2008 Chase Prize Essay Contest: First Place
Graveyard of
Empires
Are we ready?
by LtCol Glen Butler
Marines are preparing to take on a larger role in military operations in Afghanistan. (Photo by JO1 James Pinsky.)
A
fter a swift ouster from
power by overwhelming
U.S. military force with
local Afghan assistance in re-
sponse to the 11 September 2001
(9/11) attacks, the Taliban have gradu-
ally regained their foothold in the
Afghanistan-Pakistan region, and the
Marine Corps of 2009 stands poised to
reenter the theater en masse in response
to this growing crisis. 1 Mullah Omar’s
so-called “Taliban” today is of course
>LtCol Butler is currently serving as the Operations Officer, Marine Corps Base
Hawaii.
much more than remnants of those
barbarians we pummeled in 2001 with
energetic post-9/11 vengeance. Enemy
forces in Afghanistan now include foreign fighters, the Haqqani network,
Hezbi Islami Gulbuddin, local tribes,
and pseudowarlords, as well as Taliban
variations and “armed opposition
groups” of multiple persuasions and influences. 2
Despite the assertion that Afghanistan has served as a graveyard for
empires3 ranging from Alexander the
Great’s to 19th century Britain and the
20th century Soviet Union, the area
has not always been so hostile to for-
