Will The Quiet, Idealistic American sink into another quagmire called Yemen?
The
Quiet American
By Uri Avnery
The quiet American was the hero of Graham Greene's
novel about the first Vietnam War, the one fought by the French.
He was a young and naïve American, a professor’s
son who had enjoyed a good education at Harvard, an idealist with all the best
intentions. When he was sent to Vietnam, he wanted to help the natives to
overcome the two evils as he saw them: French colonialism and Communism.
Knowing absolutely nothing about the country in which he was acting, he caused
a disaster. The book ends with a massacre, the outcome of his misguided
efforts. He illustrated the old saying: "The road to hell is paved with
good intentions."
Since this book was written, 54 years have passed,
but it seems that the quiet American has not changed a bit. He is still an
idealist (at least, in his own view of himself), still wants to bring
redemption to foreign and faraway peoples about whom he knows nothing, and
still causes terrible disasters: in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now, it seems, in
Yemen.
The Iraqi example is the simplest one.
The American soldiers were sent there to overthrow
the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein. There were, of course, also some less
altruistic objectives, such as taking control of the Iraqi oil resources and
stationing an American garrison in the heart of the Middle Eastern oil region.
But for the American public, the adventure was presented as an idealistic
enterprise to topple a bloody dictator who was menacing the world with nuclear
bombs.
That was six years ago, and the war is still going
on. Barack Obama, who opposed the war right from the start, promised to lead
the Americans out of there. In the meantime, in spite of all the talking, no
end is in sight.
Why? Because the real decision-makers in
Washington had no idea of the country which they wanted to liberate and help to
live happily ever after.
Iraq was from the beginning an artificial state.
The British masters glued together several Ottoman provinces to suit their own
colonial interests. They crowned a Sunni Arab as king over the Kurds, who are
not Arab, and the Shi’ites, who are not Sunni. Only a succession of dictators,
each of them more brutal than his predecessor, prevented the state from falling
apart.
The Washington planners were not interested in the
history, demography, or geography of the country which they entered with brutal
force. The way it looked to them, it was quite simple: One had to topple the
tyrant, establish democratic institutions on the American model, conduct free
elections, and everything else would fall into place by itself.
Contrary to their expectations, they were not
received with flowers. Neither did they discover Saddam’s terrible atom bomb.
Like the proverbial elephant in the porcelain shop, they shattered everything,
destroyed the country, and got bogged down in a swamp.
After years of bloody military operations that led
nowhere, they found a temporary remedy. To hell with idealism, to hell with the
lofty aims, to hell with all military doctrines – they’re now simply buying off
the tribal chiefs, who constitute the reality of Iraq.
The quiet American has no idea how to get out. He
knows that if he does, the country may well disintegrate in mutual
bloodletting.
Two years before entering the Iraqi swamp, the
Americans invaded the Afghan quagmire.
Why? Because an organization called al-Qaeda
("the base") had claimed responsibility for the destruction of the
Twin Towers in New York. Al-Qaeda’s chiefs were in Afghanistan. Their training
camps were there. To the Americans, everything was clear – there was no need
for second thoughts (nor, for that matter, for first thoughts).
If they had had any knowledge of the country they
were about to invade, they might have, perhaps, hesitated. Afghanistan has
always been a graveyard for invaders. Mighty empires had escaped from there
with their tails between their legs. Unlike flat Iraq, Afghanistan is a country
of mountains, a paradise for guerrillas. It is the home of several different
peoples and uncounted tribes, each one fiercely jealous of its independence.
The Washington planners were not really
interested. For them, it seems, all countries are the same, and so are all
societies. In Afghanistan, too, American-style democracy must be established,
free and fair elections must be held, and hoppla – everything else will sort
itself out.
The elephant entered the shop without knocking and
achieved a resounding victory. The Air Force pounded, the army conquered
without problems, al-Qaeda disappeared like a ghost, the Taliban
("religious pupils") ran away. Women could again appear in the streets
without covering their hair, girls could attend schools, the opium fields
flourished again, and so did Washington’s protégés in Kabul.
However, the war goes on, year after year, the
number of American dead is rising inexorably. What for? Nobody knows. It seems
as if the war has acquired a life of its own, without aim, without reason.
An American could well ask himself: What the hell
are we doing there?
The immediate aim, the expulsion of al-Qaeda from
Afghanistan, has ostensibly been achieved. Al-Qaeda is not there – if it ever
really was there.
I wrote once that al-Qaeda is an America invention
and that Osama bin Laden has been sent by Hollywood’s Central Casting to play
the role. He is simply too good to be true.
That was, of course, a bit of an exaggeration. But
not altogether, The U.S. is always in need of a worldwide enemy. In the past it
was International Communism, whose agents were lurking behind every tree and
under every floor tile. But, alas, the Soviet Union and its minions collapsed,
so there was an urgent need for an enemy to fill the void. This was found in
the shape of the worldwide jihad of al-Qaeda. The crushing of "World
Terrorism" became the overriding American aim.
That aim is nonsense. Terrorism is nothing but an
instrument of war. It is used by organizations that are vastly different from
each other, which are fighting in vastly different countries for vastly
different objectives. A war on "International Terror" is like a war
on "International Artillery" or "International Navy."
A world-embracing movement led by Osama bin Laden
just does not exist. Thanks to the Americans, al-Qaeda has become a prestige
brand in the guerrilla market, much like McDonald’s and Armani in the worlds of
fast food and fashion. Every militant Islamist organization can appropriate the
name for itself, even without a franchise from bin Laden.
American client regimes, who used to brand all
their local enemies as "communist" in order to procure the help of
their patrons, now brand them as "al-Qaeda terrorists."
Nobody knows where bin Laden is – if he is at all
– and there is no proof of his being in Afghanistan. Some believe that he is in
neighbouring Pakistan. And even if he were hiding in Afghanistan, what
justification is there for conducting a war and killing thousands of people in
order to hunt down one person?
Some say: OK, so there is no bin Laden. But the
Taliban have to be prevented from coming back.
Why, for god’s sake? What business is it of the
U.S. who rules Afghanistan? One can loathe religious fanatics in general and
the Taliban in particular, but is this a reason for an endless war?
If the Afghans themselves prefer the Taliban to
the opium dealers who are in power in Kabul, it is their business. It seems
that they do, judging by the fact that the Taliban are again in control of most
of the country. That is no good reason for a Vietnam-style war.
But how do you get out? Obama does not know.
During the election campaign he promised, with a candidate’s foolhardiness, to
enlarge the war there, as a compensation for leaving Iraq. Now he is stuck in
both places – and in the near future, it seems, he will be stuck in a third
war, too.
During the last few days, the name of Yemen has
been cropping up more and more often. Yemen: a second Afghanistan, a third
Vietnam.
The elephant is raring to enter another shop. And
this time, too, it doesn’t care about the porcelain.
I know very little about Yemen but enough to
understand that only a madman would want to be sucked in there. It is another
artificial state, composed of two different parts – the country of Sanaa in the
North and the (former British) South. Most of the country is mountainous
terrain, ruled by bellicose tribes guarding their independence. Like
Afghanistan, it is an ideal region for guerrilla warfare.
There, too, is an organization that has adopted
the grandiose name of "al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula" (after the
Yemeni militants united with their Saudi brothers). But its chiefs are
interested in world revolution much less than in the intrigues and battles of
the tribes among themselves and against the "central" government, a
reality with a history of thousands of years. Only a complete fool would lay
his head on this bed.
The name Yemen means "country on the
right." (If one looks toward Mecca from the West, Yemen is on the right
side and Syria on the left.) The right side also connotes happiness, and the
name of Yemen is connected to al-Yamana, an Arabic word for being happy. The
Romans called it Arabia Felix ("Happy Arabia"), because it was rich
through trading in spices.
(By the way, Obama may be interested to hear that
another leader of a superpower, Caesar Augustus, once tried to invade Yemen and
was trounced.)
If the quiet American, in his usual mixture of
idealism and ignorance, decides to bring democracy and all the other goodies
there, that will be the end of this happiness. The Americans will sink into
another quagmire, tens of thousands of people will be killed, and it will all
end in disaster.
It may well be that the problem is rooted – inter
alia – in the architecture of Washington, D.C.
This city is full of huge buildings populated with
the ministries and other offices of the only superpower in the world. The
people working there feel the tremendous might of their empire. They look upon
the tribal chiefs of Afghanistan and Yemen as a rhinoceros looks down at the
ants that rush around between its feet. The rhino walks over them without
noticing. But the ants survive.
Altogether, the quiet American resembles
Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust, who defines himself as the force that
"always wants the bad and always creates the good." Only the other
way round.
- Uri Avnery is a peace activist, journalist, and
writer. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
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