Retrospective Latent Thoughts

"Our inability, unwillingness to put the hammer down in terms of security in the country allowed chaos to ensue, which gave rise to ISIS."

"]The invasion] might be as big a strategic error [as Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 which served to help bring Germany to defeat during the Second World War."

Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state, U.S.

"It was worth it because the decision was not simply: 'Does Saddam pose a WMD threat in 2003'?"

"Another question was: 'Would he pose a WMD threat five years later'? To which I think the answer clearly was 'yes'"

"The worst mistake made after the overthrow of Saddam ... was withdrawing in 2011."

John Bolton, Trump administration era National Security Adviser

"We just decided we didn't want to do this stuff anymore. That began ... with president Obama declaring ... he was going to pull all forces out."

"These were U.S. decisions not forced by a collapsing economy, not forced by demonstrators in the streets."

"Our leadership just decided we didn't want to do it any more. And that started the alarm bells ringing ... in the Gulf."

Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador in Iraq

 

"The net result ... has been bad for U.S. leverage, bad for U.S. influence, bad for our ability to partner with countries in the region."

Jim Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, Obama administration

Lesleigh Coyer, 25, of Saginaw, Michigan, lies down in front of the grave of her brother, Ryan Coyer, who served with the U.S. Army in both Iraq and Afghanistan, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia in this March 11, 2013, file photo. Coyer died of complications from an injury sustained in Afghanistan. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/Files UNREST OBITUARY)

 

There was the American withdrawal from VietNam as a national trauma, the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a national shame, and there was the invasion and eventual withdrawal from Iraq that had unforeseen and unanticipated consequences that time has been incapable of healing. American intervention in foreign situations, particularly that of violent conflict has often left it tired and uninspired, demoralized, its determination moribund, leading to inglorious withdrawal. 

 

Hindsight is meant to be helpful in teaching lessons, but some lessons simply fail to resonate, to caution that similar outcomes in dissimilar situations may repeat themselves endlessly. When the United States decided to invade Iraq and remove a tyrannical mass murderer little did the invading forces' executive politicians who made that decision imagine that the ultimate empowering would be to the Islamic Republic of Iran's advantage.

 

And nor did the Bush administration comprehend that in a tribal, sectarian Arab landscape ancient enmities would be violently unleashed with the removal of the tyrant that kept them in check under his clenched fist. And never would any American administration believe that occupying Iraq for no other choice left to them to continue attempting to tamp down Islamist terrorism, would eventually cost them both a loss of face and of influence.

 

When Saddam Hussein's minority Sunni rule came to its final stumbling end to be replaced with a majority Shi'ite government, Iran's Ayatollahs beamed with pleasant anticipation of the removal of an enemy with whom a sustained and deadly war was fought, to be replaced by a regime compatible with its own. Iran's plans to influence states across the Levant was given a good head-start for which they will be eternally grateful, expressed by admiring shouts such as "Death to America!".

 

Iraq war widow Sheryl McIlvaine visits the grave of her husband, U.S. Marine Sgt. James R. McIlvaine, in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, in this October 19, 2009 file photo. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files

 

When U.S troops were withdrawn in 2011 a vacuum was left in Iraq quickly entered by the Islamic State militants who seized a third of both Iraq and Syria for their Caliphate. Gulf Arab states shuddered when they realized with reluctance they could no longer rely on the protective arm of the United States. In 2014 former President Obama returned some troops to Iraq, A year later he deployed to Syria; at present 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Iraq and 900 in Syria. Mired, as good a word as any.

 

There to continue opposing Islamic State terrorists active as well from North Africa to Afghanistan, steeply, deeply entrenched as Islam's most fervent and vicious jihadists. And then there are the considerable, actually massive costs resulting from U.S. involvement in Iraq and Syria. Estimates published by the "Costs of War" project at Brown University put the price tag for America for the wars in Iraq and Syria at a whopping $1.79 trillion. That includes Pentagon and State Department spending, veterans' care and interest on debt financing for the conflicts.

American military deaths for the past two decades are put at 4,599, with an estimated total death of Iraqi and Syrian civilians, military, police, opposition fighters, media and others coming in at a total of 5500,000 to 584,000; staggering numbers no price can be placed on. This number does not include indirect deaths from disease, displacement or starvation. 

As for American credibility, the decision taken by President Bush to invade based on exaggerated, ultimately erroneous intelligence of weapons of mass destruction was a grave error in judgment. According to war advocate John Bolton, even though errors were made by Washngton, by failing to deploy sufficient troops and administering Iraq rather than swiftly handing that over to Iraqis, removing Saddam justified the costs.

The 2003 invasion didn't immediately undermine American influence in the Gulf, according to Ryan Crocker, but the 2011 withdrawal pushed Arab states in part to begin hedging their bets. Waning U.S. influence can be seen most latterly in China brokering the re-establishment of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia two bitter regional antagonists in terms of power and sectarian rivalries.

Whether President Obama's decision to withdraw tracking a timeline laid out by the Bush administration, reflected an American inability to secure immunity for American troops backed by the Iraqi parliament is a debate raging still among former officials. According to John Bolton, removing Saddam was value given to the cost. Armitage on the other hand responded "FUBAR", a military acronym standing for "Fouled up beyond all recognition", when he was asked the first word coming to mind relating to the invasion and its aftermath.

U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman HM1 Richard Barnett, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, holds an Iraqi child in central Iraq in this March 29, 2003 file photo. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

Afghanistan, Still Gaming The West

"We spent too much money, too fast, on too small a country with too little oversight. And we totally, totally overwhelmed the Afghan economy."
"To a great extent it was wasted. Like spaghetti on a wall, some of it will stick. But a lot of it fell off and became money that was turned into bank accounts in Dubai and houses in Dubai, houses in Vancouver and houses in northern Virginia."
These [that Afghan security forces are inept and there is] endemic [corruption] and rampant [narcotics production] are problems we still have to face. Some of them we contributed to. On corruption, we threw gasoline on the fire."
"The problems that we [United States investigations] find are the problems that the Canadians should [also] find."
John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, U.S.

"This [Canadian monitoring and reportage] is enhanced by contracted third-party monitoring of projects at the ground level. On a case-by-case basis, Canada elects to commission project evaluations to better understand the results and to gain lessons learned."
Amy Mills, spokesperson, Global Affairs Canada

Canada’s new defence policy, with its extensive foreign policy undertones, paints a gloomy picture of rising global economic disparity, violent extremism and unstoppable mass migration.  Canada is, it continues, an island of stability in comparison and therefore “called to leadership” as “we have the capacity to help those who live under the threat of violence.” Kilford

From the Greek-Macedonian military incursion of Alexander the Great intent on civilizing Afghanistan, to the 18th Century Russian-British campaigns to outsmart one another in establishing a presence in that country whose own warlords have always exploited its people and its resources, a people of fierce tribal loyalties and fiercer determination to counter foreign invasions with their own brand of medieval-style atrocities, to the more recent invasion by the Soviet Union, leaving it to limp home in the failure of reduced investment in time, manpower and treasury, and on to the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan has been bloodied but resilient.

Human rights and civilizational social development and prosperity linked in that order is a Western concept, not one recognized by tribal societies, much less those ruled by Islamic precepts of order maintained through Sharia law. The original purpose of the 2001 invasion was to convince the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice over the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. When, thanks to its ally Pakistan, the U.S. failed to succeed in that mission, it chose to paint its presence there as one of mercy, intending to guide the stone-age nation to democracy and equality leading to prosperity and self-defence.

Reality has a way of invariably getting into the picture, distorting such intents, when the West involves itself in Islamic-majority countries. In Islam, the faithful (umma) are the bulwark of the pillars that hold up the canopy under which the religion thrives even while it feeds upon itself as it inexorably expands its influence through conquest. One achieved by persuasion if possible, force as required, in all conceivable manifestations of the power to coerce, terrorize and convert the willing and the unwilling alike. That powerful force of persuasion has been churning through the globe since the 7th Century.

Police forces clash with protesters during a demonstration in Kabul earlier this month. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded better security in the Afghan capital in the wake of a powerful truck bomb attack that killed scores of people. (Massoud Hossaini/Associated Press)

Persuasion is too time-consuming, violence has its costs but the spread of fear leaving few options but to comply grew Islam exponentially to capture Africa, India, Spain, Italy, Portugal in its throes. Islam has never forgiven the West for thwarting it from its rampant growth. Yet the West still believes it can pacify Islam by respecting it and being tolerant of its excesses and forgiving it for slaughtering non-believers and its own alike. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the moral obligation of 'helping' the country to learn how to deflect the attacks of the resurgent Taliban, of building schools and wells and health clinics seized the minds of the invaders whose intention was merely to extract the evil they saw without realizing that the evil was everywhere, so deeply engrained it could not be extirpated.

The sacrifice in personnel, both military and civilian, with NGOs nobly ensconcing themselves with the mission to save the country from itself has failed. The Taliban has simply kept growing itself. Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are well entrenched with activities in 70 percent of the country and entire districts completely controlled by the terrorists. The West terms them terrorists, Islam considers them honourable and heroic jihadis, responding as they should, as they must, to Islamic precepts of honouring the Koran's dictate to jihad.

So Canada, like the United States and other NATO members, swelling with pride that they have remained faithful to their collective pledge not to abandon Afghanistan, but to continue to pour funding into the country, insist on believing that their efforts and their sacrifices will make all the difference, restoring something that never existed; a coherent peace and security in a country that was never anything but a collection of tribes and brutal warlords continually at war with one another alternating with warring against intruders.

We are doomed, it seems to repeat history ad infinitum, too stupid to recognize the inevitability of failure when and where reason has never prevailed. Canada will continue to help train the Afghan military and its police, both of which agencies remain corrupt and ineffectually unreliable. And the funding will continue to flow, as it must, because of a misplaced sense of honour urging the West to give aid to those less fortunate, whose leaders bleed them dry in a sectarian, tribal society that will never surrender to Western values much less stop its slaughter.

Afghan policemen stand guard after explosions at a Shiite cultural center in Kabul on December 28, 2017 | Shah Marai/AFP 

via Getty Images