University of New Mexico history professor Paul Hutton says the United States can win a war against Afghanistan, a country whose rugged terrain and hard-bitten people have thwarted the military ambitions of the British and Soviet empires. "We can succeed where the British and the Soviets have failed because we have no interest in staying," said Hutton, who teaches military history at UNM. [...] "I have been struck by how close this is to our use of Filipinos against Filipinos during the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1901)," he said. "I have even been struck by the similarities to the American Indian Wars."
THAT'S winning?
You know ... this strikes me as an awfully selective reading of history. If you look at what the Soviets did in other countries, they weren't typically interested in staying, as such, either. Once they had a regime installed to their liking, they generally departed as well. (After all, if East Germany had actually been occupied at the time, the Berlin Wall would never have fallen.) If they'd ever been able to leave Afghanistan without humiliating defeat, they certainly would have; they never could get a regime installed that was both stable and able to defend itself -- and that model somehow seems to bear more immediate relevance to the situation.
And if the model for this war is going to be the Philippine Insurrection ... well, heaven help us. It was long (compared to the war that lumbered us with the Philippines, that is) and it was staggeringly gruesome and enjoyed very little support among the American public.
The Indian Wars lasted for what, 125 years or so? And were made considerably easier at the outset by diseases to which the Native Americans had little resistance. (Though "easier" isn't to say "easy"; there were just fewer of them around later on.) And somehow, I don't see us forcibly relocating every person in Afghanistan to reservations, do you?
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
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12/19/2001: vive la france
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