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FORT HUACHUCA — The United States is going to be in the Middle East for a long time, retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid said Thursday.
And because of that hot spot and others in the world, America has to put more of an effort into understanding other cultures, he told more than 250 people at the conclusion of a three-day culture summit on this Southern Arizona Army post.
“Cultural miscalculation leads to war. We’ve got to bridge the cultural gap,” the general said.
As the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, Abizaid had responsibility for 27 different nations from the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, a region of at least 100 languages and hundreds of cultures.
 Retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, center, is accompanied by Maj. Gen. John Custer, commander of the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, at Thursday’s TRADOC Culture Center Summit 2008. Abizaid talked about building global cultural challenges. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review) |
While speaking another language is important, “living a culture” is more critical, he said.
The retired general did not put a time frame on how long the U.S will have to be a power in the Middle East, but he said the nation has an obligation to ensure there is an end to the regional turmoil.
There are four critical problems facing the Middle East, Abizaid noted.
The first is “the rise of Sunni extremism, which is caused by the radicalism of Osama bin Laden,” he said.
The second problem is growing Shiite radicalism in areas dominated by that Muslim sect, especially Iraq and Iran, which is causing continuing instability, Abizaid said.
No. 3 on his list is the Arab and Israeli and Israeli and Palestinian issues, which he said is a “problem nowhere close to being solved.” The State of Israel has to be protected, and the Palestinians have to be provided a homeland, Abizaid remarked.
And fourth on the list of problems is that the United States is bound to the supply of oil from the Middle East. “These four things will keep us (America) in the Middle East for years to come,” the retired four-star said. However, it doesn’t mean the years will be ones of constant armed conflict, he said.
As the world power, the United States has taken on immense responsibilities, and because the U.S. generally lacks cultural astuteness, not only are America’s armed forces behind in understanding other cultures, but so are other U.S government entities, Abizaid commented.
It has always been America’s way to learn about an enemy “on the fly,” but that can no longer be the way to respond, he said.
Developing cultural skills will help when the U.S. has to use either its military or political power, Abizaid said. Not only must an emphasis be placed on “how other people think and how they react but how we (Americans) think and how we react,” he said.
If combat is needed, it cannot just be a matter of going in and winning, for there has to be a better understanding of what will be needed once the armed portion of the conflict is over, the retired general said.
Understanding another culture means respecting it, he said. That means all aspects of a culture must be recognized, Abizaid noted.
“If we are going to bridge the gap, we are going to have to meet in the middle,” he said.
And, bridging the gap also means there is a need to realize that cultures change, the retired general said.
This is the second year the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca has hosted a culture summit and Abizaid it is the type of program that needs to be expanded to include not only the military and other federal agencies, but non-government organizations, too.
For too long the U.S. has remained in the past, especially how things were done during the Cold War, Abizaid said. He noted that during the time the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies were the threat, the U.S. had thousands of linguists in the military and other federal agencies.
But, when he assumed command of CENTCOM, he was dismayed to find out there were fewer than 300 Arabic experts and for what he has termed “the long war,” that wasn’t enough.
As the 21st century continues, more cultural understanding is needed to make the U.S. more agile to respond, Abizaid said.
And it is not just going to be a matter of teaching soldiers through a “cookie cutter process,” to be able to approach cultural problems, he said. The U.S. military also must think anew instead of only being concerned that a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine will be taken out of a unit for special training, Abizaid said.
Officers should be allowed to receive extra training even if that means they are lost to a military unit for a couple of years, he said.
There is no reason a soldier cannot work at a nongovernment organization headquarters or an employee for a NGO be assigned to a military headquarters, the retired general said.
The military and nonmilitary organizations will gain, and that will help each understand the importance of both “shouldering a rifle and shouldering a bag of rice” when it come to cultural awareness, Abizaid said.
After he spoke and answered questions, the retired four-star general made additional comments to the Herald/Review.
Looking back at his time as the head of Central Command, Abizaid said there were plenty of mistakes made when the U.S. went into Iraq in 2003.
There were early command-and-control problems, which were fixed, he said.
One problem that gave the U.S. a black eye was the Abu Ghraib problem, in which some U.S. soldiers mistreated Iraqi prisoners. This provided a powerful propaganda for the insurgents to use in the cultural conflict, he said.
When asked about the continuing influence of bin Laden, Abizaid said it is not the individual but his movement that is the main threat, and even if he were captured or killed it will continue until the U.S. and its coalition forces fight it on the cultural front.
“The idea of the movement is bigger than the man,” he said.
There has to be more changes made in the rules and lanes that were developed to fight the Cold War.
“We need to fight for a better future for others so that the values of the 21st century are not the values of bin Laden,” Abizaid said.
It is true that the United States has and will use its military power, but at the end of a conflict it will be cultural skills that will needed to heal, he said.
When it comes to the Iraq issue, that nation’s government brings itself together, which will take some time to overcome centuries of distrust between the major players in the country, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, he said.
The Iraqi government is doing things now that were not thought possible until recently, and that includes the Iraqi army taking on Shiite insurgents around Basra in the past several days, Abizaid said.
Remaining in Iraq is a necessity, he said, to show the world the U.S. can develop an understanding of other cultures, because if other cultures are ignored the end result will not be pretty, the retired general told his audience.
“We will be doomed to live in a very, very ugly place,” Abizaid said and was given a standing ovation.
About the general
Retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid is a third generation Lebanese-American.
A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., he rose from infantry platoon leader to become, at the time, the youngest four-star general in the Army. At the time of his retirement in May 2007, he was the longest-serving commander of the United States Central Command.
Considered a Middle East expert, Abizaid studied at the University of Jordan in Amman and has a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University.
He was recently named the first Annenberg Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
He works with the Preventative Defense Project at Stanford and Harvard’s School of Government.
Abizaid is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and currently serves as director of the George Olmsted Foundation.
He and his wife, Kathy, are residents of Gardnerville, Nev.
herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or at bill.hess@svherald.com.
GandalftheGrey wrote on Mar 29, 2008 11:19 AM: