Mil­i­tary his­to­ry is lit­tered with exam­ples of out-num­bered and out-gunned, rag-tag forces out­last­ing well-trained, weapons-rich enemies.

Afghanistan is but the latest.

On Octo­ber 2, 2001 Pres­i­dent George W Bush announced that the U.S. mil­i­tary had launched strikes “against al-Qae­da ter­ror­ist train­ing camps…”…and…“to attack the mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ty of the Tal­iban regime.”

Var­i­ous­ly described as armed insur­gents, hard-line Islamists, repres­sive zealots, extrem­ists, ter­ror­ists and just plain cra­zies, the Tal­iban are also quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Afghan in their tenacity.

Moun­tain­ous, land-locked and peren­ni­al­ly impov­er­ished, Afghanistan has been invad­ed by Alexan­der the Great, Genghis Khan, Timur, the Mughal, British, Sikh and var­i­ous Per­sian empires, and the Sovi­et Union. None of them man­aged to ful­ly con­trol the coun­try for a sig­nif­i­cant period.

The Afghans won by refus­ing to accept defeat.

                                     TERRORISTS UNBOWED

A decade after Osama Bin Laden was killed, the Tal­iban is still in bed with al-Qae­da, which has  a pres­ence in more coun­tries than it had on 9/11.

 An analy­sis piece on the For­eign Pol­i­cy Research Insti­tute web­site notes that “2021 could prove to be a ban­ner year for al-Qae­da as it seeks to reassert itself through affil­i­ates around the globe.”

Espous­ing local trib­al griev­ances has con­ferred polit­i­cal legit­i­ma­cy for al-Qae­da in West Africa and the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la. It is believed to have as many as 40,000 fight­ers avail­able. Among them are off-shoots that include al-Shabab in Somalia.

                         THE MOTLEY VERSUS THE MIGHTY

U.S. Marines went into Soma­lia in 1992 under the ban­ner of Oper­a­tion Restore Hope, part of a joint effort with UN troops to enable aid work­ers to safe­ly deliv­er food to famine victims. 

They suc­ceed­ed admirably in the human­i­tar­i­an aspect of the mis­sion, but fell far short of the sec­ondary goal of restor­ing order to a piti­less land­scape, ruled by a patch­work of ruth­less clan mili­tias and warlords.

Soma­li mili­ti­a­men were wiry thin, wore sarongs and san­dals made from old car tires and roared about in “tech­ni­cals” — pick­ups with a vari­ety of weapons bolt­ed on.

The body-armour-clad Marines dubbed them “skin­nies”.

The Amer­i­cans had a vast array of supe­ri­or fire­pow­er, but were sub­ject to strict and in some ways per­plex­ing, rules of engage­ment. Use of dead­ly force, the only kind the mili­ti­a­men respect­ed — espe­cial­ly when high on their after­noon qat (a chew­able nar­cot­ic weed) habit — was severe­ly constrained.

The Soma­lis had no rules, and showed a remark­able abil­i­ty to adapt. One man took down a U.S. heli­copter with an RPG (rock­et-pro­pelled grenade). When the Marines pulled out in the wake of what became known as “Black­hawk Down”, loot­ers and mili­ti­a­men swarmed over the back wall of the U.S. embassy com­pound in Mogadishu even as the Amer­i­can staff we scam­per­ing out the front door.

                                     FIREPOWER SHRUGGED OFF                       

The ignominy echoed. The Viet Cong fought with­out ben­e­fit of heavy armour, heli­copters or air cov­er, with­stood Agent Orange and the “rolling thun­der” of B‑52 car­pet bomb­ing, and by any mea­sure, won.

In 1983 the bat­tle­ship USS New Jer­sey was deployed off the Lebanese coast. Its 30 cm (12 inch) guns were sup­posed to intim­i­date Syr­i­an-allied Lebanese mili­tia forces in the hills over­look­ing Beirut air­port, where U.S. Marines were based as part of a multi­na­tion­al peace­keep­ing mission.

Young Lebanese mocked the effort with a T‑shirt imprint­ed with an out­line of the New Jer­sey sil­hou­et­ted against a set­ting sun, and the words: “Alive & Tanned Sum­mer 1983 Beirut.”

After months on sta­tion, the ship lobbed half a dozen “shells the size of Volk­swa­gens” (1,200 kgs/2,700 pounds each) into the hills.

The New Jer­sey had last fired in anger in Viet­nam, which makes one won­der about the Pen­ta­gon denizens’ sense of irony, nev­er mind history.

The 24 cm (9 inch)-long piece of shrap­nel I sal­vaged as a sou­venir from a mas­sive hole one of the shells blast­ed in a rocky hill­side 16 kms (10 miles) or so from the coast, weighs 3.6 kgs (8 lbs) and has edges sharp enough to slice flesh open.

Accord­ing to Syr­i­an troops and Lebanese mili­ti­a­men at the site, none of their posi­tions were hit, dam­aged, or abandoned.

And it’s not just the “good guys” who can’t elim­i­nate irri­tants, or deter­mined ene­mies. Sad­dam Hus­sein deployed tanks, air pow­er and poi­son gas against Iraqi Kurds in a mer­ci­less cam­paign code-named al-Anfal, (The Spoils of War).

 

Sad­dam is long dead, and the Kur­dish forces, known as Pesh Mer­ga (Those Who Face Death) are now the de fac­to army of north­ern Iraq. Ear­li­er this year the U.S. gave them $12.5‑million in mil­i­tary aid.

                                   MONEY WON’T BUY VICTORY

Mean­while, bare­ly two months after U.S. forces offi­cial­ly began with­draw­ing from Afghanistan, the Tal­iban have report­ed­ly tak­en over more than 50 dis­tricts, and show no signs of waver­ing in the face of U.S.-trained reg­u­lar Afghan forces, who are going to be fund­ed to the tune of $3.3‑billion .

The beard­ed ‘Tal­ibs’, whose bat­tle wag­ons are motor­bikes and pick­up trucks, want to re-impose cen­turies old rules and norms on Afghan society.

Mod­ern his­to­ry says they may well get the chance.

All of which is grim­ly summed up by a quote by Cana­di­an author Ronald Wright: “Each time his­to­ry repeats itself, the price goes up.”

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