We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
– Rudyard Kipling (extract from ‘The Young British Soldier’)
For more Kipling verse, see everypoet.com.
The Americans have the right idea: get involved with the enemies of our enemies, and make it clear to them all we want to do is kill said mutual enemies, not mess in their internal affairs. Offer them money by all means but to even contemplate ‘peacekeeping’ or ‘stabilisation forces’ is utter madness.
The West, no, who are we kidding…the USA and to a lesser extent the UK, can play a constructive role by tying ongoing aid to more moderate behaviour by the future rulers in Kabul. But for goodness sake, realise that the victorious army we have backed hates Taliban/Al Qaeda because they allowed large numbers of armed foreigners into the country (Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens etc.). It is absurd to suggest large numbers of British troops are going to be any more acceptable.
It is obvious that the anti-Taliban/anti-Al Qaeda forces are more than happy to work with small scale deployment of special forces, but to suggest 6,000 regular British soldiers will be seen the same way is a grave misjudgement. A brigade sized British force would be there for only one reason: to act as a counter balance to the various local armies. From the perspective of the ‘Northern Alliance’, what possible good could that serve other than to dilute their hard won gains?
Let’s keep our eyes on the ball people. We are in this ghastly hell hole called Afghanistan for one purpose and one purpose only: to destroy Al Qaeda and just incidentally to destroy the Taliban because they stand in the way of that objective. Sure, lets help them form a stable society that suits not just their interests but also our own by removing a breeding ground for terrorist vipers… but leave the armed aspect of politics and the ‘peacekeeping’ to the locals. We can give wise counsel but to suggest we could forcibly keep this armed-to-the-teeth society from fighting amongst themselves if they are determined to do so is ridiculous.
… so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
– Voltarine de Cleyre
Some habits are just too hard to break. It seems that the British government has more in mind for Afghanistan than the Americans. From Fox News we hear:
A cabinet minister said: “The Americans are interested only in trying to get bin Laden and push the Taliban further back. Tony’s view is that now is the moment to get in there, both in terms of humanitarian aid and the diplomatic front.”
He really should know better. England, like Rome before it and the Russians after it has already gotten its’ nose bloodied in Afghanistan. You simply cannot go into that place and tell them how to live their lives, even if they are making a total bollocks of it. They’ll stop killing each other long enough to run you out of their hills. Then they will get right back to their millennia old sport… of killing each other.
Every child should read Kipling as a part of their education just so they will understand and avoid remaking this mistake. Afghanistan has long been known for its’ quaint local ways of encouraging foriegn armies to go conquer someone else. I remember reading about the days in which the British took their turn learning the same harsh lesson.
Soldiers were told to keep the last bullet for themselves rather than be captured. In those days the Afghan tribeswomen went out after the battles to attend to the wounded. That attention is rumoured to have been rather unpleasant.
Now true, that is a century past and the world is much more civilized today. Would you believe a teensy bit nicer? How about…
What the Afghans do in their own country is absolutely none of our business so long as they don’t harbour those who would kill members of our tribes. The American’s have got it right. Vengeance against those who kill your own is something the Afghan tribesmen relate to and respect. Our lads will get along just fine riding with them and sharing kills of the al Qaeda foreign devils. However… if we start telling Afghans how to live it will just get us into trouble.
Let’s not go there.
A Normal War Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has commented:
…almost every argument in favor of military tribunals invokes Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, and the O.J. trial.
This may be the point of some but it is certainly not my argument. Enemy soldiers and leadership are not tried in civilian courts. The Bush Directive is rather lenient. In wartime a citizen who works for the enemy is tried for treason in a military court and then shot. The same is true for spies and saboteurs unless their continued existence is of use to the war effort. One need look no further than the fate of German agents who attempted to infiltrate England during the war.
They’re dead.
Under normal wartime practice, any al Qaeda found operating within the United States who are not in uniform and are found guilty of espionage or attempted or actual sabotage would be executed after a military trial. If the persons who attempted access to a West Virginia powerplant were caught, they would be tried as war time spies and sabatours. The persons distributing Anthrax in mail would also be liable to war time law and subsequent execution as sabateurs.
War isn’t a nice game. You play it rough and the stakes are your life.
Pundits seem to have very negative opinions about the recent Presidential Directive on legal jurisdiction. So much so I wonder if anyone has actually read the document. I have and I cannot find anything particularly damning. It places captured enemy forces under military rather than civilian law. The directive is carefully targetted at al Qaeda and only non-citizen al Qaeda at that. So why the fuss?
Perhaps the answer lies in history. The directive is quite a normal one for a country at war. It would once have seemed so obvious a need as to be hardly newsworthy. The difficulty is the United States has not fought a normal war, to an end condition of total victory, since World War II. That is over half a century ago. Most of those who would understand the necessity of it are retired or no longer with us.
Make no mistake, this is a war. The al Qaeda are our enemy every bit as much as the Nazi Party of Germany was our enemy. I cannot imagine Himmler and Goering being tried in front of a “normal” court; nor can I imagine bin Laden (assuming the lads who find him constrain themselves from carving him into Purina Pig Chow) being given a New York defense lawyer and allowed to fight a 10 year court battle. He and his people are not just ordinary killers. They are not just ordinary terrorists. They are the founders and leaders of a distributed military force that declared the annihilation of the United States as a religious duty. They have proven their words in deeds.
Given that bin Laden publicly declared war on America in 1996 and has since had his troops carry out military actions against the United States, it behoves us to treat those forces no differently than any other military force in any other war. That means captured soldiers are treated under the Geneva Convention. There is another side however. We will define certain members of al Qaeda not simply as terrorists, but as war criminals writ large. Even if we ignored every other attack by al Qaeda and called them normal military actions, even if we ignored evidence about TWA800; even if we ignored the thousands of African civilians killed and injured by the attacks on US Embassies… we are still left with September the 11th.
There is no doubt, under any sane interpretation, ramming large civilian airliners into giant civilian office towers while faced with a totally unpreperared populace is a war crime of an obscene magnitude.
Because al Qaeda operate as a co-ordinated and trained military force, much of the information we have on them comes via classified means rather than normal public criminal investigations. Criminals and mere terrorists can be tracked down and tried over time; an army must be dealt with differently. We know we cannot catch them all, at least not all at once. It behooves us to not allow yet to be captured enemy forces to learn from our court transcripts.
We simply cannot afford to hand them such valuable intelligence. If they understand our most secret technical means they can more readily avoid them; if they know our channels of information they can act to disrupt or inject false information into them; if they know our informers they will kill them.
A military tribunal is just right. The al Qaeda declared war; therefore they are enemy soldiers. We will try them with reasonable fairness and perhaps somewhat more mercy than they would give were the tables turned. But mark my words: those directly responsible, those directly in the chain of command that extends from the burning rubble of the World Trade Center to the caves of Afghanistan are going to swing at the end of a stout rope. It may take 10 years to round them up; but it will only take a few months to finish the job.
…to point out that the 18 US Rangers in Somalia gave a good account of themselves. All honour to them. The fact remains that the point of military action is not to get a favourable kill-ratio but to win. If I wanted to bore you with a list of wars where the losing side killed more than the winners I would start with World War II, go on to World War I, and keep talking for a long, long time.
Not that I’m arguing with the main thrust here! Here’s some more forgotten dead people: 5,000 killed by chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein in Halabja.
Julian Manyon sees the devastation wrought by the B-52s, but says that the fall of Kabul is not the end of the struggle. He gives an excellent eyewitness report in The Spectator from the front line in Afghanistan.
I look forward to hearing from all those out there in ‘establishment pundit land’ who sneered at the effect of the US bombing.
A Taliban Idyll
by Fred Thornett
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Act One, Scene One
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Imagine the following. You are looking at the door of a crude mud hut in which an impoverished Afghan peasant and his wives dwell somewhere in the Caves District of Afghanistan in the week after the fall of the last Taliban stronghold.
Enter left, skinny bearded chap with smirk, turban and beard who declaims in Arabic:
“Excuse me, Impoverished Afghan Peasant victim of American Imperialism, I am the famous Muslim fundament hero, Osama bin Liner. Can my illustrious friends and I sleep in your barn for the night to hide from the evil agents of the Great Satan? We will pay you ten thousand of these lovely muslim-green Taliban banknotes for your help.”
Reply in broken Arabic by suddenly smiling Impoverished Afghan Peasant,
“Certainly oh great one. Such an honour! You are most welcome indeed, good sirs! And I will send you my favourite goat to help your excellencies pass the night in comfort!! Will your honours partake of some humble, peasant-type refreshments before you sleep?”
Ushers honoured guests with many flourishes off stage to barn.
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Act One, Scene Two.
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Impoverished Afghan Peasant in sotto voce‚ to first woman in burqa.
“Get thee hence, Wife Number One, to the public phone box which is conveniently located only 15 kilometres down the road. Dial the number on this reward leaflet that by the grace of Allah fell from the sky. Remember to ask for the man with the $US 5 million reward money!”
Then speaking to next woman in burqa.
“Wife Number Two, carry in our finest food and drink to our honoured guests.”
First woman in burqa, clutching reward handbill, exits stage left.
Second woman in burqa, carrying stew pot and jug, exits stage right.
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Final Act
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Impoverished Afghan Peasant speaking in broken Arabic as he enters barn.
“And is your excellency’s aged mutton curry to your liking? Would any of the noble gentlemen like fancy another jam jar of yak ghee? Perhaps you would like to sleep late in the morning. Do not worry, good sirs, I shall stand at the entrance and keep a close watch for the agents of the Great Satan. All will be well. You can trust me, for I am true follower of the great Mullah Omar. Er, that is the five million dollar Mullah himself currently over there in the corner using the goat, is it not? And is not the other noble Koranic scholar the Second in Command of El Qaeda, the honourable Egyptian, Wadi el Plug?”
Grunts of affirmation from the honoured guests and the goat.
Impoverished Afghan Peasant grins.
“Allah Akhbar indeed.”
Impoverished Afghan Peasant departs left to stand outside barn door rubbing his hands and prancing with mounting glee for five hours until the thwack, thwack, thwack of the approaching helicopters gradually becomes louder and the lights fade to the sound of Osama bin Liner screeching in Arabic over the sounds of machine gun fire.
“I told you we should not have trusted anyone who kept comparing our faces with the satanic images on the poster he had pinned on his mantelpiece!”
What Dale writes is quite correct but it is just another manifestation of American ‘liberal’ media racism. When eighteen US Army Rangers dies that is horrifying because eighteen American lives are valuable. As Somali lives are irrelevent, who gives a damn if one thousand Somali irregulars got smoked? The important fact was that here was a chance to dwell on the negative aspects, namely American deaths. Regardless of the fact the US soldiers gave a fine account of themselves before being overwhelmed, why not just use this as an excuse to point out the US military are the bad guys yet again?
Whilst I do think the whole mission to Somalia was a noble but naive mistake from the outset, is it too much to expect the US media to realise it was actually a far from ignoble episode in US military history? I guess so.
Another example of US ‘liberal’ media racism was the reporting of the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa. It as widely reported that twelve Americans died and almost as an afterthought, oh yes, about 300 or so Africans were killed plus nearly 4000 wounded. This need to be repeated again and again to people across the world who claim Al Qaeda only want to kill Americans.
Similarly as commented on by Opinionated Bastard (now is that a great name for a blog or what?), once it became clear most of the people on Flight 587 which crashed in Rockaway were not from the USA, media interest tailed off rapidly (no pun intended):
This is infuriating because the passengers on Flight 587 were almost entirely from the Dominican Republic. We get ’round the clock coverage of whatever civilian casualties may or may not have actually happened in Afghanistan, but when poor folks in our own hemisphere are suffering, it’s shuffled off to the back page.
I guess those people just did not count for much.
The negative reporting from services like CNN can be quite insidious at times. The following quote is a good example:
Atef is believed to be responsible for supervising the training of operatives. Prosecutors say he provided military training and assistance in 1993 to Somali tribes who violently opposed the United Nations’ intervention in Somalia’s civil unrest. In an October 1993 battle, Somali tribesmen killed 18 U.S. Army Rangers.
The statement is accurate. It is what is left unsaid that makes one wonder where they are coming from. The Somali “tribesmen” who surrounded the US Army squads took over 1000 casualties for their trouble. A nearly 50 to 1 casualty ratio. Doesn’t sound at all like the Somali lads won when you put it that way, now does it? In fact, I have a better description of the battle.
The Great Somali Turkey Shoot.
Events in Afghanistan bring to mind a large container truck suddenly tipping over and spilling its load across a busy highway in front of traffic moving in both directions. As we see the situation shift not by the day but by the hour, it is important that people look not just at Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Kabul and Khandahar, but also at nuclear Pakistan: what happens in Islamabad, Karachi, Rawalpindi and Quetta will certainly end up being far more important in the long run.
For weeks since the US bombing started, the Islamic political parties in Pakistan have been whipping up sentiment with a world view that pits Islam against the godless foreigner. Large numbers of young Pakistanis heard the call for jihad against the United States and were urged to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the defence of Islam. Thousands streamed across the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan seething with religious zeal to take up arms against the hated infidel.
The secular General Musharraf looked on uneasy as the streets swelled with crowds incited by his political enemies and has also been forced to keep looking over his shoulder at his own intelligence service, the ISI, who have always been the Taliban’s primary patron.
And then, the container truck unexpectedly tips over, scattering its cargo of… jack-in-the-boxes.
Weakened by the USAF/USN airstrikes far more than the ignorant and willfully pessimistic western pundits would have had us believe, the Taliban suddenly starts to collapse. Like dominos, town after town falls to the various anti-Taliban forces.
In Mazar-i-Sharif, we have learned that the Afghan Taliban forces took all the available motor vehicles and retreated as Abdul Rashid Dostam’s forces enveloped the city, leaving about 600 newly arrived pro-Taliban Pakistanis to face Dostam’s soldiers alone. The school in which they made their last stand is now a twisted ruin and at least 400 Pakistanis were wiped out in the bitter fighting.
In Kunduz, accounts suggest most of the Afghan Taliban forces have either defected or bailed out of the town prior to it being completely surrounded. What is left are largely Chechens, Chinese Muslims and Pakistani fighters. They are clearly doomed.
And so, it is interesting to note that the streets of Pakistan are surprisingly subdued. Far from ‘Islam’ rising up against the United States and its anti-Taliban friends in Afghanistan, city after city is filled with cheering throngs and America is saluted by the very people who lived through the bombing for contributing to the Taliban’s misfortunes. Hundreds and possibly thousands of young Pakistanis are already dead, killed not as Islamic holy warriors but as hated foreigners by Afghans who have had it up to ‘here’ with the interference of its neighbours.
So as the Islamic politicians of Pakistan survey how in the matter of eight days the entire situation in Afghanistan has turned upside down, the families and friends of the dead Pakistani boys who listened and then marched to their deaths across the Khyber pass are going to start asking ‘why?’ When people start to figure out the answer, I don’t think the forces of Islamo-fascism are going to like what happens next. It must be slowly dawning on the more secular forces in Pakistan that their Islamist political enemies are starting to look very exposed indeed.
For the west, nuclear armed Pakistan is far more important in the long run than that ‘Mad Max’ nation called Afghanistan.
Yes, the leitmotif for Afghanistan and Pakistan really is a jack-in-the-box. You heard it here first.
I recommend that everyone immediately read this item from the Fletcher Conference, Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. It is a brilliant piece in and of itself. On top of that it supplies text from several Special Forces dispatches. This is our first taste of the real story. And what a story it is.
From Wolfowitz’s words you will gain insight on what the war on the ground must be like. I cannot help but find myself liking and respecting these Northern Afghan people whose personality peaks through the dispatches. It is the stuff movies are made of. Our forces have not just been fighting side by side with the Afghans, they have been fighting side by side on horseback. Horses and sabers, tanks and satellites and batwinged black stealth bombers and lasers all mixed together like something out of a Space Opera. We are truly entering strange and interesting times.
Retief does not seem quite so fictional tonight.
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