We are thoroughly investigating the incident and we are taking steps to ensure that this does not ever happen again… I assure you … I promise you … this was NOT intentional in any way…
I offer my sincere apologies for any offence this may have caused, to the president of Afghanistan, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan.
(NPR, February 23, 2012)
This was the abject apology U.S. Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, offered on Afghan TV yesterday for the “improper” disposal (i.e., burning) of Qurans and other Islamic religious materials at the U.S. Bagram Air Base near Kabul.
The general, looking more like a broken hostage than a commanding officer, offered it in a futile attempt to quell riots that erupted as soon as word of this disposal leaked last weekend. And similar apologies from U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and no less a person than President Barack Obama himself seem to have only fueled them – complete with fulminations of anti-Americanism that must fill the Taliban with jingoistic pride.
But here’s the deal: I’m all for showing utmost respect for the religious customs and practices of the Afghan people. I also think an apology was in order for the obvious offense this burning caused (although, one from Gen. Allen alone should have sufficed).
The problem is that I’m on record declaring years ago not just that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, but that trying to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people is a fool’s errand. Nothing demonstrated this quite like Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself offering the following gratuitous insult, which duly conveyed the ingratitude and betrayal that sums up what the United States is getting in return for all its efforts at nation building in Afghanistan:
If fighting starts between Pakistan and the U.S., we are beside Pakistan. If Pakistan is attacked and the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.
(Associated Press, October 23, 2011)
Frankly, it has been painfully clear for years now that cognitive dissonance in Afghanistan is such that U.S. forces are regarded these days not as liberators but as crusaders with a penchant for physical brutality and religious insensitivity.
More to the point, it’s an indication of how far America has lost its way in Afghanistan that Gen. Allen is apologizing to the “noble people of Afghanistan” who think nothing of burning not just the Bible and American flag but also President Obama in effigy. And it hardly matters that the mobs involved in these burning are no more representative of the Afghan people than those involved in burning Qurans are representative of the American people….
It’s bad enough that the United States continues to sacrifice lives and waste money for this lost cause. But that this purported superpower continues to apologize in this fashion reflects an ongoing national humiliation that emboldens not just rioters in Afghanistan but terrorists worldwide.
Hell, U.S. generals have become so cowered (where Afghan sensitivities and restiveness are concerned) that Gen. Allen did not even bother to qualify his apology by explaining that the materials were burnt, according to an ISAF spokesman, because prisoners on the base were using them to circulate “extremist messages.” Not to mention that incidents of “friendly” Afghans turning their guns on their American mentors are becoming epidemic….
Yet we now have the surreal, ass-backwards dynamic of U.S. generals promising that U.S. soldiers will be spending more time getting religious sensitivity training from Afghans than giving military professional training to them, which is America’s stated mission.
Meanwhile:
I challenge you to cite an instance where any government official in the Muslim world uttered a single word of condemnation when Muslims desecrated the corpses of U.S. soldiers by dragging them in the streets then hanging them in a public square in Somalia. Not to mention that even the beheading of U.S. soldiers alive by insurgents in Iraq incited no moral outrage.
(Abu Ghraib 2.0…, The iPINIONS Journal, January 12, 2012)
Perhaps the more probative challenge, though, would be to have you cite an instance where any U.S. president, including that personification of American imperiousness, George W. Bush, demanded an apology from any Muslim country for any of the atrocities it committed against the United States (from Saudi Arabia for 9/11 … for instance). But don’t trouble yourself, you won’t find one.
All of which makes one wonder why America is continuing to suffer these kinds of indignities, to say nothing of the loss of life and treasure, for a cause that is making its misadventure in Vietnam seem beneficial, prudent, and honorable by comparison?
The United States’ legacy there will be distinguished either by a terminally wounded national pride as American forces beat a hasty retreat in defeat (following the Russian precedent in Afghanistan), or by thousands of American soldiers being lost in Afghanistan’s ‘graveyard of empires’ as they continue fighting this unwinnable war (following America’s own precedent in Vietnam). And more troops only mean more sitting ducks for Taliban fighters…
Obama would be well-advised to cut America’s losses and run ASAP; to let the Afghans govern themselves however they like; and to rely on Special Forces and aerial drones to ‘disrupt and dismantle’ Taliban and al-Qaeda operations there.
(“‘Without (or even with) more forces, failure in Afghanistan is likely,'” The iPINIONS Journal, September 23, 2009)
What a costly and shameful farce America’s involvement in Afghanistan has become!
Related commentaries:
Abu Ghraib 2.0…
Without (or even with) more forces…