Foreign Policy & Military Conflicts

By Mike Halliwell

Our troops in Afghanistan should protect civilians, not engage in offensive military operations. We should complete training of Afghan replacements by end of 2014 as scheduled. We should not attack Iran militarily, but instead use economic sanctions and support of democracy for the Iranian people as best approach to prevention of Iran's becoming a nuclear power.

From its beginning, the War in Iraq was our main priority, but we still didn't have enough "boots on the ground" to protect those willing to support our effort to create a democracy from reprisals as we repeatedly cleared various areas of insurgents, and then moved elsewhere in a search and destroy then abandon military strategy. One very important reason why it took so long to find an effective military strategy in Iraq, is that President Bush not honest in his handling of the War. I am not talking about weapons of mass destruction (which the Iraq dictator indisputably once had and used against Kurds and Shia Moslems who tried to escape from his tyranny), which Saddam Hussein pretended to still have, in order to intimidate those seeking freedom from rebelling against his regime. I refer to the Bush administration's refusal to put war costs into the budget, and pretending that the war could be paid for from Iraq oil revenues. Since there was no honest accounting of costs, we used half-way measures sending too few troops who were too poorly protected from Improvised Explosive Devices. We tried to compensate for having too little defensive capability by using "shock and awe" firepower, which caused a lot of civilian casualties, and didn't gain much when we killed insurgents, whose angry friends and relatives joined the fight against us (more than replacing enemy fighters we had killed). We should have made it clear from the outset in Iraq, that our objective was to buy time for the Kurds, Sunnis and Shias to learn to work together (in a nation where oil revenues are divided equitably among regions, regardless of where the oil wells are located). Eventually, a "Sunni awakening" occurred in 2006-2007 when it finally was made clear to the segment of the population which had been Saddam Hussein's power base, that they would have equal rights in a Democratic Iraq. The "military surge" which took place at this time, which provided troop levels sufficient to protect our allies from reprisals, also played an essential role. Most fundamentally, the biblical saying "greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend" proved to be more influential than "shock and awe" saturation bombardment, in persuading Iraqis of our sincerity in trying to liberate them, rather than impose our will on them. In the very difficult middle years of the war in Iraq, I opposed the 2005 Woolsey Amendment (to HR 1815) based on the idea that the only way to support our troops was to bring them home and our best way of helping the Iraqi people was to immediately leave their country. I also opposed HR 2237 in 2007 calling for immediate redeployment of U.S. Armed Forces and defense contractors from Iraq and cutting off all funds to continue our support for democracy in Iraq. With American withdrawal from Iraq nearing completion in 2011, the Defense Department authorization (HR 1540) was important to keeping faith with our Iraqi allies, who show some promise of maintaining a constitutional government in the nation where civilization has born (in the fertile crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers), and which was the first (in 1772 BC) ever to have a written constitution (the Code of Hammurabi). My nephew, Logan Halliwell, was part of the marine force which liberated Baghdad on March 19, 2003. Our forces were greeted as liberators then, and after many painful detours, we may have something to show for our sacrifices in this very long war.

Unless we stop trying to impose the distressingly corrupt Karzai government on most of the rest of Afghanistan outside the capital city, which wants regional autonomy, we will probably end up like Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union who tried to win control of Afghanistan and failed. The terrain in Afghanistan is so rugged that it is very difficult to impose military control over any substantial distance. This is also true of Switzerland, which has found a peaceful means of governance for its people who (like Afghanistan) speak four different languages, by allowing a very high degree of autonomy to the 26 cantons which make up that nation. Switzerland has a history of neutrality, staying out of international military conflicts, and no one has tried for many centuries to challenge the Swiss on their home turf. The Afghan people have just as much sense of their history and national pride in their independence as the Swiss. Many of those who are fighting against our effort to impose the Karzai government on them, have a simple motto, which roughly translates to: "This is Afghanistan, we don't knuckle under to anyone." We rebelled against control by a British government overseas, and the Afghan people feel the same way about being dominated by us. We have made a very important stride in Afghanistan in making education available to girls and women, but future progress toward gender equality should go forward at its own pace, based on the "better half" of the Afghan population being now aware of the freedom regardless of gender that is available on most of the rest of the planet. No nation that subordinates half of its population can be competitive in today's world, and positive incentives should be much more effective than compulsion in protecting women's rights, as we wind down military activity in Afghanistan. We should pretty much allow the various parts of Afghanistan to go their separate ways, and most will probably want to join the 21st century, and accept our assistance in doing so. The sacrifices by our soldiers in Afghanistan are appreciated by its people, in spite of bizarre incidents like the March 2012 massacre of 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar province by Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. But our unmanned drone attacks (which often go astray), which have been greatly multiplied since the Obama Administration took over the war in Afghanistan, make us look more like bullies than heroes. As our military activity in Afghanistan winds down towards its end-of-2014 completion date, we should consider spending a substantial amount of the money allocated to the Overseas Contingency Operations Fund on aid to enhance the chances of a successful outcome for America's longest war, rather than using up this fund as a cash cow to pay for domestic programs. Whatever is not needed for bona fide overseas contingency operations, should be used to help pay down the National Debt. Let's not repeat our Iraq mistake once again, of hiding financial costs needed to provide our best chance that lives lost in Afghanistan weren't lost in vain.

Winston Churchill once said that "America can be counted on to do the right thing, after having tried everything else." There are a number of international situations which have festered while we have been distracted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I supported a 2006 Motion to Recommit HR 5682 with instructions to require India to assist in denying nuclear weapons to Iran, as a condition for U.S. help in enlargement of India's nuclear power industry. Our best means of "getting the genie back into the bottle" with respect to keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power, is to support the Democracy Movement in Iran, much more substantially than the Obama Administration has done. The ability of the Iranian people to have that nation's oil revenues spent on their own needs, is the best and only likely means of keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power. The current Iranian leadership clique has a vivid memory of Israeli 1981 attack on Iraqi nuclear facilities in Osirak, and 2007 attack on Syrian nuclear facilities in al-Kibar. Iranian uranium enrichment facilities are widely dispersed and enough are deeply buried to keep that program going. A bombing attack will not destroy Iranian ability to produce nuclear weapons, and will very likely rally support by the Iranian people for the current government. Let's keep in mind that Iran has enough money to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan or enriched uranium from North Korea, and stay out of a military conflict with Iran, which has not posed a military threat to any of its neighbors for more than a millennium. Right now bellicose Iranian President Ahmadinejad is on the verge of losing an internal power struggle, let's not pull his chestnuts out of the fire with "saber rattling" which can only enhance his effort to become a rallying point for Muslims, against what will been seen by Arabs as yet another despised Crusade. As we try to support various third world countries in their efforts to become democracies, let's not support dictators simply because they support our foreign policy. In 2008 this was the key issue in HR 2634, to limit cancellation of debts owed to the U.S. and international agencies to those low-income countries which have governments chosen by free elections and continue to permit free elections.