Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wake up America! Learn from Experiences!
I heard on the NPR news today that Germany’s Foreign Minister flew to Iraq to “talk business.” Germany follows the example of France. President Nicolas Sarkozy has spent a few days presenting to Iraq the benefits of TOTAL, France’s oil company. These are the visits that made the news. Here is how the Associate Press reported these visits. You draw your own conclusions.
BAGHDAD (AP) — Germany's foreign minister met with top Iraqi leaders in Baghdad on Tuesday in the latest high-level visit by a major Western nation that opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion but has promised to help Iraq rebuild now that security has improved. Frank-Walter Steinmeier's visit — the first by a German foreign minister since 1987 — comes on the heels of a similar trip by French President Nicolas Sarkozy a week ago. Germany and France were strong opponents of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein but the governments in both countries have changed since 2003 and have sought greater roles in Iraq. German and French companies could benefit from the change by striking lucrative Iraq reconstruction contracts. Iraqi leaders appear eager to shore up their ties with European nations like Germany and France to ease their dependence on the United States.
These are the visits we know. There are however some “unknown knows and some unknown unknowns”…as the former Defense Secretary Mr. Rumsfeld once put it. Do you suppose the Chinese and Japanese aren’t noticing? Meanwhile American companies aren’t getting their contracts renewed. A friend of mine wrote a book some years ago under the title “After All I’ve Dome for You.” Every child in this country knows that “we are building the country of Iraq… schools, roads, bridges, power stations, the whole kit and caboodle.” Are we laying the infrastructure so that the French and the Germans who opposed our “benevolent” act to free the people of Iraq of malignant tyrant won’t have to spend a penny? Consequently their companies can find a nice ready infrastructure so they can “hit the ground running”?
Tom Friedman in his book The World is Flat pointed out some years ago that during the seventies and eighties American IT companies spent billions of dollars laying the transatlantic cables that Chinese and Indians used to set up their outsourcing companies without themselves having to invest their capital or pay a penny for their use. We are spending billions dollars to build the largest and most modern embassy in Iraq. How long do you think will be before some warlords will make it their headquarters? We spend billions in building roads in Afghanistan to move tanks, trucks, guns and food to remote mountain areas of that country. The Germans have had business and cultural relationships with the Afghans for years. Thousands of Germans learn the Afghan language. Equally as many Afghans are learning German while they are burning the flag of the country and blowing up the trucks which bring them their much needed food and medicine!
Is there a pattern here? Why is it so difficult for Americans to learn from other people’s mistakes? Why can’t we learn from our own mistakes? We teach our children to make mistakes by all means but please do learn from them! Why is it they seem to forget that basic advice when they grow up? Or maybe they never grow up? Nobody has ever, never ever, won in Afghanistan, not even Alexander the Great or Putin! What makes you Mr. Obama think that you will? It’s time to face up to the harsh reality: Nobody ever wins a war in somebody else’s back yard! No mater how sophisticated your military technology is, it’s made for a different kind of war than the one you are fighting right now in Asia. So get out of it there before it’s too late!
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Update....AMERICA.AN
ReplyDeleteFriday, February 20, 2009
WWW.AMERICA.AN
As you all know by now I’ve lately been obsessed by American leaders’ inability to learn from their own and other people’s mistake. Everybody who messed with countries several thousands miles away and in cultures thousands terabytes different from their own got badly burned. Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan are the most recent examples that attest to the inability of Westerners to “install” their philosophies and political ideologies and systems on other cultures.
Last week Richard Holbrooke, America’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan who visited the region, told the Munich conference that resolving the problem of Afghanistan would be “much tougher than Iraq”. The policy must deal with “AfPak”, meaning Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Economist recommends that “He will no doubt have to consider even wider regional implications, including relations with Iran. Moreover, Kyrgyzstan has announced its intention to close the American base at Manas, apparently under pressure from Moscow (which in turn promises to allow NATO’s non-arms supplies to pass through Russian territory, and is even considering offering its own military aircraft to help resupply NATO forces)”.
So it looks like what Mr. Obama calls the Afghanistan issue that he is pursuing victory, is actually an issue that might as well be called AfPakIrKyr (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Kyrgyzstan). Let’s rename it using the pronunciation-friendly and much shorter acronym AMERICA.AN. A look at the map of the area will provide an obvious clue why I chose this acronym. There are at least seven countries in the area that form a nervous powder cake. All of these countries have at least one thing in common: they all have a name that ends in an AN. One could easily ask “Why call the issue AMERICA.AN? After all it’s known that the involvement in Afghanistan isn’t strictly an American affair. The entire NATO is involved. And there are quite a few countries that belong to this organization. Well try to do a little polling of the people in the area, or anywhere for that matter, asking them to play a little word association game where you say “War in Iraq and Afghanistan” and they are suppose to respond using a name of the parties involved. How many people do you know who associate the war in the area with anybody other than America?
Most people that I meet on the planes and at the airports around the world ask me “When are Americans going to get out of the Wild Wild West attitude? When are they going to find something else to resolve their differences besides the almighty GUN?” American military and economic superiority, both in sheer numbers as well as in technology, bestows every politician and diplomat a heavy dose of arrogance. Granted the world does expect the US to “solve” some problems. That’s part of being a world leader. Nevertheless a little humility won’t hurt anybody. Instead of automatically assuming the role of the government in Afghanistan Americans who are involved there must defer answers to questions regarding the possible solutions to the government of that country. Yet the US Defense Secretary’s response to the question posed by a reporter as to “whether if Pakistan succeeds in pacifying military activity in Swat, the US would allow Afghans to make similar type of agreement? Gates replied “If there is a reconciliation, if insurgents are willing to put down their arms, ...then I think we would be very open to that.” What I’d have liked to hear him saying is “I think it’s a great idea. I know that the Afghan government is working on a similar idea. I’m sure that my president would be willing to help Mr. Karzai succeed in that effort.” Now that’s soft power!