Leaving Deathworld

Justin Elliott at TPM calls attention to overlooked remarks by the U.S. Commander in Afghanistan admitting to uncounted civilian deaths in that "war."

In a stark assessment of shootings of locals by US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in little-noticed comments last month that during his time as commander there, "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

In a nice coincidence of timing, William R. Polk makes the case in The Nation that the only way to achieve peace and a stable government in Afghanistan is for the U.S. to withdraw.

In the media celebration of our "victory" over the Taliban in the Helmand Valley, little attention has been given to the nature of insurgency: the proper tactic of guerrillas is to fade away before overwhelming power, leaving behind only enough fighters to force the invaders to harm civilians and damage property. This is exactly what happened in the recent fighting in Marja. Faced with odds of perhaps 20 to 1, helicopters, tanks and bombers, the guerrillas wisely dispersed. Victory may not be quite the right description.

That battle will probably be repeated in Kandahar, which, unlike the agricultural area known as Marja, is a large and densely populated city. Other operations are planned, so the Marja "victory" has set a pattern that accentuates military action. This is not conducive to an exit strategy--it will not lead out of Afghanistan but deeper into the country. Indeed, there is already evidence that this is happening. As the Washington Post reported shortly after the Marja battle ended, not far away "the Marines are constructing a vast base on the outskirts of town that will have two airstrips, an advanced combat hospital, a post office, a large convenience store and rows of housing trailers stretching as far as the eye can see."

SNIP

If we are smart enough to allow the Afghans to solve their problems in their own way rather than try to force them to adopt ours, we can begin a sustainable move toward peace and security. Withdrawal is the essential first step. Further fighting will only multiply the cost to us and lead to failure.

But SteveM had this nailed back in December:

One of the best sci-fi novels of my youth was Harry Harrison's Deathworld series. Usually out of print the first of the series is a cautionary tale about imperialism and colonialism and, I always thought, about the settlement of Israel. Harrison describes a world, Pyhrus, that was settled by hopeful immigrants who found nothing but plants and animals and dreamed of a utopian community. Unfortunately for them the plants and animals of the planet were more or less sentient and fight back against the new immigrants by evolving, rapidly, to become deadly specifically to the human invaders. Without realizing it, the humans end up in an evolutionary species war--they must adjust their society, economy, culture, and child-rearing practices to deal with a planetary environment which is entirely hostile to them--everything from the local molds and ferns to the birds and mammals continuously evolve to kill them and pretty soon the humans can't leave their fortress homes without themselves being programmed from birth to kill or be killed.

The story of what happened, and why, is discovered not by the Pyhrrans themselves, who are too caught up in the war to grasp its nature, but by a visiting rogue who pieces together the history of the planet and realizes that the very anger, fear, and rage of the humans is creating the permanent state of war with the planet. Unable to ratchet back their anger and fear or come to a truce with the planet and its flora and fauna, the humans are (eventually) forced to abandon their home and become wandering mercenaries. In other words, even when they finally grasp that the planet is simply reacting violently to their own violence, the Pyhrrans are unable to back down the evolutionary war path to their original intentions and their original peaceful society.

Basically, the same thing is happening in Afghanistan. We, like other states, have treated the Afghan people as though they are not sentient and have no real understanding of, or stake in, what we are doing for them (or to them.) And we are constantly surprised by the fact that they don't seem to be properly grateful to us, or able to protect us in their villages, or even able to spend our donations and our money responsibly. Well, why should they? Or more importantly, how should they?

Afghan society has its own structures and its own institutions through which money, power, and culture flow. And it is only through those institutions that a redirection of Afghan energy from warfare to development can happen. Warfare, and specifically war with invaders, happens because there's nothing much else good going on and the immiediate necessity of attacking the enemy, or stealing his stuff, is more urgent and attractive than continuing to hack out a miserable existence farming or goat herding.

I don't know why this isn't incredibly obvious. We are a foreign invader--I don't care how nice we are, or how well intentioned, or how much money we spend. If the Mexicans started dropping bombs that combined shrapnel and money onto the streets of Brooklyn tomorrow, or tried a more targeted approach and handed out money to a few random people on the street, or to the garbage collectors, or to the odd person who spoke Spanish, we wouldn't really expect that that money would be used successfully to develop a parallel school system, or health care system, or anything else...would we? Graft, confusion, inability, and a total lack of local investment in the process would militate against actually achieving those goals, wouldn't they? Why is Afghanistan thought of any differently?

Read the whole thing.

I want to believe Barack Obama knows better. But I doubt President Obama ever read Deathworld.