|
 here's
been much discussion both on this website and in other publications
about the size and scope of the coalition being formed to fight
terror. While arguments can be made in favor of both sides, a review
of recent American military actions demonstrates the foolhardiness
of the so-called broad coalition. The Somalia conflict, Kosovo war,
and Gulf War — all these are examples where the American desire
to keep the fighting alliances as broad as possible either cost
American lives or helped prevent the U.S. from achieving its goals.
If prior history
is any guide, a broad coalition could cost American lives. In 1993,
American forces deployed to Somalia as part of Operation Restore
Hope began to focus their work on capturing allies of warlord Mohammed
Aidid. The U.S. attempted to use elite Rangers and Delta Force soldiers
to go after the criminals seen as responsible for the famine in
that country. (This work is not unlike what they may be asked to
do against the "prime suspect" Osama bin Laden.) The American
attempts to capture Aidid were repeatedly thwarted by Italian forces,
operating in Somalia under the United Nations flag. "The Italians
were not happy about the war the Americans were fighting against
us," one Aidid militia commander said on a 1998 Frontline
documentary Ambush in Mogadishu. "We had an understanding
with some U.N. contingents that we would not attack them, and they
would not attack us."
According to
Mark Bowden's classic account of the Somalia war, the Italians were
actually in league with the Somali forces. "You had some Italians,
some of them openly sympathetic to their former colonial subjects
who appeared to be flashing signals with their headlights out into
the city whenever the [American] helicopters took off. Nobody had
the balls to do anything about it." Everyone knows the result
of this stab-in-the-back from our allies: the spectacle of dead
American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
If that's what the Italians were willing to do, who knows what elements
within the Syrian or Palestinian Authority may do if they are brought
into the anti-bin Laden alliance.
Relying on
a large coalition of European allies also hindered the American
war effort in Kosovo in 1999. While he hasn't said much about it
during his myriad of television appearances recently, General Wesley
Clark, the former NATO commander, rails against the obstacles the
Europeans put up in prosecuting that war in his recently released
memoir Waging Modern War. First, the European allies required
that Clark's bombing targets be approved in advance — a fact
that not only slowed up the war effort but risked compromising classified
information. "Back in October, one of the French officers working
at NATO headquarters had given key portions of the operations plan
to the Serbs," Clark writes. Later, the Europeans objected
to Clark's desire to bring in necessary Apache helicopters —
let alone ground troops — and to America's bombing a troublesome
Serb airbase in Montenegro, "a matter of protecting our American
and NATO forces," according to Clark.
But if all
that is not enough, remember the 1991 Gulf War. All the great alliance
— which included such nations and Syria and Egypt — helped
accomplish was keeping Saddam Hussein in power. The American forces
were within one day of wiping out Hussein's Republican Guards, by
then retreating to Baghdad, when Bush gave General Norman Schwarzkopf
the OK to sign an armistice with Iraq. Bush did this mindful to
Arab sensitivities. Many of the Arab regimes felt they could not
survive if they were seen in collusion with an American massacre
of Iraqis.
All these examples
seemingly give serious pause to anyone saying that the American
anti-terror coalition should be as broad as possible. It should.
American lives are at stake.
|
