I recently watched “American Sniper” which captured the
story of a Navy Seal, Chris Kyle, whose multiple tours of duty resulted in PTSD
that he addressed ultimately by helping other veterans. The tragic end of his
life was sad beyond words.
However, I want to share my perspective of our military
involvement in situations, like Iraq and Afghanistan. I have repeatedly shared
the viewed with others who consider our military as extraordinarily skilled,
capable to doing achieving great success when dealing with what the military
can deal with. The military is not omnipotent. My most frequent guide to this notion has been AndrewBacevich whose credentials are beyond question.
Chris Kyle was clearly a skilled marksman. He became
distinguished with his achievements. But, as I watched the film, I could not
help but notice incongruence between the US military and operations that
appeared to be consistently “police actions”, i.e., identify a person who
“appears” to be an enemy and kill him. This type of operation at times ends up
identifying innocent people who become unintended casualties. But, watching the
operations involved a group of military being escorted by armored vehicles
searching neighborhoods to identify an enemy seems to me so disproportionate to
reality.
I am not suggesting that there is no need for some military
to identify and, even kill, people who represent danger to our well being or
that of innocent civilians. But, the numbers of military involved in our
strategy and the associated costs seem so disproportionate to reality. After
WWII, the history of our military’s involvement in war has been rather
consistent in failure. When combating nation states, our military can do well.
When faced with committed individuals with allegiance to ideas, we have
achieved much success.
I recall the various options considered in response to 9/11. The only one then, and now, that made sense was to consider our military strategy within the context of a “police action”. Identifying people who want to harm us and our interests as the target is more than reasonable. To go from the need to kill or capture our enemies to the amount of resources expended in Afghanistan and Iraq seemed disproportionate to reality and hoped for success.
