New Military Mission
With a fresh breeze sweeping through the White House, now’s the time for a new look at
“One lesson from
Days after Obama was sworn into office, former Senator George McGovern set off a big flare in The Washington Post to illuminate a simmering debate that will likely heat up: “To send our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan would be a near-perfect example of going from the frying pan into the fire. There is reason to believe some of our top military commanders privately share this view. And so does a broad and growing swath of your party and your supporters,” McGovern wrote.
“I have believed for some time that military power is no solution to terrorism. The hatred of U.S. policies in the Middle East -- our occupation of Iraq, our backing for repressive regimes such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, our support of Israel -- that drives the terrorist impulse against us would better be resolved by ending our military presence throughout the arc of conflict,” McGovern continued. “This means a prudent, carefully directed withdrawal of our troops from
Some may dismiss McGovern as a failed presidential candidate trounced by Richard Nixon. However, Nixon subsequently resigned in disgrace for presiding over an administration that illegally attacked political opponents, and Congress heeded critics like McGovern and cut off funds for the widening war Nixon waged in
“There is no battlefield solution to terrorism," The RAND Corporation, a top Pentagon contractor on national defense research, concluded last year in a study of military campaigns against insurgency groups around the world since 1968. “In looking at how other terrorist groups have ended, the RAND study found that most terrorist groups end either because they join the political process, or because local police and intelligence efforts arrest or kill key members. Police and intelligence agencies, rather than the military, should be the tip of the spear against al Qaida in most of the world, and the
This reexamination was nudged by Washington Post reporter Dana Priest’s insightful critique, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military, published in 2003, and kick-started by retired Marine General Anthony Zinni’s broadside challenge to Bush administration’s policies, The Battle for Peace, which came out in 2006.
“Since the end of the Cold War, the imperatives of ‘global leadership’ have led the
For instance, “There can be no military solution to the problem” that violently divides Israelis and Palestinians, General Zinni told Priest after serving as U.S. military commander in the Middle East and as a State Department special envoy on Israeli-Palestinian hostilities. “You know, there is no military solution to terrorism, either.”
In his book, Zinni wrote: “Think about it: We’ve declared war on a tactic—terrorism—not on an ideology, not on a nation-state… This is no way to fight terrorism … Military responses by themselves will not do the job. ... We need a new strategic vision for our country—a vision that will focus our government and all its elements of power on the task of bringing peace and stability to the world.”
Based on his military career, which included enduring severe battle wounds as a young marine in
The remedy, he wrote, is to treat diplomatic negotiations and other means of resolving conflicts seriously. “A set of countries around the world—primarily the Nordic countries, Canada, and Switzerland—have traditionally centered their foreign policy on peacemaking, mediation, and conflict resolution, and have funded and provided resources for these activities.”
In his 2004 autobiography, Battle Ready, composed with military storyteller Tom Clancy, Zinni bluntly fired off a warning to the American public and to his former colleagues in the Pentagon: “The military traditionally goes out there and kills people and breaks things. … We have to ask ourselves how the military needs to change in order to actually deal with those political, economic, social, security, and information management challenges that we’ve already been facing for a long time. … Either the civilian officials must develop the capabilities demanded of them and learn how to partner with other agencies to get the job done, or the military finally needs to change into something else beyond the breaking and the killing.”
For more information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/books/review/Bonner-t.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012102489.html
http://www.rand.org/news/press/2008/07/29/
Comments
Wattree
February 4, 2009 - 15:56
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Jan
Jan,
I want to thank you for this flawlessly well written piece of unfettered truth. But while I was reading it I couldn’t help but wonder whether President Obama has been locked into an untenable situation.
It reminds me of the Gitmo dilemma that Bush’s unthinking bungling has left behind. While the president is undoubtedly committed closing down this American concentration camp, he’s now tasked with the responsibility of doing what is just, while at the same time, insuring the security of the United States against freeing people who would do us harm. I think the same is even more true in Afghanistan.
While it would indeed be prudent to pull American troops out of that part of the world and pursue terrorists through law enforcement agency, Bush has created so much havoc and destabilization in that part of the world that leaving is virtually impossible without finding a solution for insuring American security against Pakistan’s nuclear capability falling into the wrong hands.
What are your thoughts on that issue?
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Jan Barry
February 8, 2009 - 17:40
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What can do done
Good question as to what can be done, given the deadly passions stirred up in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think the best thing would be to replace combat military units with the Peace Corps and other non-threatening agencies that help communities become better places to live, rather than miltary missions that blast communities apart. Americans who wanted to help rebuild were welcomed to Vietnam in places where a division of troops couldn't operate wthout taking heavy casualties. Pakistan also needs community building assistance, including conflict resolution skills, not divisive military actions.
carol white
February 10, 2009 - 11:55
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I think you're right
I wish (or should I say hope) that was the direction things were going in. It is a multi-dimensional solution, in that too often join the army is the only job for kids who want to get an education or folks with family's to support who can't find decent work.
carol