Killing Reconciliation in Afghanistan
October 31st, 2010 § 1 Comment
Years ago I discovered the following passage in Hamid Dabashi’s Iran: A People Interrupted. Some say it’s an actual radio conversation between a US chief of naval operations and what he believed to be another vessel. Others claim it’s just a joke. Either way, it’s a brilliant statement about US foreign policy.
US Naval Chief: Please divert your course fifteen degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Unidentified Vessel: Recommend you divert your course fifteen degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
US Naval Chief: This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert your course.
Unidentified Vessel: No, I say again, divert your course.
US Naval Chief: This is the aircraft carrier Enterprise. We are a large warship of the US Navy. Divert your course now!
Unidentified Vessel: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
I remembered it while watching Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley‘s indispensable report on Democracy Now! last week about their travels through Afghanistan where they conducted extensive interviews with various elements of the population including senior Taliban, tribal and government members. To summarize, Scahill and Rowley argue that the US/NATO policy of targeted night kidnappings and killings is the most effective way to destroy the US’s hopeful strategy of “winning hearts and minds” and “reconciliation.” If at one time the US’s policy was confused in Afghanistan, it is now also undeniably counterproductive. Indeed, not only is the US/NATO alienating members of the population that would otherwise not be sympathetic to the Taliban, they are also creating an enraged generation of radical resistance.
In Rowley’s words:
Well, you know, every time that I go to Afghanistan, the situation deteriorates. By every available metric, the US is losing the war on the ground. The insurgency is gaining strength. Every time I go back, roads that were safe the trip before are no longer safe. Every time I go back, there are more, you know, black districts in a province. I mean, those are districts where the Taliban are in control rather than the regional government. And I think because of this, because of the massive failure of the Obama troop surge, the US has found itself caught in this bind where they have a completely self-defeating strategy. I mean, the stated public goal—there’s near unanimity of the consensus inside the leaders of the US military that there is no military solution to this conflict, there’s only a political one, and so it’s a counterinsurgency operation, you know, fighting for hearts and minds. That’s what they say publicly. But privately, I think they know that that’s lost.
Watch the second part of the DN! episode below and be sure to read Scahill’s scathing piece in The Nation titled, “Killing Reconciliation.”
The naval ship incident apparently happened off the east coast of Canada. It was mid-90s. I remember the story with the name of the US Naval officer included.