Michel's Commentary
 
by Michel Dresser

12/19/2001  888WebToday

It seems just like yesterday, that the American people were being overwhelmed with the prospect of a long and bitter war in Afghanistan.

The military pundits and armchair generals were filling the newspapers and airwaves with the grim specter of Korea in 1951. American armed forces would find themselves bogged down with the one thing that General Douglas MacArthur said we should avoid at all costs -- a ground war in Asia.

The bombing campaign was not working.  Our allies were a contemptible and cowardly lot who were spending more time quarreling with themselves than fighting the enemy.  The coalition was coming apart.  Pakistan would desert us -- the government there might even fall; and the supporters of Al Qaeda would come to power -- acquiring the atomic weapons now in the possession of our Pakistani friends.  Then we would be stranded in the mountains in the wintertime, surrounded by enemies.  We would have to fight our way out in a bloody retreat, like the Marines at the Chosin reservoir in that terrible winter in Korea a half century ago.  Only this time, our enemies would have "the bomb" to use against us.

Winston Churchill was right when he wrote that anybody who embarks upon war moves into an impenetrable fog.  No one can say for certain how it will turn out; and, in fact, the scenario they wrote seemed to have a certain plausibility ...a certain likelihood.

What was remarkable was the haste with which they drew their conclusions.  The bombing campaign, for instance, was only a few weeks old when they had already decided that it was a failure.  It seemed as though they almost wanted us to fail.

Our quick and easy victory will, therefore, come as a disappointment to these pre-emptive pessimists.

Now one thing is predictable, assuming that our military adventure in Afghanistan is not the preliminary to another round with Iraq --- America's sons and daughters may soon be marching home again.

When that happens, we will soon hear of how our tactics were wrong, our generalship was inept and our equipment was terribly faulty.

This has happened after every American war.  Even after the Gulf War, we learned that our highly praised anti-missile missiles were not nearly as effective in shooting down those Iraqi scud missiles as we thought.

Before the Gulf War, there were also plenty of pessimists.  The Iraqi army was the greatest in the Middle East.  It was fanatically loyal to Saddam Hussein, who promised "the mother of all wars."  The Baath Party would give us a blood bath.  We won with miraculous ease -- in spite of all the mistakes the experts later claimed we made.  It will be the same this time.

Maybe GOD is really on our side -- Theodore Roosevelt said, "The American people are slow to wrath, but when their wrath is once kindled it burns like a consuming flame"... is so true.

I am certain that in years to come, we will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contributions to humanity.

And those are my thoughts....................
 
 

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