoff, especially when it comes to eliminate terrorism.
The US now no longer thinks that it is its duty to combat the terrorism all around the world. An evidence to this theory is its recent idle approaches in providing military support to Ukraine and Taiwan although it has not been shy in furnishing and assuring requisite ammunition for them.
But at the same time it must not also be interpreted that the America has lowered its guard in the fight against terrorism. The recent killings of Ayman-al-Zawahiri (the emir of Al-Qaeda after Bin Laden) in a US drone attack and Abu Ibrahim al Hashim al Quryashi (leader of the IS) bears testimony to this point. It is just that the US now appears resistant in deploying thousands of boots on foreign grounds or wage a war like before to counter terrorism. As per US Prez Joe Biden, they are capable of doing this even in the form of small operations.
(The author is a graduate in English Honours (Patna University)
KV News
