Space Oddities

by Eric Martin

Dehumanization of the enemy has been inextricably linked to war since at least the onset of recorded history - and likely times precedent.  It aids in overcoming some of the psychological obstacles that complicate the process of motivating one group of humans to slaughter another without suffering crippling levels of guilt and other complicating qualms.  These types of propaganda efforts come in crude and sophisticated packages, from referring to all Iraqis as "Hajjis" to constructing elaborate arguments based on "Arab" cultural otherness.

A recent example of this phenomenon comes courtesy of Ralph Peters - who has long bemoaned the unwillingness on the part of our military to use more unrestrained brutality in its various campaigns:

A fundamental reason why our intelligence agencies, military leaders and (above all) Washington pols can't understand Afghanistan is that they don't recognize that we're dealing with alien life-forms.

Oh, the strange-minded aliens in question resemble us physically. We share a few common needs: We and the aliens are oxygen breathers who require food and water at frequent intervals. Our body casings feel heat or cold. We're divided into two sexes (more or less). And we're mortal.

But that's about where the similarities end, analytically speaking.

As stated above, such psychological manipulations are interwoven with the process of making war, but they do create a peculiar tension when viewed against the backdrop of the Bush administration's liberation rhetoric used to sell its various military endeavors.  Simultaneously demonizing groups of people that you are supposedly expending vast amounts of money and lives to "liberate" doesn't line up neatly in most psyches.  This paradox was on full display during the campaign when John McCain's heartfelt solidarity with the Iraqi people was punctuated with insinuations that Barack Obama was a, gasp, Muslim - as if that mere fact alone, were it true, should cast doubt on his suitability as a candidate.  At least, it was for the ostensible supporters of the freedom agenda.

These examples should serve as cautionary tales to the would-be spreaders of democracy via shock and awe: no matter how lofty and florid the language used to describe liberation effectuated via military means, or how enamored the brass may be of COIN doctrine, at the end of the day, the trigger pullers in theater will be forced by the circumstances (understandably) to adopt a mind set that undervalues the lives of the target population.  And many of their leaders - military and domestic - will reinforce the dehumanization on the ground.  Another such example from Robert Kagan via Matt Duss:

To take this issue of civilian casualties, I’d like to make a note. If you compare the damage that is done in Afghan cities and villages and towns, and the number of civilians that are wounded or killed in coalition attacks to the sort of damage that was done in Iraqi cities and villages and towns, “order of magnitude” doesn’t begin to describe it. If anyone has seen pictures of Ramadi or Fallujah, they looked like Stalingrad [ed note: Stalingrad is an interesting choice of analogies given the respective parties involved]. Not a single building standing. Streets filled with rubble. Cities absolutely crushed.

The interesting thing is that when we were fighting those battles and doing that damage, on the whole the Iraqis were not bitching about collateral damage. You had nothing like the degree of upset about how many civilians were being injured and how much damage was being done to the infrastructure in Iraq at a much higher level of destruction than you have in Afghanistan at a much lower level of destruction.

I think there’s a cultural reason for that: Afghans don’t fight in their cities. Iraqis do. For good or ill, Iraqis expect to fight in their cities. That’s where the insurgents dug in, Saddam Hussein planned to dig in to the cities or lure us into an urban fight. It’s sort of understood that the battlefield is going to be there, that doesn’t mean that they don’t complain about it, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a problem, but it does mean that when the insurgents dig in and we root them out, the Iraqis don’t on the whole say “darn it, you shouldn’t have blown up all of our houses.” They sort of accept that. Afghans do not. [emphasis from Duss]

Where does one start with that piece?  First of all, the claim that Afghans don't fight in cities is simply not supported by the historical record.  As Duss points out:

A friend emails to correct Kagan's claim that "Afghans don't fight in their cities." He writes "Go back and look at what happened in the 1980s and 1990s in Kabul and other major cities." He directed me to Larry Goodson's Afghanistan's Endless War, which describes how Kabul became a major battleground between mujahideen factions between 1992 and 1995:

Perhaps as many as 50,000 [were] killed and 150,000 wounded there, and hundreds of thousands...fled the city, large areas of which [were] reduced to rubble.

Second, Iraqis did react viscerally to the massive carnage and destruction of their cities.  The first siege of Fallujah even united Shiite and Sunni for a time - with Sadr's forces funneling aid and supplies to Sunnis in embattled Fallujah.  It set Iraq - and the region - ablaze with anger. On Kagan's characterization of complaints about such destruction:

Given that Fred Kagan previously referredto widespread sectarian cleansing in Iraq as a “myth,” it’s not so surprising that he would dismiss complaints about the killing and maiming of civilians and the rubbling of entire neighborhoods as “bitching.” And it really doesn’t even need to be pointed out that what Kagan means by “setting our minds to it” is “have the will to kill huge amounts of people in order to achieve our goals.”

Finally, this attempt to reduce Afghan outrage at civilian casualties to a cultural phenomenon is consistent with other attempts to ascribe Iraqi attitudes toward the brutality of occupation to peculiar Arab sensibilities.  As Matt Yglesias remarked while flagging a couple examples of same:

It's really bizarre how, in the context of war, totally normal attributes of human behavior become transformed into into mysterious cultural quirks of the elusive Arab. I recall having read in the past that because Arabs are horrified of shame, it's not a good idea to humiliate an innocent man by breaking down his door at night and handcuffing him in front of his wife and children before hauling him off to jail. Now it seems that Arabs are also so invested in honor that they don't like it when mercenaries kill their relatives.

What a fascinating place Iraq must be! Maybe someday we'll discover that in Arab culture they have this weird thing where people's political allegiances are heavily influenced by issues of ethnic, cultural, and religious identity and that having their destinies controlled by a foreign, religiously alien, occupying army that doesn't speak the language is kind of a drag. Who knows?

Yeah, but according to Peters and Kagan, the Afghans are even odder in that they also complain when their cities are reduced to rubble.  It's like they're from Mars or something.