Fugitive by John Eisenhower
Fugitive
By John Eisenhower
Americans paid little attention to the sandy wastes and rugged mountains where the Fugitive lived. The few roads were poorly maintained. Towns and cities were far apart and hardly habitable once a traveler reached one. The impoverished citizens bore no love for Yankees and what central government existed was too weak to maintain either law or order. It just wasn't the kind of place we bothered to think about.
We all knew that the wasteland provided refuge to the Fugitive and that his burning hatred of Americans led him to injure our country any way he could. As he damaged our property and killed some of our people we tried to find and stop him, but the prospects looked overwhelmingly difficult and our hearts were not in the effort. For years he lived relatively unmolested and safe in the wasteland.
Finally, the hate-filled Fugitive took an action we could not accept. In a cleverly planned move, he launched a surprise attack on an American community and killed a number of our citizens. His followers took severe losses, but they stoically accepted them as the price of damaging their enemy.
The American people were outraged and shocked. Previously unaware of the hatred harbored by the Fugitive and his followers, our people were both angered and frightened. They also thirsted for revenge and urged the President to act. Within a few weeks substantial numbers of our troops were assembled on the wasteland's border and invaded the Fugitive's refuge under orders to capture or, preferably, kill him.
The expedition's task was awesome. Even though we had every technical advantage, including aircraft, the vast and rugged wasteland hosted innumerable hiding places and its people were loyal to the Fugitive. As the weeks went by and our soldiers searched villages and caves it became clear to our renowned commander that the Fugitive was learning of our every move in advance. The native population grew increasingly hostile. Finally, frustrated and exhausted, our military gave up the chase and came home empty handed.
These events happened eighty-five years ago. The Fugitive, later killed by a rival faction within his own people, was Francisco ("Pancho") Villa, the president was Woodrow Wilson and our army commander was General John J. Pershing.
Today, this story has haunting resemblances to our experience in Afghanistan. We are as outraged now with the violation of our soil and people as we were almost nine decades ago. Our hunt for Osama bin Laden is taking place in a country where we face many of the same problems that frustrated General Pershing. As of this writing we have no idea of the outcome for the Fugitive or his Al Caeda followers. In the context of our current military mission we have religious extremism, not just banditry, influencing our every move. Even if bin Laden were to be assassinated by another Muslim, it is far from clear that either our people or our President would be satisfied. We appreciate and admire our troops in pursuit of bin Laden. They not only must contend with impossible terrain, but with populations that have no love for Americans. Even faced with these obstacles, our prospects seem much more favorable than in 1916. However, the problem of fanatical terrorism is world wide, not just in Afghanistan, and regardless of bin Laden's eventual fate, we face years of continued search and destroy missions against terrorists wherever they are hiding. This time we have a president who calls for patience and persistence and is not likely to countenance retreat.