Have
there been wars that, looking back, may be described as justified or that
created “progress?”
Or were
all wars pointless? Does it even make sense to ask this question?
Jean
Amery writes: One should not and must not leave the past undisturbed, or it may
rise once more and become a new present.
Let us
look at the wars in Iraq first. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. A few months
later, a Coalition led by the USA began the fighting to liberate Kuwait. Kuwait
was free just a few days later and the Iraqi troops suffered a devastating
loss.
In 2003,
a war was once again started in Iraq and led by the USA. The USA had suspected
Iraq’s dictator at the time, Saddam Hussein, to be in possession of Weapons of
Mass Destruction (WMD). They toppled Saddam Hussein and pursued the goal of
bringing a democratic government to power.
The
Liberation of Kuwait by the armies of the Coalition was, without a doubt, a
justified and successful operation.
In
contrast, the Invasion of Iraq, which consequentially led to the toppling of
the dictator, Saddam Hussein, must be described as a huge disaster.
The
claim that Saddam Hussein had been developing WMDs turned out to be false. It
is true that he supported terrorism and oppressed his people. But may
allegations as these legitimize military interventions in the future? The
Invasion of Iraq claimed many lives among Iraqi civilians and after the war was
over, the situation deteriorated and resembled a civil war. This was an
advantageous condition for terrorist attacks and the spread of the so-called
Islamic State.
The
intention to install a democratic government was completely unrealistic! The
hope remains that the insight finally asserts itself that democratic
governments can only be installed in countries with a population that is ready
for it.
Were any
lessons learned?
The
conflict in Syria began in 2011 with peaceful demonstrations which quickly
turned into armed clashes with the authoritarian regime of Assad. A large
number of armed groups fought for power, who also represented the interests of
foreign powers.
The
heterogeneity of the Syrian state and society leads to a great potential for
conflict. The Sunnis represent the majority of the population. The religious
minorities include Shiites (Alawites, Druze), Yazidi and Christians. President
Bashar al-Assad belongs to the Alawites. Most rebels were Sunni, who felt
oppressed by Assad.
Starting
in November 2012, the secret service CIA massively supported the rebels by
means of covered operations (Wikipedia: Civil War in Syria since 2011).
From
July 3013, the Obama Administrations only openly supported “moderate” rebels
with weapons.
The
“Islamic State” benefited from the chaos in Syria and quickly conquered large
areas of the country. It could only be pushed back once US and Russian fighter
jets intervened.
Half a
million Syrians have lost their lives due to the war and more than 5 million
have fled abroad.
Why did
the Syrian people have to suffer? The rebels, the Obama Administration and many
European states supported the removal of the despot, Assad. They received moral
support from renowned newspapers in the US and Europe. Most newspapers were of the
opinion that peace would not be possible with Assad in power.
Sure,
Assad is a dictator who can only cling to power using brutal violence. But what
is the alternative?
In
predominantly Muslim Syria, a culture dominates in which violence is and always
has been commonplace. The conflict between Sunni and Shia is not a new
phenomenon. 18 years after the Prophet Mohammed died, the Sunni and Shia
resolved their disputes in bloody conflicts. I do not believe that the West can
develop Syria into a functioning state.
The
violent toppling of Gaddafi in Libya has also not concluded in great success.
The military deployments of the West
described above were all carried out in foreign cultures.
The
conflicts in Yugoslavia occurred in the realm of our culture and a military
intervention there should therefore be rather successful.
NATO’s
intervention in Kosovo cannot be explained without the mass murder of
Srebrenica. People in the West felt guilty for not having intervened in
Srebrenica.
In 1999,
the conflict between Serbs and insurgent Kosovo-Albanians had reached a level
that made it impossible for the public to simply stand by. The intervention of
NATO was meant to protect Kosovo’s civilian population.
NATO
assumed that a few heavy air attacks against military targets would suffice to
make the Serbs change course. However, the Serbs only changed their actions
after civilian infrastructure was also targeted, which led to about 500
civilian casualties.
In the
end, the intervention brought about the contended independence of Kosovo, where
the weapons are now silent, however.
Are
there further wars or interventions that one could rate as a success today?
A
website titled “Wars of Humanity” lists more than 400 wars. We are no longer
concerned with most of these wars and can only discern why people budded heads
back then with great difficulty.
Yet the
War of Secession in the US still keeps our minds busy these days. There are
countless articles online and easily hundreds of books have been written about
the American Civil War. Yet only very few actually ask whether this war was
necessary and what would have happened, had it not been fought. When
Abraham Lincoln, who is seen as an opponent to slavery, was elected President, the
South seceded and proclaimed the Confederate States of America. Lincoln could
not accept the dissolution of the United States’ unity and started the Civil
War in 1861.
In 2015,
the Frankfurter Allgemeine wrote: “It was only by means of that war that the
USA could ascend to become a world power. The conflict revolutionized the
economy of the North.”
I,
however, have my doubts that the North’s economy would not have become stronger
even without the war. And even if that is the case, was it worth the death of
620,000 people - 2 percent of the American population?
In my
Pacifism post of November 2017 I wrote:
In
recent years there have been two principle reasons for armed conflict:
· Minorities without any autonomous rights
are held in the central state by force of arms in order to preserve the unity
of the states. How many deaths is the unity of a state worth? It should become
customary law that all minorities should be allowed to vote on how many
autonomous rights they wish to claim.
· Over the past two thousand years,
ideologies and religions have repeatedly led to catastrophic wars.
I
believe that the Confederate and Union States would have found a way back together
after several decades even without this bloody war and that the inhuman slavery
would also have been abolished in the South. The citizens of the North, who
wanted to use armed force to control the states of the South, certainly meant
well, but..... (cf. Foreign Policy of Oct. 2017).
The
question does arise whether it is appropriate to interpret US history as a
European. The assessment of the US Civil War still has an effect on the whole
world to this day. Because if you are of the opinion that Lincoln had to invade
the South to end slavery and preserve the Union, then you will take the same
view today - that governments that violate human rights must be overthrown by
use of force.
