Cuba USA

Washington´s 21st Century Wars

By Manuel E. Yepe
source manuelyepe.wordpress
"The US wars in the 21^st Century end without victory parades and confetti showers. Three years ago, the US withdrew from Iraq without meeting the objectives of its 2003 invasion. It has just ended its combat mission in Afghanistan –the longest in the history of US wars: longer than World War II and Vietnam– with a discreet ceremony in Kabul, a statement by President Barack Obama, and the Taliban celebrating the defeat of the Allies. The era of victories of the world's first power is over."

This is the view expressed by United States journalist Marc Bassets in an article published in Madrid's El Pais newspaper.

"The war in Afghanistan has finished in the same way as the war in Iraq in 2011. That is: it actually has not ended. The Americans are leaving but the war continues."

As of January 1, 2015, it will not be the US and its NATO allies who will fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. These will be faced by the Afghan armed forces. Nevertheless, a mission of 11,000 US troops will stay in the area training the Afghans and participating in counter-terrorist operations."The fear that an abrupt withdrawal would allow the Taliban to recover the capital Kabul after 13 years of US intervention has made Obama postpone the withdrawal date until 2016. A thousand soldiersmore than originally planned will remain in Afghanistan and the US contingent will have a greater margin of time to prepare the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda," says Bassets.
The Afghanistan which the US is beginning to abandon is not a stable country.
There, about 5,400 Afghan soldiers and police died in 2014 –the highest figure
since the war began– and more than 3000 Afghan civilians, the largest number since 2008, when the UN began to count civilian casualties.
"The US now begins to absorb a war decade with the return of its veterans and the debate on the inability to win that the most powerful army in the world is suffering." Since 2001, in Afghanistan, 2,224American soldiers have lost their lives, and 19,945 have been wounded. In Iraq, between 2003 and 2011, 4,491 Americans died and 32,244 were wounded.
"Depression, anxiety, nightmares, memory problems, personality changes, suicidal thoughts: every war has its aftermath, and so did the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which left 500,000 U.S. veteransmentally wounded," says reporter David Finkel in his book 'Thank You for Your Service', quoted byBassets.
The avalanche of wounded swelled the waiting lists in veteran's hospitals. The return, just as had happened after the Vietnam War, was not easy. About 7.2% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are unemployed, a proportion higher than the national average.
According to Bassets, the difference with the experience of Vietnam is that, contrary Vietnam, today's veterans cannot find a warm welcome home. Vietnam marked the end of mandatory military service and the professional character of the armed forces since 1973 has created an abyss between the military and the rest of society.
The US launched the "war on terror" in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, but in recent years it has not lived as a country at war. Less than 1% of Americans have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fighting is perceived as something distant, exotic. A few months after September 11, 2001,"although in practice the country was at war, the nation began to behave as if it were at peace."
"Today, before September 11, Americans say they worry about their soldiers, but their concern does not go as far as preventing the country from engaging in unnecessary and unwinnable wars..."

The professionalization of armies allows politicians to go to war without considering their social costbecause the consequences are suffered by a minute fraction of the population.

"Why do the best soldiers in the world always lose?" asks journalist James Fallows in an article published in the latest issue of 'The Atlantic' magazine. Then he answers, saying that the US embarks on "endless wars it cannot win" because of the distance between civilians and military.
"The goal, in Iraq and Afghanistan, is no longer winning but avoiding further damages. And the deadline is flexible. In Afghanistan it is 2016. In Iraq it was 2011, but this summer the progress of the Islamic State has forced the US to return. If the wars of the 21st Century end without parades and confetti it is because they never really end,” concludes Marc Bassets.

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