One thing i learnt from this 20 years long conflict in Afghanistan is that no matter how much technologically superior, you can’t make a soldier fight someone to his full potential based on ideology that doesn’t offer him something after death. West fought in the name of democracy and liberalism. Both are worldly concepts and doesn’t convince the man on battlefield to sacrifice his life willingly. I mean come on, nobody wants to die so that others can have orgies in beverly hills.
On the other side, Taliban fought for a cause that promised them to have glory after death, individually, even if they don’t win here in this world. Religion was, is and will be the most efficient cause when it comes to motivation, hope and will to fight in the battlefield. Why? because it promotes selflessness, even if it doesn’t, it capitalizes on the selfishness for eternal success–rewards after death.
Westerners haven’t changed their innate imperial tendencies–outward expansionism since the times of Roman empire. They have changed the causes for it. In middle ages, when religion was a justification tool for their assault on dispersed muslims–crusades, they fought well, they weakened muslims especially arabs forever. After renaissance, they have adopted worldly concepts such democracy, capitalism, socialism, liberalism et al to expand their eurocentric values, they impose wars on others who even minutely resist them. They exhibit their technological superiority but in nutshell, fighting for these mortal ideas, somewhere and somehow the man behind the gun in western ranks has lost the will to fight and the passion to lay off his life.
So Americans today might think why did they lose this war and that too with utter humiliation. There can be multiple answers for it but in the end, truth is, the American soldier didn’t know what he was fighting for, or even if he knew, the cause wasn’t worth dying for.
On world wars, it doesn’t matter which ideology do you subscribe to–right or wrong. The only that matters is, to which extent do you believe in whatever you believe in. That again routes the whole notion to, the cause must be worth convincing to believe in and to die for.
Source: Azaz Wazir Twitter.
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