Center for a New American Security

The video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Afghan fighters is horrific. The images reflect a breakdown in discipline and an appalling absence of supervision from the noncommissioned and commissed officers charged with making sure these kinds of things do not happen. These Marines have embarassed themselves and have disgraced their country and the U.S. Marine Corps.

We should not be shocked by this kind of thing, though. Just look at the official propaganda from the Second World War, a conflict most Americans have seen only through a sanitized Spielbergian lens. Look at the lengths to which the United States and Japan went to dehumanize the other. Now imagine how that translated down at the platoon and squad level in heavy combat. One big difference today is the diffusion of camera phones and other media allow the ugly dehumanizing effect of war to go viral. In a way, I am glad. Since so few Americans actually fight in our wars, it's good that Americans see the effect war can have on other people's sons and daughters.

War is an awful human experience. It is sometimes necessary, but it is never sanitary.

(Oh, and this is not a new phenomenon in Afghanistan. This cannot be explained away as the result of ten years of war taking their toll. I witnessed an allied soldier get punished and sent home in 2002 for posing for pictures with a dead, partially beheaded Talib around whose neck he had hung a sign reading "Fuck Terrorism.")

"The Iliad is ever mindful that war is about men killing or men killed. In the entire epic, no warrior, whether hero or obscure man of the ranks, dies happily or well. No reward awaits the soldier's valor; no heaven will receive him. The Iliad's words and phrases for the process of death make clear that this is something baneful: dark night covers the dying warrior, hateful darkness claims him; he is robbed of sweet life, his soul goes down to Hades bewailing its fate. Again and again, relentlessly, the Iliad hammers this fact: the death of any warrior is tragic and full of horror. Even in war, death is regrettable."

- Caroline Alexander, The War That Killed Achilles

Don't tell anyone that a journalist let you into this little (sort of) secret.. but everyone (that means British media outlets) are trying desperately to figure out how they are going to cover 2009's big story - Pakistan.

There isn't too much coming out of Pakistan because 1) No British news organisation understands the place 2) No British organisations have proper journalists there. (ie. not local stringers who are paid slave wages to go to dangerous places and point a camera).

The result is that the sheer mess of the place is being overlooked. It also helps that the government is keen to try and persuade everyone that things are pretty much OK since the horrible dictator Musharraf was made to leave. Things would be even better, they say, once the Americans butt out. Londonstani wasn't a big fan of the Americans butting in, but doesn't think that's the summation of the very serious problems there.

Anyway, William Dalrymple has a good review in the New York Review of Books of Ahmed Rashid's Descent into Chaos that covers the present situation, while also adding much needed background.

There's definitely a lot in it that many will disagree with on a ... well "world outlook level" would probably be a good way of describing it.. so why not just get it out of the way first.

"Eight years of neocon foreign policies have been a spectacular disaster for American interests in the Islamic world, leading to the rise of Iran as a major regional power, the advance of Hamas and Hezbollah, the wreckage of Iraq, with over two million external refugees and the ethnic cleansing of its Christian population, and now the implosion of Afghanistan and Pakistan, probably the most dangerous development of all."

Dalrymple says he agrees with Rashid's view that the Bush administration's portrayal of the terrorism as some sort of illogical, unthinking, sudden outburst of blind hatred only served to make the problem worse. This point, in one form or another, is often debated on this blog (particularly for some reason on the comment threads of Londonstani's postings). So, maybe there's no point dragging it up again, but here it is so we can read, digest and move on.

"...terrorism was presented by the administration as a result of a "sudden worldwide anti-Americanism rather than a result of past American policy failures." Bush's speech to Congress, claiming that the world hated America because "they hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote," ignored the political elephant standing in the middle of the living room—US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, with its long history of unpopular interventions in the Islamic world and its uncritical support for Israel's steady colonization of the West Bank and violent repression of the Palestinians. As the Department of Defense Science Board rightly pointed out in response to Bush's speech: "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies."

In the same vein, we also often visit the idea that the problem lies with Islam. Rashid makes a good point as to why this is not only inaccurate, but also counter productive.

"the intense hostility to Islam emanating from both the press and the government of the United States that made it so difficult for moderates in the Islamic world to counter the propaganda of the extremists. How could the moderates dispute the notion that America was engaged in a civilizational war against Islam when this was clearly something many in the administration, and their supporters in the press, did indeed believe?... as Rashid puts it:

"If they hated us, then Americans should hate Muslims back and retaliate not just against the terrorists but against Islam in general. By generating such fears it was virtually impossible to gain American public attention and support for long-term nation building."

Londonstani has read Rashid's book and does recommend it to anyone who hasn't. He likes that Rashid doesn't shy away from blaming Pakistan's military rulers but also explains what they are thinking:

"Many in the army still believe that the jihadis make up a more practical defense against Indian dominance than even nuclear weapons. For them, supporting a range of jihadi groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir is not an ideological or religious whim so much as a practical and patriotic imperative."

So, if you can't read the book, read this.

Update: Abu Muqawama here. Goodness. I just read that Dalrymple article. One of the more depressing things I have read since breakfast.

A week out of internet range means that Londonstani is doing a lot of his Gaza catch up and blog reading this weekend.

As ever, AM has been on the case and hit the nail on the head. Londonstani has been quite surprised by the way the British government has reacted to Gaza '09 compared to Lebanon '06.

Instead of backing Israel come what may, the government has been careful to show that is unhappy with Israel's actions. By the by, that stance has been mirrored in the media, where even usually quite pro-Israel publications have run articles critical of Israel's policies in general and its actions in Gaza in particular.

Londonstani did wonder whether the sands had shifted because of the obviously high death toll, or whether a certain sensitivity for British Muslim sensibilities had suddenly kicked in.

Then, government officials issued statements that basically said, "hey, didn't you all notice how we've changed our tune."

For example: "Ms Blears said the UK has called Israel's bombings "disproportionate", but added: "We're not all brilliant at [expressing this] and I think we have to really, really try now to explain that so that people don't feel that there's hypocrisy and double standards."

And another: "Speaking to the Guardian, Malik expressed alarm that the vast majority of British Muslims were drawing no distinction between current UK government policy and that held by Tony Blair when he failed to condemn immediately an invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 2006."

The online and real world campaigns over Gaza launched in the UK (specifically in London) built upon an infrastructure that had its foundations laid in the anti-war demonstrations of 2003. With every new incident to whip up anger, Londonstani has noticed an upgrade in capability and capacity.

The comments show that the point being made by the British official AM spoke with has been realised on the highest political levels. Londonstani can imagine that if a lynching-happy rag like the Daily Mail got hold of AM's info, there would be all sorts of furious headlines claiming "Government changes foreign policy to appease Muslims" or some such other crap. But this totally misses the point. In the real world, it seems to Londonstani like a threshold moment with short term and long term effects.

In the short term, the unsaid fear seems to be that the government might be pushed into pulling out of Afghanistan, for example, because that's what newly politicised Muslims in Britain want. Now, it maybe true that is indeed what British Muslims want in a knee-jerk sort of fashion. But it in reality, despite the newly squeaking voice, British Muslims have little of the cash, organisation and contacts that translate into real political clout. The F1 racing lobby has much more influence. It's much more likely that the British government uses British Muslims as a fig leaf to do something they would really like to do anyway (like pull out of Afghanistan).

However, in the long-term, there is a good chance that the British Muslim community (or communities) will have a bigger voice in foreign policy. Now, before anyone gets all worked up about "benefiting from terror", remember that it wouldn't be the first time a community pressure group to say "of course, we are trying to control our angry young people. but, if you don't give us X, they will do something silly that we can't control". In fact, Londonstani has had conversations with the fluffy secular Polisario people in southern Morocco/Western Sahara that sound very similar.

In the long run, the process can't be a bad thing. Feeling that your anger will be heard and registered forestalls the sense of angry hopelessness that extremism feeds off.

Londonstani just wishes someone had reminded the American official that it wasn't too long ago that tensions in N. Ireland affected immigrant groups in the U.S., which reciprocated by funding terror in Britain.

Update: Abu Muqawama here. Let me just add to that last sentence that Rep. Peter King (R, NY) -- after 9/11, one of the most outspoken public officials against Islamist terrorism -- was, pre-9/11, one of the IRA's most enthusiastic supporters in the U.S. Congress. Sigh.