Fighting for Freedom
CurryforAmerica.com
How
many American lives is a worn copy of a Koran worth?
If a Muslim writes in a Koran and tears out its
pages its fine. If an American burns that same Koran
it’s a crime punishable by death in Afghanistan. Is
the burning of a book really equivalent to the
killing of an American officer? I don’t think so and
neither does the officer’s family and friends. Can
we assume that President Obama and Secretary Hillary
Clinton will phone the American families and
apologize to them too? Why not? Aren’t American
lives more important than Afghan books?
Isn’t it time we started treating Prime Minister
Karzai of Afghanistan like an adult? He should
either get his people under control, or the United
States should pull all of its troops out of there,
now. You can buy more Korans but you can’t buy more
senior military officers. Why not have Amazon.com
send Karzai a box of books and let him keep the
extras? Shouldn’t that handle his concerns?
One
day at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while I was
attending a Special Forces Operations Officers
School, the class was lectured by an elderly,
silver-haired Polish military patriot of World War
II fame. He was of medium height and stood ramrod
erect in the center of the stage, instead of hiding
behind the podium as most speakers did.
In
WWII he had fought against the Germans after they
invaded Poland. He was captured by them, escaped and
made his way across Europe to England. He
volunteered to parachute back into Poland and help
lead the fight against the Germans and later against
the Russians, after the Russians invaded Poland.
Eventually the Russians captured him and marked him
for execution. He escaped again and made his way
back to England by way of the North Sea.
His
lecture that day was on how to successfully organize
for, fight and win guerilla wars. During the
question and answer session one of my classmates
asked him, “How do you save a nation that his no
history of freedom or self-rule and where the
citizens refuse to fight for themselves?”
“You
don’t,” he replied. “You let them go on being
enslaved. If a people are unwilling to fight to
secure freedom and liberty for themselves, you have
two options. You can occupy their country and take
over their government and armed forces, including
exercising promotion authority. And if your nation
is willing to make that extreme of an investment for
the next 20 to 30 years, perhaps you can bring up a
generation of young people who will share your
values and be willing to fight for them. I doubt it.
The alternative is to write them off as a free
nation.”
At the time his comments seemed unduly harsh and cynical. But later I began to appreciate the opinions he had expressed more and more. No matter how badly we want to see all the peoples of the world enjoy the liberty and freedom that our Founders successfully fought for and bequeathed to us, we cannot do for other nations what they are unwilling to do for themselves.
During the Vietnam War some Viet Cong engaged the South Vietnamese Regiment I was advising in a running fire fight. When we finally cornered them for the kill, they fled into a Buddhist Pagoda and hid. I turned to my South Vietnamese counter-part, shrugged my shoulders and said, “You know the rules of engagement, we must observe the sanctity of all South Vietnamese religious buildings. If they don’t come out voluntarily, we are forbidden to go in and get them.”
He nodded his head, called over his operations officer, spoke a few words, and then announced a lunch break. Later, after tea, several soldiers came up to him carrying shoulder fired rocket launchers. He nodded and they commenced blowing a huge hole in the wall of the pagoda. Then they threw in a few hand grenades, killed or captured the Viet Cong who were hiding inside, and we continued on with the mission.
By showing respect for their pagoda we Americans were trying to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people. But the Vietnamese Colonel was trying to win the battle. His actions reminded me of something a South Korean officer had said to me long ago when I was an advisor to his unit. “If you grab them by the throat, their hearts and minds will follow.”
In
war adopting a hearts and minds strategy sometimes
makes sense, but it can be just as dangerous and
difficult to carry out today as it has been in
previous wars. The bottom line should always be that
our soldiers should be allowed to use whatever force
is necessary to win a fight and to preserve their
fellow soldier’s lives.
Without the aid of the U.S. and its NATO Allies, it
would have been nearly impossible for Afghanistan to
have overthrown the Taliban and introduce their
country to the form of democracy they now enjoy.
What the leaders and citizens of Afghanistan and the
Middle East have got to understand, is that their
countries are theirs not America’s. If they don’t
make their countries work, we can’t do it for them
no matter how much we might want to, and no matter
how hard we try.