Open Letter to President Trump Calling for Indian Troops to Afghanistan

Dear President Trump:

I've been reading Bob Woodward's book "Obama's Wars" in conjunction with Robert S. McNamara's 1995 memoir, In Retrospect. As a retired military officer, I can say with  certainty that the military hasn't learned the lessons of Vietnam..."More troops" and "More troops" is not the answer to every problem; and our diplomatic initiatives are tepid and ineffective at best.

I believe that the end state in Afghanistan requires a bit of Nixon-Kissinger diplomacy to wake the Pakistanis up. We cannot solve the problems there if Pakistan is both our ally and enemy. Consequently, it is time to give the Pakistanis electro-shock therapy and scare the hell out of them by invoking their worst nightmare.

Since Pakistan appears unable and/or unwilling to curtail Al Qaeda/Taliban military activities within its territory which are directed at American/NATO troops in Aghanistan, I urge you to request for the introduction of Indian troops into Afghanistan to ensure that no more attacks are carried from Pakistan into Afghanistan. An Indian Western Theater of Operations ought to be created composed of at least 240,000 Indian troops (the number of troops that US Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told the US Senate in 2002 that would be required to stabilize Iraq and the number of troops Admiral Mullen would love to have there) whose mission is to stabilize Afghanistan through a two-front strategy against Pakistan. I believe that India would be open to provide this kind of military assistance to the United States and NATO forces if India was asked.

India is the only regional power with the military forces capable of doing this. The anvil of India & Kashmir to the east of Pakistan against the hammer of an Indian Western Theater Army presents Pakistan with a two-front strategic problem--which Pakistan is wholly incapable of dealing with with. In a nutshell, Pakistan's worst nightmare.

The United States clearly has the capacity to provide the Indians with the logistics support necessary to move and sustain such a force. Consequently, it must do so. India is poised politically and militarily to bring stability into this region which Pakistan has been unable and/or unwilling to do so.

If Pakistan is unable to curtail outside activities within its borders, then India can ensure that there will be no interference from these forces in Afghanistan. As the world’s largest democracy and an economy that is of increasing importance to the United States, India’s power is central to the calculus of stability in the region.

India has supported Afghani administrations in the past, and will bear the brunt of a resurgent Islam if the Taliban triumphs in Afghanistan. Such result will lead to serious instability in the region particularly given Pakistan’s own instability in the face of Islamic fundamentalism.

Moreover, unlike the United States, the Pakistanis know that India will not leave the region. Consequently, for Pakistan, the die is cast: Either get your house in order or India with the support of the United States will do it for you.

In 1971, Nixon and Kissinger used China against the Soviet Union and China used the United States against the Soviet Union. Likewise, in 2017 the United States should use India against Pakistan and India will use the US against Pakistan.

It is time to ante up the stakes in the region and a robust diplomatic effort combined with ongoing military operations inside Afghanistan will make the Pakistanis realize that a stable Afghanistan even under American tutalege is better that an Afghanistan that is home of 300,000 Indian troops--who do not like the Pakistanis and their extremist allies.


Gonzalo I. Vergara, Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.)
Lincoln Hills, California

Dirge for America's Long Wars and Future Wars

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
   No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
   Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
   An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
   Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
   No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
   Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

From 'The Shield of Achilles' by W. H. Auden

Saudi Arabian Support for Terrorism

Saudi Arabian Support for Terrorism  -- Sources    

This list is but a small sampling of sources that suggest Saudi Arabia's support for terrorist organizations.  I will update the list periodically.

Please feel free to add sources in the comments section:

1. Ahmed Rashid, Descent to Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (New York:  Viking, 2008)
2. Lori Plotkin Boghardt, ‘Saudi Funding of ISIS’, The Washington Institute, Policy Watch 2275, June 23, 2014
3. Josh Rogin, ‘America’s Allies are Funding ISIS’, The Daily Beast, June 14, 2014, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html
4. Steve Clemons, 'Thank God for the Saudis': ISIS, Iraq, and the Lessons of Blowback’, The Atlantic, June 23, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/
5. Salim Mansur, ‘ISIS, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the West’, Gatestone Institute, June 14, 2015, http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5956/isis-saudi-arabia-iran
6. Vicky Nanjappa, ‘Why Does Saudi Arabia Support the ISIS?’, oneindia, June 29, 2015  http://www.oneindia.com/feature/why-does-saudi-arabia-fund-the-isis-1791158.html
7. Michael Stephens, ‘Islamic State: Where does jihadist group get its support?, BBC News, September 1, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29004253
8. Patrick Cockburn, ‘Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped Isis take over the north of the country’, The Independent, July 13, 2014. [Cockburn was former MI-6 boss] http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html
9. Joshua Keating, ‘Why the Iraq Mess Is So Awkward for Saudi Arabia’, Slate, June 13, 2014, http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/06/16/the_saudis_helped_create_a_monster_they_can_t_control_in_iraq.html
10. Kim Sengupta, ‘Turkey and Saudi Arabia alarm the West by backing Islamist extremists the Americans had bombed in Syria’, The Independent, May 12, 2015 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-crisis-turkey-and-saudi-arabia-shock-western-countries-by-supporting-antiassad-jihadists-10242747.html
11. Thomas L. Friedman, ‘Our Radical Islamic BFF, Saudi Arabia’ New York Times, September 2, 2015
12. Ben Norton,  Saudi Arabia funds and exports Islamic extremism: The truth behind the toxic U.S. relationship with the theocratic monarchy,  Salon, January 6, 2016 http://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/saudi_arabia_funds_and_exports_islamic_extremism_the_truth_behind_the_toxic_u_s_relationship_with_the_theocratic_nation/
13. Ishaan Tharoor, 'The Saudi Origins of Belgium's Islamist Threat', The Washington Post, March 23, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/23/the-roots-of-belgiums-islamist-threat-reach-back-to-saudi-arabia/

War as Continuation of Politics: For Whose Benefit?

The Soviets were great writers on military affairs.  The United States Air Force translated a number of Soviet military works under the series Soviet Military Thought. 

One interesting volume is ‘The Philosophical Heritage of V. I. Lenin and Problems of Contemporary War’ (Moscow, 1972). 
The authors expand Clausewitz’s dictum that ‘war is the continuation of politics by other means’:  Precisely because all wars are, and each given war is, a continuation of politics, they are essentially not only identical but are also profoundly disparate from one another, and frequently complete opposites.  This occurs because the political content of war is determined by the social character of the classes waging it, their political goals and a number of other concretely historical conditions. (p. 25).

[COMMENT]  This is important because particularly in the US, the classes who direct the wars do not fight them directly – volunteer soldiers – no direct impact upon classes who direct and benefit from the country being at war.  Could a disconnect emerge between policy makers and those who fight our wars?  As most Americans do not / have not served in the armed forces, is the civil-military disconnect deeper within American society?  Soldiers are “Heroes” – paid in kudos and acclaim to keep military happy.  Now with decreasing benefits, will military remain subservient? 

[COMMENT]  For example, the problem with the Syrian civil war is the socio-economic and political conditions of the initial stages of the war, that is, the opponents of President Assad versus government forces was changed essentially by the advent of ISIS Daesh, transforming it from a just war against an oppressive government to Assad’s just war against a worse and more unjust threat.  The justice of the cause is from the point of view of the eye of the beholder.  The Syrian civil was whose character was that of a just war, became an unjust war because ISIS is worse threat.  The US and its ‘allies’ [joke] have fought or opposed Assad and Iran.  This is a fact.  But where, when, and who denied utilization of Assad and Iran by US in order to demoralize / destroy the common enemy, ISIS (Daesh)?

Militarism.  As a weapon serving the ruling classes to crush all (political and economic) movements.  (p. 65).  [COMMENT]  Why do we fight these wars?  Follow the money, i.e., whose interests are being advanced?  Who benefits from these wars?  Certainly not the US or the US taxpayers?  So far (2015) the ‘war on terror’ has cost 5K deaths / $2T and we’re still there.  How can our political leaders continue to advocate and pursue ill-defined, ambiguous goals and unwinnable wars?  Are we just mercenaries or cannon fodder for sinister interests that are manipulating us?  Our national security and interests are not threatened so why are we involved in conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia?  What are we doing there? 
Are we really military adventurists the Soviets accused us of being?  These are basic questions but seem apropos to our actions post-Soviet Union—or even before.  We invaded Grenada in 1983, Lebanon 1983, Panama 1988; Gulf War 1990-91; Haiti, 1994; Somalia 1992; Bosnia 1994-95; Afghanistan 2001; Iraq 2003; Lybia 2011; Syria 2014.  What are we doing?  Is our economic system, capitalism, the cause of war?  Is war a method of resolving antagonistic conflicts based on “private ownership relations?”  (E.g., p. 72).  Are wars for the profit of the 1% at the expense of the rest of us?  Is war class based in the United States—for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many?  Are our interventions another form of exploitation? (E.g., p. 72). 

Role and Place of Ideological Struggle in Modern Warfare

1)     The stability of troop morale depends on the conviction of the rank-and-file masses as to the just nature of the war in which they sacrifice their lives.  If they recognize the cause for which they struggle to be just, they fight with enthusiasm.  (‘The Philosophical Heritage of V. I. Lenin and Problems of Contemporary War’ (Moscow, 1972), p. 207; translated under the auspices of the US Air Force).  Lenin:  “[C]onviction as to the justness of war and recognitions of the need to sacrifice one’s life for the good of one’s brothers elevates the spirit of soldiers and forces them to endure unheard of burdens.” (Phil. Her., p. 207). 

In contrast.  The bourgeoisie attempts to pass off its own mercenary interests as the interest of all the people.  The problem is to reveal to the soldiers and the entire populace of a given country the criminal goals of the bourgeois government and incite the masses to refuse to be accomplices of the crime.  (Phil. Her., p. 207). 

[COMMENT] In the fight against ISIS and derivatives thereof, US armed forces probably suffer from a lack of ideological conviction as to the justness or importance of the fight.  ISIS on the other hand is a poster child for the above statement.  Politically, it recruits from disaffected Muslims and foreign fighters who do not share the West’s value systems or its aspirations.

2)     Lenin—Revolutionary deeds are performed by millions of individuals at a moment of special upsurge and exertion of all human capabilities, when all their consciousness, will, enthusiasm and fantasy are mobilized… their extensive _____ possesses proletarian instinct, proletarian comprehension and awareness of duty.” (Phil. Her., p. 188). [COMMENT:  ISIS – religion]  “The spiritual capability of revolutionary masses to stand and win in a savage clash with the class enemy is based on the profoundly just character of the struggle being wages by the proletariat and its army.  We can wage war because the masses know what they are fighting for …”  Imperialist armies lack this source.  (Phil. Her., p. 188).   

[COMMENT]  The above observation is the bottom line of why ISIS / derivatives are winning —they are in their  own neighborhoods and the US armed forces are far from home and without real focus, e.g., ‘Why we fight’ series in Word War Two.  Slogans like ‘fighting for democracy’ are just as bland and useless as were Soviet calls for proletarian sentiment.  But the theory and observations stated above correctly assess the issue.  In 2015, ISIS bases its appeal on religion and Muslim victimization. 

3)     It’s not so much that ISIS achieves military objectives – it achieves political objectives. Under a chapter titled ‘Tactical Victory, Strategic Defeat’ Col. Harry Summers recalls a conversation in Hanoi 1975, ““You know you never defeated us on the battlefield” said the American Colonel.  The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark for a moment. “That may be so,” he replied, “but it is also irrelevant.”  (On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (Presidio Press, 1982), p. 1.). US does not have a resonant message to which local population can relate or rally to.  Add to this the view of US as supporter and patron of Israel – anything or anyone we support is suspect.

4)     Even a strong will which is not enlightened by elevated communist ideals [or religious, ideological fervor, etc.] may become a counterfeit jewel, for will without principles or ideals is blind.  (Phil. Her., p. 189).  [US armed forces in 2015 with respect to fight against ISIS, Al-Qaeda, etc.?]

 

 

Why is the United States involved in conflicts in which it does not understand and / or fully appreciate the internal dynamics and motivators of the different players?  The fact is that not everyone in the world thinks like Americans, nor share the same views as to what is in their best interests nor share the same aspirations in a specific sense.  Even if they do to an extent, the means to achieve these objectives may be completely at odds with the American views. 

            Moral forces in war provide legitimacy to the struggle.