WIX Archives
Re: When is an enemy no longer an enemy, and who decides?
Posted by Joe on Fri Apr 12, 2002 12:18:56 PM
In reply top When is an enemy no longer an enemy, and who decides? posted by Karen on Fri Apr 12, 2002 08:36:57 AM
Karen,
Warfare has changed back and forth over the centuries in its causes, motives and goals. Nobody decides anything in a literal sense regarding when enemies are now friends, as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, if they existed in a modern sense would still be regarded as enemy states. The destruction of the Nazi war machine was immense, and remembering it in a nostalgic way gives meaning to the USAAF/RAF effort to destroy it. Without remembrance of how good they were, and their incredible losses, it is impossible to justify our own losses, regardless of the political reasoning. For lovers of aircraft, our reverence for the aircraft overlooks any sins the aircraft committed when in action, at least initially anyway.
As for the normalization of relations with the groups you refer to, it hinges upon this. Taliban was a unique movement, a rigid anti technology, anti couter thought group. It required fervent zeal, a target to fight and large uneducated, unconnected people base. The people that lived in its spell had horrifying years of war behind them, and any peace, even under their mullah's guns was better than before. Culturally it was a counter movement, against the tide of English Language and American culture that dominates the world. How can the Taliban recover? They cannot. The current administration hinged its survival on their destruction. Will we be normal with Afganistan? Yes. And will ex Taliban hoods/warlords be on the payroll? Yes again. Patton himself hired Germans to help manage Germany in 1945, so this is not much different. But no historian will ever revere Taliban fighters unless he/she is a very misguided person, or going to law school. They did not live with honor. They do not kill with honor. They cannot fight honorably. And they have no glory in their deaths.
They fatally underestimated foreign ability after dealing with the Russians for so long.
So when will an enemy no longer be an enemy?
When the group changes its name.