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Anderson: As U.S. activates its military, others do too

By Joshua Anderson

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Oct. 7 marked the seven-year anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the so-called War on Terror. Despite this and the fact that we live in the information age, the vast majority of Americans are still unaware of the many fronts of the conflict.

Dan Thompson took the words from my mouth when he wrote in his column for The University Daily Kansan on Oct. 6 that the war in Iraq was being fought by the military, not the nation. Waging war is too easy, he asserts, making it possible for Washington to wage “grand campaigns in distant corners of the world with only the slightest inconvenience to most of us.”

Distant corners, like Waziristan, are quite possibly the next Sudan, where the War on Terror has been raging for four years.

Waziristan, a mountainous region in northwest Pakistan, has seen an escalation in fighting between the Pakistani Army, the Taliban and tribal paramilitary groups. The number of displaced people could be as high as 300,000, with some 20,000 refugees crossing into Afghanistan.

Pakistan is no stranger to the U.S.-led war on terror: Its borders have constantly paid the price of our activity in Afghanistan, and the Bush administration has constantly put pressure on its leadership to do something about the influence of al-Qaida and the Taliban in the mountainous northern regions.

As early as 2004 the Pakistani military has in some form or another waged their part in the War on Terror.

Patience in Pakistan, however, is wearing thin. The emergence of a more proactive tribal paramilitary, which resists both the fascism of the Taliban and the recklessness of the Army, is a sign that the populace is more than fed up with the chaos.

It is, after all, their people — normal civilians ­— who bear the brunt of this war. The United States, for our part, disregards the sovereignty of Pakistan, sending helicopters and unmanned drones into Waziristan. Pakistani troops fired on a couple of American helicopters, forcing them to turn back.

The government and military of the United States desperately needs to learn that it cannot trounce upon the sovereignty of any nation at its whim, and we cannot disregard the autonomy of the regions we meddle while we wage our war.

We didn’t think the consequences of our actions spread from the Middle East to south Asia and beyond.

The American people need to take a proactive stance in learning where this war is being fought and by whom. In so many parts of the world, as in Waziristan, innocent civilians are paying the price of our actions.

— Anderson is a Perry junior in creative writing.

Comments

Mike (anonymous) says...

Ok let's just pack it in and head home. Forget about all the innocent American civilians that died a little over seven years ago. Let's just sign some treaties and impose some sanctions and hope they don't do it again.

October 15, 2008 at 10:13 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Abita (anonymous) says...

It has become clear that Pakistan hasn’t been trying to stop Taliban fighters from using the area as a safe haven for launching attacks on the U.S. While the U.S. has tried to find Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the region (the same people who planned attacks like 9/11, the Cole bombing and numerous others), the Pakistani military has largely allowed those people to hide in their backyard. We weren't stationing troops there or occupying the country. We were sending incredibly small amounts of soldiers in for very specific reasons.
You think if we just leave them alone this all goes away magically. It's not just about Americans. When we leave, drug lords and Taliban forces with political agendas have their way with the people there. We aren't trying to get something out of this. We are trying to provide peace to the people in the area, more safety at home and we are trying to do it with a modicum of support from Pakistan.

October 15, 2008 at 11:34 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

sjschlag (anonymous) says...

"Ok let's just pack it in and head home. Forget about all the innocent American civilians that died a little over seven years ago. Let's just sign some treaties and impose some sanctions and hope they don't do it again."

This statement completely ignores who carried out the attacks on 9/11. So many people who support these wars fail to realize that it was a small terrorist organization that attacked us, not a country. This makes it more difficult to apprehend the people who commit such acts, and makes it difficult to unite the populace against a common enemy. There will be no treaties, no sanctions, because you cannot sanction a terrorist/guerilla organization bent on chaos.

"It has become clear that Pakistan hasn’t been trying to stop Taliban fighters from using the area as a safe haven for launching attacks on the U.S."

First off, most attacks against the US have been happening on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. Second off, Pakistan has been going through tremendous political upheaval right now. Didn't Pervez Musharraf suspend the constitution over there and declare martial law because of these terrorist goons? Isn't most of their military too busy trying to keep order in their own country to look for Osama Bin Laden?

Also, you people seem to forget that anyone can be a terrorist, regardless of where they live, what nationality they are and what religion they believe in. It is true that Osama and Friends have done this before, but what about freaks like the Unabomber? What about the guy who did the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols and that other guy. They were home grown, coming from right here in midwestern america. Maybe we should be looking for those kinds of people here...

October 17, 2008 at 7:23 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

trevorc (anonymous) says...

Our concentration on Iraq and diverting funds and troops over there is making it difficult to end the war in Afghanistan. I wish we could have completed one war before starting another. As far as Pakistan goes, it is a fox wearing a sheep skin. Its intelligence agency is out of control and tilts towards the fundamentalists than towards the democratically elected government. When Musharaff was the "president" (read dictator). He controlled the whole country with absolute power. It is only after the democratically elected government came into power that stability has been affected in both pakistan and afghanistan. Pakistan is the more unstable country compared to afghanistan.

October 18, 2008 at midnight ( | suggest removal )

Abita (anonymous) says...

Looking for people like the Unabomber and our work in Afghanistan are much the same thing. While we are trying to help Afghanistan create a democratic country, most of our work is rooting out extremists who pose a threat the U.S. and world peace
SJSCGHLAG, you're right that most attacks on U.S. troop occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq. But, recently many of the attacks in Afghanistan have been launched out of Pakistan. When our troops go looking for Taliban fighters, they have found that they are hiding in Pakistan. We weren't entering Pakistan to look for them under the agreement that Pakistan's military was looking for them. It turns out they weren't helping at all and in some cases, helping the Taliban.
This isn't Vietnam. We are fighting to keep America safe. No matter who the president is, we will always be fighting extremism somewhere.

October 19, 2008 at 8:57 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

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