Sunday, July 09, 2006
DO BLOW UP ANOTHER SKYSCRAPER OR TWO, CHAPS
The Times' Matthew Parris tells us government policy in the War on Terror is on "all the wrong paths but carry on anyway, chaps":
I had been unaware, until Parris had just told me, that only "neoconservatives" and "Western liberal interventionists" thought ousting the Taliban/al Qaeda regime was a good thing. Beyond that revelation, there's more. No, your eyes do not deceive you: Parris has also just straight-faced compared the Soviet imposition of a communist dictatorship to an Afghan government elected freely by millions, including many former Taliban, and which is underpinned by a constitution devised by those same (often very religious) Afghans, not by "Lenin".
It's a relief Parris is not naive. That will make his suggested disengagement much easier for us to accept. For his regular, brilliant and varied justifications for allowing the exotic natives to continue to dwell simply, unbothered by "modernity", to live only according to the natural ebb and flow of their "traditional lifestyle" are by now absolutely compelling, and worth acting upon. What should be done is obvious: upon the withdrawal of all military and economic support for the new, elected Afghan government, the issue will be solved. For then those who wish to return to their "traditional lifestyle" will be free to do so, and we will most assuredly have nothing more to worry about.
And we would be free then to turn our backs once more. Then the "happy natives" and those who "emigrate" there would be easily able to reimpose that carefree, "traditional lifestyle" the U.S., Britain, the rest of NATO and, irrelevantly of course, the large majority of the Afghan population, had actually dared to try to reform. Foolish all those -- the latter especially -- for thinking such is even possible.
After having allowed the "traditional lifestyle" to reassert itself, it will clearly then be inappropriate of us to make any attempt to circumscribe or even question the travels or temporary "settlement" of any of those who share a desire to partake in, or to encourage the "global spread" of, that "traditional lifestyle". Indeed, any of those who desire merely to come visit us for a while should be welcomed again with "open arms".
Then, the next time some of those happy-go-lucky "soujourners" choose to crash our own airplanes into our own buildings or whatever other novel new "action" they concoct to (certainly) protect their "traditional lifestyle" still further from any encroachment by our "traditional lifestyle", we'll just turn to them and say, "No worries. No bother. Carry on, chaps".
Yes, an excellent "plan" that. Parris's keen insight is remarkable, and why it is missing from the tables of the great and good nowadays is simply unfathomable. What a shame he's reduced now to scribbling for The Times. ¶ by Robert, Sunday, July 09, 2006
The Times' Matthew Parris tells us government policy in the War on Terror is on "all the wrong paths but carry on anyway, chaps":
...It is not appreciated among neoconservatives that what many ordinary Afghans really detested about Soviet rule was the attempt to liberate Afghans — and specifically Afghan women — from a conservative Islamic culture. Let Western liberal interventionists boast about all the girls now attending schools in Afghanistan if they like, but the first liberal-interventionist “rescue” of the oppressed in that country was attempted by the Soviet Union, and the oppressed declined to be rescued...
I had been unaware, until Parris had just told me, that only "neoconservatives" and "Western liberal interventionists" thought ousting the Taliban/al Qaeda regime was a good thing. Beyond that revelation, there's more. No, your eyes do not deceive you: Parris has also just straight-faced compared the Soviet imposition of a communist dictatorship to an Afghan government elected freely by millions, including many former Taliban, and which is underpinned by a constitution devised by those same (often very religious) Afghans, not by "Lenin".
...I am not so naive as to miss the fact that a ruthless and organised grouping called the Taleban exists. But around that core is a wider and more pervasive force that is not so much an organisation as a habit of mind and belief. Any Afghan can become Taleban — can slip into or out of the state. Someone I got to know well there was on the edge of it. He was not (yet) hostile to the West, but he hated to see women unveiled, driving cars or laughing in the street; and he hated rule by foreigners. There is a calamitous error at the heart of American thinking: that if you kill a hundred Taleban, there are a hundred fewer. Wrong. There may be two hundred more...
...With sinking heart I realise that when reinforcements are announced by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, the only question from Liam Fox, his Tory Shadow, will be whether there shouldn’t be even more. Up the creek the Cameroons will go (just as Iain Duncan Smith did over Iraq) until to criticise the deployment in principle will look like a late and hypocritical U-turn...
...With sinking heart I realise that when reinforcements are announced by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, the only question from Liam Fox, his Tory Shadow, will be whether there shouldn’t be even more. Up the creek the Cameroons will go (just as Iain Duncan Smith did over Iraq) until to criticise the deployment in principle will look like a late and hypocritical U-turn...
It's a relief Parris is not naive. That will make his suggested disengagement much easier for us to accept. For his regular, brilliant and varied justifications for allowing the exotic natives to continue to dwell simply, unbothered by "modernity", to live only according to the natural ebb and flow of their "traditional lifestyle" are by now absolutely compelling, and worth acting upon. What should be done is obvious: upon the withdrawal of all military and economic support for the new, elected Afghan government, the issue will be solved. For then those who wish to return to their "traditional lifestyle" will be free to do so, and we will most assuredly have nothing more to worry about.
And we would be free then to turn our backs once more. Then the "happy natives" and those who "emigrate" there would be easily able to reimpose that carefree, "traditional lifestyle" the U.S., Britain, the rest of NATO and, irrelevantly of course, the large majority of the Afghan population, had actually dared to try to reform. Foolish all those -- the latter especially -- for thinking such is even possible.
After having allowed the "traditional lifestyle" to reassert itself, it will clearly then be inappropriate of us to make any attempt to circumscribe or even question the travels or temporary "settlement" of any of those who share a desire to partake in, or to encourage the "global spread" of, that "traditional lifestyle". Indeed, any of those who desire merely to come visit us for a while should be welcomed again with "open arms".
Then, the next time some of those happy-go-lucky "soujourners" choose to crash our own airplanes into our own buildings or whatever other novel new "action" they concoct to (certainly) protect their "traditional lifestyle" still further from any encroachment by our "traditional lifestyle", we'll just turn to them and say, "No worries. No bother. Carry on, chaps".
Yes, an excellent "plan" that. Parris's keen insight is remarkable, and why it is missing from the tables of the great and good nowadays is simply unfathomable. What a shame he's reduced now to scribbling for The Times. ¶ by Robert, Sunday, July 09, 2006
