18 September 2004

The Afghan Wars

There is the anniversary of a war this week. It has a name, as American Wars do these days, and this one was called Operation Enduring Freedom. But there have been so many  wars and murders in that high place that every day could commemorate one. They don't seem to stop, though there are decades here and there where peace breaks out.

I looked up Kipling's poem about the young British solider when the last one started. It was gloomy, and this was before he lost his son in the First War and he lost some of his imperial fervor.

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan 's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd like a soldier."

It summed up my mood. I did not feel good about the coming conflict. It was not that I doubted the efficacy of the plans, since we are excellent planners. We have contingency plans for all manner of things on the shelf, ready for execution. But I rarely feel good at the beginning of a war. Any of them. So many things can go wrong.

It is also hard to keep all the wars straight, so I assign them by personal experience. This would be the anniversary of my second Afghan war. The Brits had three of them before finally throwing in the towel.

I have a copy of the Victorian painting by Lady Butler that depicts Dr. Brydon, approaching the mud-walls of Jalalabad in 1842. He was the sole survivor of the British occupation force at Kabul, Lady Butler's artistic reputation has waxed and waned over the years, but this portrait of the lone horseman, face drawn in anguish and horror, is one that stands alone.

Afghanistan is a hard place. The last to really conquer it is said to be Alexander the Great, but it may be that he just died before the tribesmen could get to him. As for Dr. Brydon, the supposition was that they let him get away to tell the tale.

The four thousand soldiers and twelve thousand women and children who had been with him were strewn lifeless in the snow, and in some places where the wind blows hard across the passes, you can still find unburied bones bleached white by the sun.

And some say the ones that died quickly were the lucky ones.

But the past is the past. Now the towers were down and we had to retaliate. While the Pentagon still burned, the war plan was taken down from the shelf at the Central Command, the orders were issued, and ships and aircraft and troops began to move to the East.

Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra