Guest Comment: The Surge: A limited perspective

The military surge in Baghdad has been lauded by our leaders and political pundits, as a great success. Negative perceptions, of what persists as a lethal and costly conflict in the war torn Islamic areas, have become more optimistic. Casual estimates of how long our troops will remain militarily active in the Middle East, range from 5 to 100 years.

Previous urgency has been dissipated considerably, as reflected in recent polls. While any reduction in the death of our soldiers is a unqualified blessing, a broader perspective of recent development of the conflict in the Middle East, Asia, and even North Africa, indicates that an upbeat view is dead wrong.

Aside from very recent increases in suicide bombings and deaths of innocent civilians, there is a consensus that a many celled al-Qaeda is now expanding its military training and activity in an larger area (i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Africa). It continues to play its military hide and seek game, while the Iraqi army and police remain notoriously unable ( or unwilling) to insure security on the ground.

The Taliban controls sizable sections of Afganistan and Pakistan. The latter remains an unstable and fragile ally, Iran steadfastly continues it quest for the bomb, the Israeli- Palestinian peace plans are shattered, and Turkey is now engaged in a mounting conflict with the Kurds. Perhaps, most ominous of all, the political and military impasse between the Shia and the Sunni remains strong and lethal as ever.

Mike McConnel, director of National Intelligence, reports that al-Qaeda is now better able to hit the United States that ever before.

Secretary of Defense Gates opines that Afganistan itself is loon-fing as a “failed state,” if our friends fail to contribute more troops than they seem to be willing to do. In this context, it is ludicrous to take heart about the surge in a limited area and time span.

Aside from the horrors of the war itself, the monetary costs continue to rise astronomically; some estimates exceed three trillion dollars, with no end in sight. Not only has there been an ominous rise in our national debt, which our children will inherit, but it prevents solutions of pressing domestic problems such as economic stagnation, health, education, alternative energy, social security, an eroding infrastructure, and traditional civil rights.

While our legitimate needs for oil are clear, there are more humanistic and efficient means to achieve these by the use of diplomacy, compromise, and collective cooperation.

There are also carrots and sticks; we are still the most powerful nation in the world. At stake are human lives, national treasure, and yes--perhaps our democracy. The fact that Halliburton, Bechtel, and Harken Energy companies will have to make do with smaller profits, and have less management and market control of Md-East oil, is not worth the cost and loss of moral high-ground.

Unfortunately, our propensity to try solutions other than the military, are hindered by the rigid view of the current administration and a considerable portion of our citizenry that the Islamic uprising consists of fundamentalist crazies and terrorists whose sole desire is to “KILL” us.

Consequently, the only alternative is to fight a war for our survival . However bizarre and outlandish their behavior appears, it is a serious error to tar the entire movement.

There are also many well-educated and democratically inclined individuals in the population whose voices are now silenced by the insults of war and occupation. In its depth, the uprising represents a cry of despair brought on by centuries of stagnation, under despotic rulers and foreign exploitation.

The chaotic violence of today foretells of a prolonged civilizational movement that is but in its infancy. Without doubt, it will influence our lives and those of our children. Only in a context of peace will they be able to form a stable society and solve the painfully slow trials and errors that arise with technological and cultural modernization.

Their own pragmatic solutions, rather than imposed or imported ideologies, will determine the form it will take. Years of guns and military occupation will not prevail.

Seymour Parker is a retired anthropologist. He and his wife Hilda moved to Green Valley in 1998. The views expressed are the writer's own and do not reflect those of this newspaper.