The war that may shape our lives
By Manuel García Sánchez
Apache Co-editor
Last century was marked by a number of wars that influenced the lives of millions of Americans. This new century has been already marked by the heartbreaking events on Sept. 11, 2001. Mainly due to that shameless attack, the US has engaged in a war, the war against terrorism.
This war will shape the lives of a new American generation. According to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, this war is going to be long, at least two years.
At this moment, war is being battled in both fronts: at home preventing terrorist attacks and in Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban. Historians are already studying this new conflict. One way of dealing with this event is to compare it with previous wars in which the United States was involved.
Stephen Charry, history instructor, said that we don’t know yet what this war is going to be like.
In these early stages, there are some similarities between Vietnam and this current conflict. Geographically Afghanistan is similar to Vietnam in some extent; both countries are located in Asia and both belong to underdeveloped non-industrial societies. Afghanistan is 9,000 miles away from American borders.
Charry said during the Vietnam War, Americans viewed the Vietnamese culture as very different from American culture, and today many people perceive the Taliban and many in the middle east as very different.
“We are fighting against a culture that is very different from American culture.” Charry said. “There are cultural, religious, political, and social differences even though there is a large Muslim presence here in the U.S.”
“Another similarity is the escalation of war,” Charry said. “We are using bombing strategy to try to achieve a certain sort of victory.”
In Vietnam, Americans tried heavy bombing and it did not work very successfully. A lot of innocent civilians were injured.
“So far the targets seem to be more selected but I am sure that there are some civilians getting injured and killed,” he said.
One more similarity is the incremental approach of troops being sent. In the late 50’s early 60’s, the US sent small number of troops to Vietnam. Those troops were not engaged in combat; officially, they were advisors for the South Vietnamese.
Likewise, the U.S. is now supporting the Northern Alliance.
However, Charry already sees a big difference: “The Cold War does not exist anymore.”
The U.S. is not preventing any kind of communist influence. This is not a fight against Afghanistan itself but against a terrorist group. On the other hand, there is a war against a perceived threat to the U.S.
When talking about some kind of justification for this conflict, Charry admits that there is not an easy answer.
However, he said, “There is clear justification for tracking down and defending against those people who perpetrated those ghastly crimes on Sept. 11.”
An interesting aspect of this conflict is that during the Reagan Administration, the U.S. supported financially and in a variety of other ways the various groups that were fighting against the Soviets trying to win independence for Afghanistan.
“Ironically, one of those groups was Bin Laden himself,” said Charry.
The Palestine and Israel long-lasting conflict is a factor that may also have pushed this situation; particularly, due to the American support to Israel which has obsessed a lot of people in the Middle East.
“It does play a factor in to the overall grievances and animosities that some people have against the U.S., against the West,” Charry said.
Although there have been reports of civilian casualties, the truth is that there are a number of them that have not been reported by the mainstream U.S. media. Propaganda is playing a big role in this war.
Charry said, “Historically, this is not untypical in the early stages of the war in American history for the media to jump on the bandwagon as far as touting, for the most part, the administration’s line.”
This goes back to World War I with the government agency called the “Committee on Public Information,” which was a propaganda tool of the government to disseminate information about how the war was going.
In order to find the most objective and unbiased information Charry said that it is there, but it is necessary to look for it.
“It is not on the mainstream media, but it is there.”