Bogged down in another civil war
Once again we hear the clamor for an expansion of US involvement in the Middle East, not that we haven’t been pounding the sands in Afghanistan and Iraq with continuous bombing for six months now. Once again the White House and the Congress choose to ignore our country’s failed attempts at intervening in civil wars around the globe. For the most part, these incursions are unpopular with the American public. Those who claim it is America’s “moral duty” to engage in such endeavors must answer for the obscene waste of American lives and resources, and the plight of our returning soldiers, many of whom are maimed and damaged for life. Equally appalling, we leave these arenas worse off than when we found them.
Yet we as a nation have been steadily engaged in such entanglements around the world since the end of WWII. We barely got a chance to recover before sending troops to Korea in 1950 to help defeat the “Communist Hoards” pouring in from China. What was labeled a ‘police action’ cost the lives of 33,686 American troops and 1.2 million Korean and Chinese fighters. The outcome, Korea was divided – and the North is today one of the most abusive, corrupt and dangerous nations on the planet.
By 1954, my brother-in-law was flying supplies to the South Vietnam forces in Saigon as we were involved in another civil war, which continued until 1976. The Vietnam War cost us the lives of 57,000 troops at a cost to us of $140 billion. That unpopular war ended only when Congress cut off funding when President Ford, as some facetiously put it, “declared a win and got out.” When we left the North overtook the South and the country was united under Communism. Happily, and in spite of us, today Vietnam remains under communist rule with a thriving capitalist economy. (It is number one on my list of travel destinations we’ve taken it is – a friendly, beautiful, safe and historically rich country.)
During the late 1970s and early 1980s our moral compass pointed to Latin America. We spent billions supporting dictators that were repressing leftist democratic movements who were advocating social reform. The United States infamously toppled the democratically-elected Allende government in Chile. What followed became one of the most oppressive and brutal regimes of the 20th Century.
Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s we targeted Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Grenada. As with Chile, our leadership viewed any attempt at social reform was a Communist plot. Our greatest and most costly effort was waged in Nicaragua because it was making the most substantial effort to address societal inequities. A near civil war ensued. It was the reform-minded Sandinista rebels against the ruling military junta, the Contras; U.S. marines were sent to ensure that the corrupt, albeit anti-communist, dictator remained in power. He didn’t. The Reagan-Bush administration continued to fight the Sandinista regime at the cost of 60,000 lives, 78 billion dollars and the collapse of the economy and infrastructure of Nicaragua. Today, 30 years later, Nicaragua is still struggling with the competing Sandinista/Contra forces.
Now Congress is beginning to debate the President’s request for the authorization of another military action in Iraq. “The New York Times” wrote that any military authorization sent to the President will most likely include intervention in Egypt and Libya. Is it un-American or immoral to say we are not the savior of the world? Notwithstanding our wealth and military might, where is the morality in wasting billions of dollars and sacrificing millions of lives in fighting UN-winable wars that leave only death and destruction behind? All the while we shower foreign aid on governments that in turn undermine our generosity by using our largesse to buy favors from terrorists.
Historically, our involvement in civil wars, since the end of WWII, has been much like sending troops into a lake of fire filled with quick sand. Once they enter there is no escape.
Pursuing the terrorist organization Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was a popular move. Now 14 years later, at a cost of nearly a $1 trillion and the loss of nearly 5,000 American troops and hundreds of thousands of Afghan citizens, we are pulling out. At the same time we are leaving Afghanistan, Congress is sending the President legislation to take additional military action in Iraq against ISIL.
These internecine battles will end only when the participants kill each other off or agree to stop fighting. Any outside involvement only perpetuates the insanity. When are we going to? When are we going remove ourselves from these quagmires and take care of the folks at home? I can see the morality in that.
