Addressing the U.S troops in an unannounced trip to Afghan-istan, President Obama has emphatically renewed his resolve to defeat and destroy the adversaries the Americans and their allies are fighting there. The ‘adversaries’ or the enemies there are none other than the notoriously legendary AlQaeda and the Mulla Omar-led Taliban.
In the course of re-confirming this resolve, President Obama has made a statement that, though sounds patriotic and heroic, has no relevance with the facts of recent history.
“We don’t leave a job un-finished,” President Obama has said. “When we embark upon a mission, we complete it.”
After the Second World War, the missions that America undertook, were the defeat of Hanoi in Vietnam, and the conquest of North Korea.
The Korean campaign proved to be a fiasco in the sense that 56 years later North Korea is still a pain in Washington’s neck. It was when all hope of a U.S victory was lost that an end to the Korean war was engineered and arranged.
I have memories of a cartoon that appeared in an Istanbul daily in those days and that was reproduced in a book later. In this cartoon’s one illustration, an American lady was shown in the clutches of a Korean brute—about to be dishonoured. In the other illustration, a soldier was seen standing on a cliff, and the Korean brute was shown running away (for his life). The caption was:
“But for the prompt arrival of the Turkish soldier.”
To elaborate this statement, it is stated that Turkey had provided decisive ‘troops’ support to the Americans in the dying days of that war. These Turks known as the ‘Bravest Braves Brigade’ helped Americans to avert a disaster.
As for the Vietnam War, the fiasco needs no elaboration.
The indications are that the Afghanistan adventure too is going to meet a similar fate for the U.S ‘missionaries’. In this case the face-saving act may well be performed by the Pakistan Army. The Crescent in the Korean War was red. In Afghan war it is green.
(This Column was first published on 30-03-2010)
- Latest
- Trending
