"The Ghost of Past Wars Live on in a Critical Archive" Topic

"The United States will soon deploy soldiers to Afghanistan born after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Next August will mark the 30th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, along with the subsequent American-led military buildup leading to Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. The American military has been directly engaged in the "greater Middle East" since. For the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, the experience of war has extended longer, with this December marking the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan and next September the same for Iraq's invasion of Iran. These events and their ongoing consequences highlight the presence of an interconnected history that is "not even past" yet for Americans and the people of the Middle East alike.

Despite the immense costs in lives and treasure of this wider "forever war," the U.S. government has allocated insufficient resources for its historical study, particularly records captured in the various phases and theaters of armed conflict. Congress and the Pentagon should revive and expand such efforts. The cost of doing so would amount to "a mere rounding error" on the annual defense budget, as the Wall Street Journal's Michael R. Gordon summarized. The best course of action is a partnership with a civilian academic institution where captured enemy records from the Department of Defense's Harmony database can be declassified and made available to researchers. In addition to learning from the past, enhancing national security in the present, and avoiding unnecessary wars in the future, study of captured records helps in understanding the wider conflagration of war and terrorism that has swept across the region for the past four decades…"
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