Military Orientalism

Arguing Afghanistan: Rory Stewart and Military Orientalism

As readers might’ve guessed, opponents of the campaign in Afghanistan are a nuisance of mine, from anti-war protestors who think because the country is hot and Muslim it must be like Iraq to more serious critics like Adam Holloway. The problem is not their position, which is valid, but the disingenuous arguments they use to support it. By misdescribing the conflict, they’re able to legitimise their position on withdrawal/drawdown and gather support from the public by appealing to instincts like defeatism and isolationism. This is annoying to those who try to see the conflict objectively, standing apart from both supporters and opponents.

One of the most effective advocates for military drawdown is Rory Stewart, who has challenged a lot of the assumptions underlying current policy in Afghanistan. He argues persuasively about the many problems we face, from corruption in the country to the political and economic challenges in building a viable state. There are serious flaws in Stewart’s critique, however, which makes the unquestioning faith some place in him worrying. He not only misdescribes the conflict but also views it through an orientalist perspective, particularly through an orientalist interpretation of Lawrence of Arabia. The way in which Stewart misdescribes the conflict has been touched on here, and others have also pointed out the false assumptions and impracticalities behind his recommendations for drawdown. I want to look at the way he creates a false distinction between himself and his opponents by imitating his hero T. E. Lawrence, even though both sides are guilty of military Orientalism. This should make us look more critically at his contribution to the debate about Afghanistan.

The theme which runs through all Stewart’s work is that our involvement in Central Asia and the Middle East is undermined because it is influenced by pseudo-intellectuals who want to impose abstract, doctrinal ideas on those regions. He criticizes the counterinsurgency doctrine on which our strategy in Afghanistan is based as too abstract to be a serious policy. ‘An incredibly impressive and elaborate intellectual edifice has been created by proponents of involvement in Afghanistan’, he notes dismissively. It minimises the differences between cultures, exaggerates our fears and aggrandises our ambitions. President Obama and policymakers generally are bamboozled by the beauty of counterinsurgency doctrine as interpreted by people like John Nagl and General Petraeus. ‘The path is broad enough to include Scandinavian humanitarians and American special forces; general enough to be applied to Botswana as easily as to Afghanistan; sinuous and sophisticated enough to draw in policymakers; suggestive enough of crude moral imperatives to attract the Daily Mail; and almost too abstract to be defined or refuted.’ But Stewart is sceptical because, unlike these people, he ‘knows’ the East. ‘Ten years in the Islamic world and in other places that had recently emerged from conflict had left me very suspicious of theories produced in seminars in Western capitals’, he wrote in Occupational Hazards. The case for our involvement in Afghanistan is ‘so buoyed by illusions, caulked in ambiguous language and encrusted with moral claims, analogies and political theories’, however, that it is almost futile to show how out-of-touch it is.

Stewart makes some legitimate points here. There are counterinsurgency experts who take doctrine and turn it into an ideology, unquestionable in its precepts and teaching. It contrasts with others like Andrew Exum and David Kilcullen, who accommodate doubt in their writing and acknowledge they could be wrong. But the overarching criticism is wide-of-the-mark because the latest counterinsurgency doctrine emphasises the importance of understanding ‘the East’ and its culture, which is partly the problem with it. ‘The “cultural turn” should be applauded for encouraging military actors to distance themselves from their own norms to imagine that of others’, writes Patrick Porter in Military Orientalism. If ‘knowing the enemy’ is to be a serious endeavour, however, then ‘there is much more to it than assuming behaviour is necessarily a linear continuum from pre-existing cultural systems.’ One can argue that Stewart sets-up the distinction between ‘abstract, doctrinal intellectuals’ and himself because he is trying to emulate T. E. Lawrence. The narrative which Lawrence spun after the First World War was that the Middle East was ruined because policymakers failed to listen to him, who ‘knew’ the region and what was good for it. It was a narrative that is heavily orientalist, making assumptions about ‘the East’ and its culture’s incompatibility with Western influence, and it informed Stewart’s recent documentary about Lawrence and is a theme throughout his work. But through aping the military Orientalism of T. E. Lawrence, Stewart makes the same fallacies as those he sets-up as his opponents, clinging to fixed ideas about culture in Afghanistan and ‘the East’ to support his arguments. ‘War is a power struggle, a deadly reactive dance,’ as Porter continues, ‘and culture is subject to its volatile nature.’

This post is not meant as a comprehensive study of Orientalism in Rory Stewart’s work or the presence of the Lawrence ‘myth’ in it, but is instead highlighting a new perspective with which to view his work more critically when it comes to arguing about Afghanistan.

August 19, 2007

NYT Op-Ed Contributors

The War as We Saw It

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY

Baghdad

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counter-insurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and non-commissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

The Moral Divide (More on the Iran Meeting)

From Tyler Boudreaus Journal: Psychatrix

Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 3:58PM

I recently had an interesting conversation.

It all started in a room filled with people who were united in their deep concern for the welfare of returning veterans. Many people spoke. Veterans spoke. Stories were told. Hearts were poured out.

But suddenly, amidst all this good will, a rift spread across the room. A difference of opinion emerged. How to best serve a returning veteran? It was not so easy a question as we might have guessed.

The cause of the rift?

Peace.

Imagine that. Peace, as the catalyst of confrontation.

But it was.

A crowd of very decent, well-meaning people sat in the middle and said, “We want to care for our veterans. We also want to talk about peace.”

Battle lines were hastily drawn. On one side, were three men affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs. On the other side, the veterans.

“Oh no, no,” the VA men said. “You cannot speak of peace. If you ever want to build rapport with veterans, you cannot utter a word about peace!” They went on to explain that veterans view peace-activists as the enemy. “If they so much as hear that word—peace—they will turn tail and run the other way. And you’ll have lost them forever.”

These were the experts. They knew veterans. They carried that weight with them.

Then the veterans in the room responded. They said, “Um, yes but…we’re not all opposed to talking about peace. In fact, given our troubles with war, we rather enjoy the discussion.”

Now there is truth, of course, in the suggestion that many veterans do feel a certain hostility from the peace movement—even those veterans who have been disquieted by their own experiences in war. But my feeling, as an Iraq War veteran, is that they tend to be threatened mostly by the rhetoric that is leveled directly against the actions they took in war. Veterans are not inherently opposed to peaceful days, and most, I think would be perfectly receptive to a discussion of diplomacy vs. military action in future situations.

And so the debate went back and forth, the moral divide opened, and the well-meaning people in the middle began to slip down into it. They looked to the left at the few passionate veterans in the room, and then they looked to the right at the men from the VA who said they’d worked with and heard the stories from thousands of veterans.

“Trust us,” they said. “We know what we’re talking about.”

You could see the struggle ensue before your eyes. You could feel it.

In the end, the well-meaning people in the middle grabbed hold of a rope called neutrality.

And there they hung, murmuring, “We do not want to upset our veterans, so we will not talk about peace. We will not talk about politics. We will not talk about stopping the war in Iraq. We will not talk about preventing a war in Iran. We will not talk about anything.”

The cause for war had won.

The interesting conversation came after all this.

I was disturbed by what I’d heard those VA men say. But I was not entirely surprised. One man was a psychiatrist. He explained the psychological dimensions of PTSD. Another was a chaplain. He explained the spiritual dimensions of PTSD. But by virtue of their jobs and the hands that fed them, they could not delve too deeply into the moral questions of policy.

This is where I became most incensed.

“Because war with Iran is not yet a policy,” I said to my friend who was also at the meeting. “There are no troops on the ground to support or not to support. There are no units in contact. There is no mission to believe in or to doubt. This is a great burden off our shoulders and clears the table for the possibility of diplomacy. This is the time to talk about it. This is the time to talk about non-violence, before the violence begins, before the troops are sent, and before we have another polarizing war which we cannot speak of critically without offending somebody.”

What was so extraordinary about this particular episode was that the painstaking neutrality embraced by all these well-meaning people to spare the feelings of the veterans had effectively trumped their own instincts to speak for peace. They were silenced. They silenced themselves, not only about the present war, but about future ones as well.

My friend and I agreed, we’d witnessed a surprising phenomenon. And we realized that the effort to prevent future wars might be effectively impeded through its manipulation.

If, for example, Iran was pressed upon the American people not as a war of its own, but merely as an extension of the same war on terror already taking place in Iraq, then so much the more difficult it would be to oppose for those people desperately wishing to show support for the troops.

I am grateful that the members of the American Legion Post 271 in Hadley have not allowed this rationale to prevent them from graciously inviting Congressman Neal and his constituents into their hall to discuss the situation in Iran.

It was a noble thing to do, and I’m pleased that it was veterans who did it.

This is a complex issue with many perspectives to consider, all of which I have not captured in this essay. The exchanges I’ve just described are my own impressions alone. They are not intended to be an indictment. What is most important to keep in mind is not the particular personalities involved here or the particular groups represented, but the phenomenon itself.

That’s the ball to keep one’s eye on.

It is the danger of dialogue being squelched among people who desire peace, but who also feel obligated to support the troops at any cost including silence. That moral dilemma will surely be exploited by those who desire war.

I look forward to participating in and listening to the exchange of ideas on February 20th.

This indeed is a great opportunity for our community. It is what representative democracy is all about.

As for those who remain silently dangling from the rope of neutrality, and those who cannot find space in their hearts for peace, I must sadly let them go and make my own strongest bond with the future.