|
"Those who do not remember the
past may be condemned to relive it." This old adage applies especially
to politicians who, driven by public opinion and sentiment, rarely remember
the past. Few members of Congress care to remember the Vietnam War
(1961-1973) which took the lives of more than 50,000 American soldiers,
some 400,000 South Vietnamese allies, more than 900,000 North Vietnamese
men, and countless women and children. They all died in an international
conflict waged primarily by the United States to assist the
South Vietnamese people in their desperate struggle for independence.
At first glance, the Vietnam War
differed significantly from the present conflict that is raging in Iraq.
In Vietnam, the United States forces together with South
Vietnamese armies were unable to defeat the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese
invaders; they failed despite massive military aid to South Vietnam and in spite of heavy bombing
and U.S.
commitment of nearly 550,000 men most of whom were reluctant draftees. In Iraq, the
American army of some 150,000 volunteers routed the Iraqi forces in a few
days and readily occupied the country. In Vietnam, American intervention
meant to repel the insurgents and invaders and halt the advance of militant
world communism. In Iraq,
the American invasion merely intended to prevent a tyrant from developing
nuclear weapons and liberate the people from his heavy yoke. Such were the
stated motives. In politics, unfortunately, the true motives of an action
are usually concealed; some noble pretext may be placed in front of any
action.
We may only speculate on the driving
force that made the political heads of both sides give the marching orders.
But any reflection may soon reveal the similarities in the cultural and
ideological background of both conflicts. The Vietnam War escalated from a
Vietnamese civil war into an international conflict between the United States
and world communism. North Vietnam
received much support in the form of armament and technical assistance from
the Soviet Union, from China,
and other communist countries. The war did not end, despite a 1973 peace
agreement and American withdrawal, until North Vietnamese forces occupied
all of South Vietnam
and reunited the country in 1975.
The Iraqi conflict, just like the
Vietnam War, has become a phase of a broader struggle which may prove to be
as protracted and costly as the Vietnam War. It may be a bitter conflict
not only with the Arab world of some 250 million people but also with the
fanatical forces of the world of Islam with more than one billion
believers. Surely, the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world is nonbelligerent, seeking to live by the words of the
Koran in which God speaks in the first person. But it takes only a few
thousand insurgents and revolutionaries to continue the fight. By now the
number of attacks against American forces launched by underground insurgent
groups is legion. Nearly every day we hear of killing, sabotage,
destruction of public and private property, hostage takings, and suicide
bombings. Favorite targets are police- and army
recruiting centers, electrical installations,
oil-producing facilities as well as American troops on the road.
During the Vietnam War American public
opinion gradually turned rather adverse and hostile toward its
continuation. Its length, the high casualties and even the news of American
soldiers involvement in war crimes, such as the
massacre of My Lai, turned many Americans
against the war. In major cities thousands of young men fearing early calls
for military service and combat in Vietnam soon aired their
opposition in protest rallies and marches. On college campuses from coast
to coast hordes of students expounded their disapproval and defiance. Sensing
a growing antiwar movement, a few senators, such as J. S. Fulbright, R. F.
Kennedy, E. J. McCarthy, and G. S. McGovern soon sought to lead the
movement.
In Iraq,
much public support for the invasion was lost when American television
vividly depicted life in Baghdad
after its fall. American soldiers gleefully watched widespread acts of
looting, vandalism, and sabotage of public and private property. They
watched when the national museum
of Iraq, which housed
some of the finest treasures of the ancient world, was looted. All over the
world the friends of the private property order were saddened by the
spectacle of willful destruction. They waited for
the news that a brief telephone call by the president of the United States or his secretary of defense or just an American general in Iraq had
called a halt to the looting and the wanton destruction – they waited
in vain.
Many Iraqis waited for a relief plan
like the Marshall Plan which had helped to rebuild Europe
after World War II. But there was no plan, no preparation for the new order
which proved to be much more destructive than the war itself. After the
looting and burning came a wave of street crime by many thugs, psychopaths,
and criminals who had been released along with political prisoners. There
was no police which was scared and hiding. With
the chaos and lawlessness came economic disintegration, goods shortages,
hunger and want. Hundreds of thousands of civil servants lost their jobs as
the Saddam command system disintegrated. They soon haunted the occupyers and insurgency unleashed carnage throughout
the country. At their disposal was a million tons of weapons and ammunition
of all sorts which were stored in numerous unguarded depots around the
country.
It cannot be surprising that in chaos,
insecurity, and want political Islam has come into view. Ever since Iran had
become a theocratic Islamic republic in 1979, some qadis
and mufties have been working diligently to
reform other Muslim countries as well. In Iraq where the movement had
lain underground throughout the Saddam years it emerged into open and is
heard loud and clear. In Shiite Iraq where religious authority is clearly
defined, several ayatollahs are highly critical of the occupation. In Sunni
Iraq a new generation of clerics readily embraces the militant aspirations
of the large Arab world. Some deliver messages of jihad, the Muslim holy war, that views the United
States and Israel as inseparable allies in
a war against the Muslim world. Ardent disciples, jihadists
from the ranks of the Sunni Arab Ba'ath party, a
socialist group whose overall goal is Arab unity, and from militant
Islamists from all parts of the Muslim world are offering their lives in
the fight to expel the invaders and establish a fundamental Islamist state.
Surely, the insurgents who are few in
number, probably no more than a few thousand, cannot defeat the American
forces militarily. But they may succeed in perpetuating the disorder,
creating an atmosphere of intimidation, insecurity, and despair. They may
inflict some casualties on U.S.
forces, ever increase the cost of U.S. involvement, and thus
weaken support for the war. They may tax American staying power and erode
the willingness to persist.
In free societies public opinion may
change and redirect public policy; it is stronger than the legislature and
nearly as strong as the moral code. It led to the withdrawal of American
forces from Vietnam in 1973, from Lebanon following the 1983 bombing of the
Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 260 marines, and from Somalia a
decade later after 18 servicemen were killed. These precedents seem to
indicate that the world of militant Islam may outlast the world of an
American president and his party.
If the future is only the past again,
entering through another gate, we must prepare for American withdrawal from
Iraq.
In Vietnam the American
people endured the anguish and affliction for a decade; in Iraq the
voices of frustration and disappointment are already heard after two years
of victory and success. In the Vietnam War two Democratic presidents, John
F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, perceiving a growing communist
threat, dispatched the military advisers and combat divisions; a Republican
president, Richard M. Nixon, brought them back. In Iraq a Republican president, George W. Bush,
ordered the troops to Baghdad;
it may take a Democratic president to call them back. He may realize that
American occupation forces will never win the hearts and minds of Islamic
people and that his political efforts are unlikely to succeed in creating
an Islamic democracy.
* * *
In Vietnam,
the rulers and commanders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam),
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and The People's
Republic of China obviously relished their success and rejoiced in the
American retreat. But in the span of barely two decades the forces of
communism were disintegrating and retreating while the United States
emerged as the sole superpower and undeniable leader of the world. In 1990
the Soviet Union ceased to be the citadel of socialism as the Soviet-bloc
nations of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary shed their communist
rule and chose to become independent again. Ukraine soon followed suit. In
economic and political turmoil the Congress of People's Deputies voted for
the dissolution of the USSR;
Mikhail Gorbachev, its president, resigned and was not replaced. In China
after the 1976 death of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic,
his successors worked diligently toward two major objectives: to modernize
and strengthen the economy and to forge closer political and economic ties
with Western nations, especially the United States. They even designated
several coastal regions as free-enterprise zones to draw foreign
investments, trade, and technology, especially from the United States.
In Vietnam economic
conditions continued to deteriorate despite substantial aid from the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s, finally, changes in
national leadership led to a policy readjustment toward privatization of
commerce and industry and foreign investment. But the government continues
to be racked by corruption, abuse of power, and incompetence. Vietnam continues to be one of the poorest
countries in the world with per-capita income of barely one-third of that
of the People's Republic of China.
In Iraq, it is unlikely that the
hostile forces will soon disintegrate and give way to Western values and
mores. The world of Islam is a spirited living religion that is nearly 1400
years old, and the world of Arab nationalism, although much younger, is
full of life and growing with every day of American occupation of Arab
land. Both forces undoubtedly would jubilate
about American withdrawal and immediately return to their ancient ways and
the law and order of the Koran. But such a world is indicative not only of
much economic destitution but also of political and clerical authority. There
is pitiful poverty in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Indonesia, Mali,
Niger, Chad, and Sudan where per-capita income
is less than $1,000 a year. Income in oil-producing countries is higher but
the emoluments of emirs, sultans, and princes greatly reduce the income of
the common people.
The poverty of the Muslim world stems
especially from two economic prohibitions ordained by the Koran. They limit
all believers to just two sources of income: payment for services rendered,
that is, wages and salaries, and transfer income which flows from private
charity and public welfare. They prohibit the two other sources of income
that render human labor much more productive:
interest on savings and investments, and entrepreneurial profit, which
rewards investors and innovators. The Koran, Sura
3:13, is specific:"Believers do not live on
usury, doubling your wealth many times over. Have fear of God, that you may
prosper, guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for nonbelievers."
Similarly, they prohibit any reward for risk-taking and speculation on the
chances of quick or considerable profits.
Economic destitution and political
authority undoubtedly explain the migration of Muslims, legal and illegal,
amounting to many millions of young people, from Islamic regions to Western
countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and many
others. In the United
States their numbers are growing
rapidly, probably exceeding five million now. They are attracted by high
standards of living and economic freedoms which are the attributes of the
Western order. They labor and prosper, earning
profits and interest. But we cannot help wondering what they would do to
our economic order if they were in a majority and at liberty to introduce
and enforce the economic prohibitions and limitations of the Koran.
Cf. Sowing the Wind, p. 265 ff.
|
