September 10 , 2010
September: A Witness to Wars
Several world conflicts have started or ended in the month of September. The Second World War, the biggest of the twentieth century and in world history, started on September 1, 1939 and ended six years later on September 2, 1945. The latest, the war on terror, also started in September following the plane-bomb attacks of 9/11 nine years back. Its end is still not in sight.
September has also witnessed some significant episodes in the almost perennial Arab-Israel conflict. The eight-year long war between Iran and Iraq started in early September 1980. The Indo-Pakistan war of 1965 started on September 6 and ended seventeen days later on September 23, 1965. President Obama announced almost at the beginning of this September, on the evening of August 31 to be exact, the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq. That would write ‘finis’ to a highly controversial war initiated by President Bush.
WAR ON TERROR : From the viewpoint of a Pakistani-American, the on-going war on terror is perhaps the most significant. This is the first time that a war is being waged, without formal declaration, against a vaguely defined enemy and without dedicated efforts to eradicate the root cause that was not even acknowledged for a long time as the instigator of 9/11. The road map for the solution of the Palestine issue was presented after the occupation of Iraq. That too has unfortunately foundered on the rock of obstinacy by the concerned parties. Although not a single Pakistani was involved in the plane-bomb attacks of 9/11, immigrants of Pakistan have borne the brunt of the new restrictive immigration legislation. Of the 2,760 persons deported in 2002 under this dispensation, as many as 961, over 34 % were Pakistanis.
Like the traditional wars, the war on terror too has had severe negative impacts. The extent of its astronomical cost to the US taxpayer is still to be worked out. The expenditures on the operations in Iraq alone have cost the exchequer over one billion dollars a week. The war on Iraq was vehemently opposed throughout the world. The demonstrations against the war were unprecedented in world history.
There isn’t any Kuwait or Saudi Arabia to pick up the bill this time. President Bush’s ill-conceived deployment of gunboat diplomacy in invading Iraq may have reduced the level of Iraq’s strategic threat to Israel, but the astronomical cost to the US tax payers betrays a breach of trust by the Bush administration.
INDO-PAKISTAN WAR (Sept 6-23, 1965): Carried away by their chauvinism and enthusiasm, Pakistan’s spin-doctors of that period projected the outcome of the ‘65 war as a great victory of a small army over a five times bigger force. The claim was not without substance; Pakistan’s armed forces did give an excellent account of their courage and mettle. But, the war could not succeed in its basic objective of wrenching Kashmir from the grip of India.
The media, which had been totally tamed and made to abdicate its adversary role, continued to play up the euphoria of victory at the behest of official media managers. In such a milieu came the Tashkent Declaration of January 1966 signed by President Ayub and Prime Minister Shastri. This statesman-like act elicited an adverse reaction, an anti-climax, in West Pakistan that was in a victorious, celebratory mood.
The Tashkent Declaration was characterized as Ayub Khan’s unnecessary capitulation to India.
The people of East Pakistan, on the other hand, had felt abandoned during the war and left in the lurch by the Punjab-dominated armed forces. The seeds of secession had started germinating.
The political parties, particularly the newly setup PPP of Z.A. Bhutto, jumped upon the opportunity to pressure Ayub to quit. Within a month of the Declaration, a national conference was held in Lahore where opposition parties convened in February 1966 to identify points of common interest. The ensuing agitation forced President Ayub to quit. He handed over power to the then C-in-C, Gen.Yahya, instead of the Speaker of the Parliament as required under the Constitution. A power-seeking Bhutto maneuvered this aberration of Ayub to take the country to a war with India leading to the independence of Bangladesh, surrender of Pakistan’s army and presentation of power on a platter to Bhutto.
SECOND WORLD WAR (Sept. 1, 1939 to Sept. 2, 1945): More has been written about this than about any other war. It claimed more than 50 million lives, decimated great centers of civilization, cost an enormous amount of $1.154 trillion, and changed the course of history such as few events before or after. Its legacy still grips mankind. It ended the ascendancy of Europe that had endured since the collapse of Muslim Spain in 1492 and the halt to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire following the death of Suleyman the Magnificent in 1566. The war sapped the intellectual vitality of Europe, brought its vast empires to the brink of collapse, and passed world leadership to two new giants – the USA and the Soviet Union.
The war also served as a midwife for inventions. Its role as a catalyst for change, innovation, research and development has really changed the shape of things as never before in human history.
For the US, the war was a blessing in disguise. The demand for consumer goods, apart from arms and ammunition, transport and fighter planes, war vessels and other equipment, pulled the country out of the ruined and colorless landscape of the Depression.It cemented its final rise to world power with relatively light losses, about 300,000 casualties. This figure is dwarfed when compared with the losses of Germany: 5.6 million, Japan: 2.3 million, China: 10 million, and the Soviet Union: a staggering 20 million. The US was unique among the combatants in being neither invaded nor bombed.
Germany and Japan, though defeated and humiliated in the war, have succeeded, over the past 66 years, in emerging as economic giants of modern world. They have vindicated the finding of Prof. Arnold Toyenbee, the well-known historian, that the rise or fall of a nation depends on how it responds to a critical national challenge. It was evidently the unremitting struggle of these two great and gifted nations that enabled them to come out of their darkest period. Both have been registering for years enormous surpluses in their trade with the US. And, both have had a great advantage. The disarmament imposed on them by victorious allies had obviated the need for them to spend money on defense. They have achieved in peace what they had failed to get through war – a substantial share in world market. The victors of Europe, on the other hand, lost their colonies and the captive markets.
SOME CONCLUSIONS:
* War is the “story of senseless butchery” in the words of historian John Green. Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace” portrays eminently the horrors of the Napoleonic war in which the great military leader’s army was ruthlessly destroyed in 1812 in Russia. No army is thus invincible.
* It would be in the national interest of the US to re-evaluate the fruits and failures of its bellicose policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. Perhaps the US objectives could have been better achieved through peaceful measures in concert with the world community. The Bush administration sought the UN cooperation only when it wanted to see its chestnuts pulled from the fire!
* The war in Iraq has aggravated further the antipathy of the Arab states towards Israel which has to, in all circumstances, survive in that very region.
* The challenges posed by the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars could have been turned into fruitful responses of an inherently dynamic people of Pakistan had they been led not by intellectually ill-equipped Generals or self-serving politicians who fooled the people by drawing visions of a glorious future. The leaders must be made to realize that they should come clean with the people and take them into confidence. The people will astonish them by rising up to the challenge and working harder than expected to achieve national goals
* Many of the ills of Pakistani society may be traced to poverty and illiteracy. Priorities of national effort and expenditure will have to be reworked to overcome these. Feudalism, which thrives on the illiteracy of the serfs, will have to be done away with. Defense expenditure will have to be cut down to divert the savings towards education. What is needed is a well-planned army of scientists, technicians, engineers of the lowest to the highest level.
* All conflicts point to the reality that a war, no matter how successful it might appear, turns out eventually to be a national misfortune. The cold war kept enervating the Soviet Union till it collapsed; the “long war” on terror is unlikely to present a different scenario.
arifhussaini@hotmail.com
