General Sir David Richards a few days ago told a BBC reporter that the West wouldn't be able to defeat Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. That they would pose a threat to Britain for another thirty years at least... While alas(!) I celebrate that someone on the right has at last discovered something said by many around 2003-4, he has not yet reached the right conclusion. It may be another 7 years for that.
We may ask ourselves then, why are we staying in Afghanistan if they cannot be defeated? Surely it is just a mass grave of the unknown which we are helping fill? Yes it is. But he thinks that it is possible to 'contain' Al-Qaeda. Like we have [not] been doing since the beginning! What he is saying is that we should continue killing and displacing millions, making sure they have no access to education, health care or food and keeping women in the strangling clasps of men. What we are containing is their access to development and democracy. Because we know what is best for them, we are the West, a haven.
I'm a big fan of what is rational, so I think I'm a big fan of terrorism. While I don't support it and I think it will only make situations worse, I more than understand where it comes from. For the West it is rational to search half the world, destroying everything and everyone in the way, for one man. However we think it is irrational for people to resort to violence to protect their livelihoods and families and everything they've known. We see them as uneducated, but if we are the educated then maybe we should fall back into the world of Rousseau's noble savage, where civilization doesn't exist, where there are no worries, where we are free. If education is what we have and rationality guides the thinking processes of our leaders, maybe we should be more like the Afghanis instead of forcing them to accept what we impose.
Johann Hari described the terrorist situation very well. He says that the U.S. is creating far more jihadis than they are killing. He flips the situation around: imagine you are leading your normal life in whichever Western city and then, suddenly, your house gets bombed, and that of your neighbour and that of your mother. Family and friends are dieing all around you. You are a normal person, your family is normal and your friends are normal; there is no reason for the killings. Then someone comes to you under a name like 'Army of the People' says that this country called, say, Bangladesh is responsible for the bombings. Moreover, they (the AoftheP) have acquired the technology to actively fight against these people. With nothing left: no job, no wife, no kids, no food, but lots of frustration; isn't it fair to say that many would join this group? To prevent further killings, for your country? I'm not a patriot, but it is rational for people to protect that which is closest to them. It makes sense for people to feel close to people who are like them. It is a survival instinct. General Richards is right when he says that we will not defeat terrorism, but he is wrong when he says we will contain the ideology if we pursue the methods hitherto pursued.
The problem is that the people who have power in our countries are not all that concerned about the well-being of a few Muslims. Why? Because the threats from Al-Qaeda will always be directed to them. They are the exploiters of their countries as well as ours. The rich aren't all that concerned with us either. They don't care about laws. They only care about their own security, and this is when it is important [for the rest] to abide the law. They are allowed to bomb people as long as they are not bombed, if they are you are guaranteed to end up in jail with electrodes in your skin.
I read a fair while ago that the Taliban wouldn't put down their weapons until America and the rest leave the country. This is unacceptable to the West, because then we won't have the opportunity to control their resources, plunder their crops or spend billions on arms. However it is only logical. There are so many opportunities for Afghanistan, they can only start being drawn out when they become free after 40 years of war.
Only peace can create peace.
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