The Second Continental Congress in 1775 elected George Washington, a forty-three-year-old Virginia militia colonel, as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. He quickly learned from battlefield mistakes. Fronting the Redcoat's enormous firepower led to defeats. But if Washington's troops showed patience, they might win the war by not losing it. That is, stay in the fight without battling head-on British forces.
Today, the Taliban use the same tactic. They attack and then disappear into Afghan villages. American forces often can't tell who's the enemy. The Taliban abide their time, hang back and wait out a victory. They prefer skirmishes rather than full-scale battles, similar to what Washington learned when fighting the British. After colonial forces set fires to 600 buildings in Manhattan, a quarter of the city burned before the British occupied it. Washington's rag-tag bands of fighters fled across the Hudson River into New Jersey. From this time forward, Washington wore out the Redcoats by feigning frontal attacks and fighting guerilla warfare. Not unlike tactics in which the Taliban excel.
Many compared Washington to the Roman General Fabius Maximus, whose strategy of attacking and then hiding wore down the Carthaginians. Critics in Congress, as well as some officers serving under him, urged Washington to fight one grand battle while his soldiers had shoes, muskets and rations. He didn't agree.
Washington gambled that he could split loyalties in the British Parliament if he acted like a bee in their bonnets, stinging them with surprise attacks before fleeing into dense New Jersey forests
When significant a politician as Pitt accused loyalists to the British Crown of murdering their own exiled sons in America, as colonials fell on battlefields, Washington knew time was his ally.
Keep skirmishing and split British public opinion. Goad Parliament into arguing about the war's merits. A house divided, believed Washington, can't stand for long. When the Brits lost their patience with the war's sacrifice and price, Washington gamble paid off. He eventually won the military game. He took to heart in scripture: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. [There is] a time for war and a time for peace"(Ecclesiastes 3:1,8). There's a time to win by not losing, believed Washington.
President Barack Obama realizes the Taliban, who show fierce loyalty to their land, tribes and feudal customs, have mastered George Washington's strategy. This is why he refrains from immediately signing an executive order to rush 40,000 more troops to fight in Afghanistan. We can't win by sending bulkier armies into battle against an enemy that wins by not losing.
It may be surprising that Washington hung back from battles when his temper exploded like a steaming geyser. When he spotted colonial soldiers retreating to the back lines, he thundered, "Are these the men with which I am to defend America?" When the battle turned on him at Monmouth NJ in June 1778, Washington swore so hotly "till the leaves shook on the trees." He lambasted his soldiers as "cowardly rascals."
Washington differed from those who in our day declare we must defend our nation's honor by sending thousands of reinforcements to Afghanistan. At critical times he waited for opportunities to strike British flanks, not charging ahead. As historian Jay Winik writes in The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, Washington cultivated an uncanny ability to know the right time to attack or stay in camp. "He knew when to gamble and when to hang back, when to take chances and when to bide his time, when to strike and when to maneuver," states Winik.
Even a former cheerleader for George W. Bush's attack on Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, Thomas L Friedman, has second thoughts about committing more troops to Afghanistan. In a recent commentary, "Afghan Policy not Good Enough," Friedman warns against immediate troop buildup. "For my money, I wish there was less talk today about how many more troops to send and more focus on what kind of Afghan government we have as a partner.
"Because when you are mounting a counterinsurgency campaign, the local government is the critical bridge between your troops and your goals. If that government is rotten, your whole enterprise is doomed."
U.N. experts recently reported the Afghan government is rotten, their army is rotten and the last election was rotten with fraud so pervasive that nearly a quarter of the votes shouldn't have been counted as legal. No wonder Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, says the Obama administration won't add to the carnage by sending more troops.
"It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if, in fact, you haven't done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there's an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that the U.S. troops would create, and become a true partner in governing the Afghan country," he stated on CNN's October 18 edition of "State of the Union."
Kenny Rogers sung a classic ballad that reminds listeners of Washington's military strategy, which President Obama knows is right. "You have to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em," in card playing, sings Rogers.
The same lesson applies to fighting in Afghanistan, too.
Jack R. Van Ens.
Arvada,