TONITE, TENS OF THOUSANDS WILL ENTER BATTLE ON OUR SIDE

FEW AMERICANS WILL EVER KNOW

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Half way around the world, Americans sit out another night facing the uncertainty of life and death.  Their enemy has survived and defeated some of the world's greatest armies.  A war 8 years old is centered in some of the roughest terrain on Earth, the border regions of Afghanistan and the Pakistan.  The only major force helping America in its war against the loose confederation of Taliban warlords, Al Qaeda, Chechen fighters and Arab extremists is Pakistan, a country ignored and often reviled by Americans.

 Billions are given, each year, to Israel, one of the world's great military powers.  Billions more, tens of billions have been spent training armies in Iraq and Afghanistan, armies despite years of war, never seriously tested in battle.  Worse, companies like Halliburton, Blackwater and others have "misplaced" over 120 billion dollars that was meant to fight the war on terror.  No questions were asked. Now, when Pakistan sends 30,000 picked troops to war at our side, though besieged in a 50 year old conflcit with India, America offers them 1.5 billion dollars.  One defense contractor alone had a larger cost overrun than that developing a claw hammer for the Air Force

Pakistan has been subjected to relentless terror attacks, partly because of its partnership with the United States.  Hundreds have died in the last few days alone.  However, it gets much more complex than that.  While the United States tries to maintain a "balanced policy" between Pakistan and India, two nations at odds with each other since 1947, India is arming Taliban "surrogates" to fight Pakistan.  The idea is to bog down Pakistani troops and take control of Kashmir, an area both countries have coveted and continually clash over.

The massive influx of new, top quality Russian arms the Taliban is receiving has to come from somewhere.  Those who know history will look to India and their long time associates in Russia as the source.  Those weapons are used on both sides of the border, used to kill, not only Pakistani troops but Americans as well.

Hey, wait, it gets even better.  For months American papers have been filled with discussions of war with Iran.  Every day, we expect Israel to attack Iran.  News services talk about little else, how much the two countries hate each other.  Iran and Israel have more things in common that being enemies.  They also have decades of working together when nobody is looking.  Some of this came out during the Iran/Contra hearings.  When making a buck is involved, Israel and Iran will put their hostility away in a New York minute and have.

What do we have to accept about Pakistan?  One country will have influence over Afghanistan and be the premiere power of the region.  It could be India with Russia or Israel as partners.  It could be Iran.  Should it be Pakistan?  Can we trust an Islamic nation that has women fighter pilots?

What Pakistan does not have is money.  It has no oil and limited national resoucres.  Its government has a history of corruption and miltary influence.  Normally, this would make any country a perfect ally for the United States. 

What does Pakistan want?  Americas presence in Afghanistan has radicalized areas of Pakistan and brought thousands of foreign fighters to the region who are tyrannizing the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan.  However, if America leaves without achieving a stabilized Afghanistan, something the continuation of Bush era mistakes is likely to make impossible, Afghanistan will continue as an area of conflict, perhaps driven by outside forces intent on destabilizing a nuclear Pakistan. 

If we think that this war is being pushed on both countries by terrorists alone, we are being fools.  There are bigger stakes at play.  The simplistic Bush view of this as a Global War on Terror ignored, not only regional rivalries but the underlying issues of oil and gas, opium and geopolicitical gamesmanship.

Bush and Cheney came to a chess match with a pocket full of checkers.

America's goals are easy, getting out of Afghanistan, leaving it free of foreign terrorists, in this case, the ones who came there because we did.  America's other goal is to leave Afghanistan with a popular democratic government.  There are some powerful areas of disagreement about how to do this, but are those reasons adequate justification for thousands of deaths?

Back in the 1980s, the US armed the Mujahideen, Islamic Jihadists who fought to drive out the Russian influenced government in Kabul.  Now we face some of the same allies as enemies.  They are now called the Taliban.  They are not a single group with a single set of beliefs.  They are citizens of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  For their own countries to fight them is a form of civil war, a war of the worst kind, the cruelest kind.  America knows this better than most nations.

The choices are complex but the problem is, many of those tasked with making the choices know too little of the realities of the region.  We may be fighting groups today that could be our allies tomorrow.  We learned that in Iraq with the Sunni militias.

In the short run, keeping Pakistan as an ally, not in a global war, but in a limited regional conflict meant to stabilize what has become the most critical conflict area on Earth is inescapable.  Money and technology, things we have thown around like drunks on a Saturday night for years are on the menu again.

Is the answer perfect?  No, not hardly.  Is it simply what we have to do now as a step in showing resolve to our allies, a step we hope will be followed by our enemies seeing, not only our resolve but our willingness to act with more strength and less arrogance.

Its time for America to go to school.  We need to learn who our friends on the playground are.  We need to know the rules of the game we are playing, something we have failed to do for too many years.

We have been played by friends and enemies alike.  Its time to stop and play to win, a game that can mean scoring a goal or two, picking up the ball and going home.  We can decide when the game ends, not others.

Veterans Today Senior Editor Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.