America wants more troops in Afghanistan to delay its defeat

Writings are almost on the wall that, America is going to face defeat in its Afghan war. If not the writing, then the words are certainly on the lips of the generals involved directly or indirectly in this war. A British General has already predicted almost a year’s ago that, they were fighting a loosing war. Now an American General is asking for some changes in America’s Afghanistan strategy, and asking for surge in its troop in Afghanistan by about 50% from 68,000 to 98,000.

America’s Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz claims in his recently published book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War”, that, on fifth year of invasion America has already spent 3 trillion dollars in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He claims that, if all other incidental factors like interest on debt, future borrowing for war expenses, and the cost of a continued military presence in Iraq and lifetime health-care and counseling for veterans etc are taken into consideration, then the real cost would range from 5 trillion dollars to 7 trillion dollars.

America’s prominent newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, in a write-up by its staff writer David R. Francis in its issue of 15 September 2009 estimates the real cost of Afghan War at about 1 trillion dollars. And, how much is 1 trillion dollars? The paper says: if you had an expense account for $1 million a day, it would take 2,935 years to spend $1.071 trillion. It means that, to spend $3 trillion, at $1 million a day, it would take 7,805 years. Whopping, isn’t it?

With so heavy a burden on America’s economy, and consequently on the world’s economy, caused by these wars, the looming defeat of America is simply unthinkable. I for one won’t like to see America loosing, as it would play havoc with the world economically and otherwise.

America’s defeat in the wars, in all probability, may also be the start of America’s end – both economically and strategically. So far as the impact of this defeat on the world is concerned, this defeat may be totally different from its defeat on Vietnam soil in early 70s. In those days, there was another super power in the shape of Soviet Union to relish this defeat (though, of course, in ideological mooring, probably China was more instrumental in that defeat than anybody else). But still there was an uneasy balance between the lefts and rights in that world. Today, there is no other established power to relish America’s defeat. Today, it’s the non-state actors spread across the world, the general public all around the world that would go into wild ecstasy if America faces defeat at the hands of non-state fighters in Afghanistan, who are primitive in look and feel, and who has no world power and authority to fall back upon at times of their needs, as Vietcong used to do in bygone days in their struggle against America.

These wretched people of Afghanistan fought against foreign occupations, faced rains of bombardments, got innocent marriage parties annihilated, without getting a single word of sympathy from any corner of the world (while, on the other hand, the Vietnamese got sympathy from at least half of the world through newspapers, media and literature), and when they would emerge as victorious, the world might be a totally different place to live.

Whether any of us would like America’s defeat or not, whether any of us would like the America-led status-quo of the world changed or not, this would be the final certification of Afghans’ indomitable nature. This would be the final and highly pronounced proof of Afghans’ valor, fighting skills and fiercely independent psyche. This will prove that, Afghanistan's war against the erstwhile Soviet Union was its own - not of America or of Europe.

History has undeniable proof that, Afghanistan never accepted foreign hegemony. The Soviets had a lesson that, their misadventure had demolished not only their dream of controlling Afghanistan, like the Eastern Europe, but also their socialist empire. But America and the West did not take any lesson from history or from Soviet collapse. They were audacious to prove the history wrong.

Once, British ex-premier Margaret Thatcher boasted that, they had won a war against Soviet Union without firing a single bullet. Now the world will probably see very soon that, the America-led West could not win war against heavily under-armed Afghans even with firing millions of bullets, and raining thousands of bombs on their country. Those petty scholars in our own world, who up till now had enough opportunity to laugh at the Afghan ‘jehadis’ for fighting America’s ‘proxy war’ against the Soviet Union, would probably have the opportunity to laugh at themselves for their childish naivety in understanding Afghan affairs.

One last thought: the one-eyed demon appearing in America’s dollar bills, will it allow America to succumb to defeat of its lifetime so easily? (22-Sept-2009)

[Published in the daily Pakistan Observer on 30 September 2009]