The truth is rarely pure and never simple - Oscar Wilde Certainly when it comes to the politics of eliminating the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan The nightmarish horror of the Peshawar school attack is repellent and unforgivable, but it wasnt the work of mindless monsters, writes Ken Fraser. They are not inhuman, the perpetrators, and the violence, however horrific, is not mindless. This event is an illustration of the fiendish complexity of the geopolitics of the region, and of the old, sad story that the high politics of grand strategy are manifested locally in the suffering of innocents. Peshawar, where more than 140 people have been killed and as many again injured in an attack by the Pakistan Taliban, lies not far over the border from Afghanistan. We can zoom out to understand this event, so incomprehensible in its cruelty, at various levels on the way up the scale. At the lowest level is inurement, blood and horror. Higher up is a web of strategic interests, and through it all wildly clashing conceptions of reality and justice. In the United states, the administration wants out of the area, but cant be seen to be defeated. The hawks are universal in Congress and the equation of the Taliban with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda an article of faith. India wants influence in Afghanistan in order to distract Pakistan from Kashmir. The US needs Pakistan to cut off supplies to the Afghan Taliban, in order to secure the flank of the elected government in Afghanistan, so that NATOs formal withdrawal doesnt look too much like ignominious defeat. Pakistan wants to secure aid and assistance from the US, counter Indian influence in Afghanistan, and gain some measure of control over the border regions. So they are simultaneously fighting the Pakistan Taliban and supporting the Afghan Taliban, which are two quite separate organisations. Complex enough? The Federally Administered Tribal Areas have never really been administered by any state, instead living according to the tribal Pakhtunwali traditions. This started to change after 2001. With Al Qaeda came foreign fighters, many of them Arabs, who made their base among the local Pashtun people. Terrain makes it hard for the states writ to run, and national borders are highly theoretical. For some, social systems of hospitality, honour and revenge are more highly valued that any state-based law, on a level with Islam. The foreign fighters are guests, and when the Americans began to come after them after 9-11, honour demanded their hospitality. Then the Pakistan military started to hunt them as well, and the Pakistan Taliban arose in opposition to this interference by the state. Add to this the fact that the people of this whole region have been more or less constantly at war for several generations now. Killing children is something one needs to be trained for. Not everyone can commit this kind of violence, but those who have grown up in an atmosphere of regular killing find it easier. The US-led coalition has been hunting down the foreign fighters, now including Chechens, Uzbeks and others from all over the world, for years. The population is inured to acts of violence. So are you, as long as such acts take place over there, and not in Martin Place. You read a report of another bombing or drone strike or series of killings in Afghanistan and you skim over it as you order your skim flat white. We are only vaguely aware of the atrocities committed in our name. What does it take to draw attention in this environment? In the perpetual war zone, only the most extreme brutality attracts attention. So, under US pressure, the Pakistan military moves against the Pakistan Taliban, who, ironically, established themselves in opposition to earlier attempts to rid the area of Al Qaeda-related foreign fighters. A group of Pakistan Taliban withdraw to Afghanistan. This means that it makes sense for a Pakistan Taliban group to establish a base of operations in Afghanistan, just as the Afghan Taliban have done in Pakistan for all these years. If they can keep out of the way of US and Afghan drone strikes and assassination raids, they can also organise relatively free from the ongoing Pakistani state campaign against them in their homeland in Waziristan. They know that the Pakistan military, unlike themselves, recognises the border with Afghanistan and cant follow them. They believe they have been treated unjustly, because they see the tribal areas as their territory, hospitality of the foreigners as their duty. Assassination raids and drone strikes have been shown again and again to be counterproductive. Every time a civilian is killed, more are radicalised. The military campaign has entailed civilian damage. Their culture demands revenge, so Pakistan Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani says: We selected the armys school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain. These people have not committed this atrocity for only one reason. Not because they are Muslims, not because they are primitive, not because they are Pashtun, not because they have no sense of honour, not even because they are coldly advancing their interests. The generic version of this statement encompasses all these things: an ideological position, a strong sense of identity associated with righteousness and justice, an assessment of politics, and a large-scale strategic environment that permits, even encourages, this behaviour. This generic description applies to all of the multifarious sides in this mess. The nightmarish horror of it is repellent and unforgivable, but, within a certain worldview, it is a sane response to an insanely complex geostrategic environment. Ken Fraser is a lecturer, analyst and writer on international affairs, international relations theory and world, economic and military history. He is also a contributing analyst with the Wikistrat consulting group. View his full profile here. The nightmarish horror of the Peshawar school attack is repellent and unforgivable, but it wasnt the work of mindless monsters, writes Ken Fraser. They are not inhuman, the perpetrators, and the violence, however horrific, is not mindless. This event is an illustration of the fiendish complexity of the geopolitics of the region, and of the old, sad story that the high politics of grand strategy are manifested locally in the suffering of innocents. Peshawar, where more than 140 people have been killed and as many again injured in an attack by the Pakistan Taliban, lies not far over the border from Afghanistan. We can zoom out to understand this event, so incomprehensible in its cruelty, at various levels on the way up the scale. At the lowest level is inurement, blood and horror. Higher up is a web of strategic interests, and through it all wildly clashing conceptions of reality and justice. In the United states, the administration wants out of the area, but cant be seen to be defeated. The hawks are universal in Congress and the equation of the Taliban with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda an article of faith. India wants influence in Afghanistan in order to distract Pakistan from Kashmir. The US needs Pakistan to cut off supplies to the Afghan Taliban, in order to secure the flank of the elected government in Afghanistan, so that NATOs formal withdrawal doesnt look too much like ignominious defeat. Pakistan wants to secure aid and assistance from the US, counter Indian influence in Afghanistan, and gain some measure of control over the border regions. So they are simultaneously fighting the Pakistan Taliban and supporting the Afghan Taliban, which are two quite separate organisations. Complex enough? The Federally Administered Tribal Areas have never really been administered by any state, instead living according to the tribal Pakhtunwali traditions. This started to change after 2001. With Al Qaeda came foreign fighters, many of them Arabs, who made their base among the local Pashtun people. Terrain makes it hard for the states writ to run, and national borders are highly theoretical. For some, social systems of hospitality, honour and revenge are more highly valued that any state-based law, on a level with Islam. The foreign fighters are guests, and when the Americans began to come after them after 9-11, honour demanded their hospitality. Then the Pakistan military started to hunt them as well, and the Pakistan Taliban arose in opposition to this interference by the state. Add to this the fact that the people of this whole region have been more or less constantly at war for several generations now. Killing children is something one needs to be trained for. Not everyone can commit this kind of violence, but those who have grown up in an atmosphere of regular killing find it easier. The US-led coalition has been hunting down the foreign fighters, now including Chechens, Uzbeks and others from all over the world, for years. The population is inured to acts of violence. So are you, as long as such acts take place over there, and not in Martin Place. You read a report of another bombing or drone strike or series of killings in Afghanistan and you skim over it as you order your skim flat white. We are only vaguely aware of the atrocities committed in our name. What does it take to draw attention in this environment? In the perpetual war zone, only the most extreme brutality attracts attention. So, under US pressure, the Pakistan military moves against the Pakistan Taliban, who, ironically, established themselves in opposition to earlier attempts to rid the area of Al Qaeda-related foreign fighters. A group of Pakistan Taliban withdraw to Afghanistan. This means that it makes sense for a Pakistan Taliban group to establish a base of operations in Afghanistan, just as the Afghan Taliban have done in Pakistan for all these years. If they can keep out of the way of US and Afghan drone strikes and assassination raids, they can also organise relatively free from the ongoing Pakistani state campaign against them in their homeland in Waziristan. They know that the Pakistan military, unlike themselves, recognises the border with Afghanistan and cant follow them. They believe they have been treated unjustly, because they see the tribal areas as their territory, hospitality of the foreigners as their duty. Assassination raids and drone strikes have been shown again and again to be counterproductive. Every time a civilian is killed, more are radicalised. The military campaign has entailed civilian damage. Their culture demands revenge, so Pakistan Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani says: We selected the armys school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain. These people have not committed this atrocity for only one reason. Not because they are Muslims, not because they are primitive, not because they are Pashtun, not because they have no sense of honour, not even because they are coldly advancing their interests. The generic version of this statement encompasses all these things: an ideological position, a strong sense of identity associated with righteousness and justice, an assessment of politics, and a large-scale strategic environment that permits, even encourages, this behaviour. This generic description applies to all of the multifarious sides in this mess. The nightmarish horror of it is repellent and unforgivable, but, within a certain worldview, it is a sane response to an insanely complex geostrategic environment. Ken Fraser is a lecturer, analyst and writer on international affairs, international relations theory and world, economic and military history. He is also a contributing analyst with the Wikistrat consulting group. View his full profile here.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 22:05:51 +0000
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