I noticed a story in today’s local paper about Britain wanting to increase its naval presence in the Persian Gulf. I immediately thought that the Persian Gulf was quite a long way from the mist-shrouded shores of Great Britain.

This story also reminded me instantly of the Suez Crisis of 1956. This is when Britain, France and Israel fought back against the nationalization of the Suez Canal by a newly nationalistic Egyptian government under Nasser. The USA at that time told them to back off and reminded them that responses common during a colonial era were no longer appropriate, and that new geo-political patterns had emerged. The former colonial powers were also told that they would have far fewer opportunities to throw their weight around and that the new super-power in town (then, the USA) would be calling the shots.

I predict that the same thing will happen in the Persian Gulf with the West’s confrontation with Iran. However, in this case it seems like the most of the West will fall into the role that Britain and France played at the time of the Suez Crisis.

If the current Iran confrontation becomes a live war—and it increasingly looks like it will—then countries of the West will be told in no uncertain terms that the rules of the game have changed, in a similar way to 1956, and that they should back off.

I predict that China and other BRIC nations will be the ones doing the telling this time.

I just saw this 2008 film, which won an Best Actress Oscar for Kate Winslet. It is an unusual film in that it combines two things that are not commonly connected: the issues of illiteracy and of German guilt over the Holocaust.

The film is about an intense affair in the summer of 1958 between a gifted high school student named Michael Berg and an older but still attractive working-class woman named Hanna Schmitz, played by Kate Winslet. Hanna is a lonely, somewhat bitter person—a type not unusual in post-war Germany. Later it turns out this woman was an SS guard at Auschwitz who participated in atrocities during WWII.

In The Reader the boy introduces Hanna to literature by reading to her. The boy is a conduit for this women to the world of literature—a world to which she has had little previous exposure.

This boy is a good position to be this conduit because he is lucky enough to be getting a good education within a classical system, which traditionally has had the goal of furthering the possibly counter-intuitive idea that books are the foundation of culture and that to understand what their contents mean is a necessary and perhaps sufficient aspect of becoming cultured.

The thing that Hanna most values in her affair with the boy is having books which she has not yet read, read to her.

When the boy reads to Hanna at the beginning of their affair, he lacks two important bits of information: first, that Hanna is illiterate, and second, that she is a former guard at Auschwitz—a job which one can assume is soul-destroying for both its victims and perpetrators.

Later, at her trial for war crimes, it becomes clear that an important, undisclosed factor in her choice of career path is influenced greatly by her illiteracy: she probably joined the SS in order to avoid having to read on the job. The film skillfully uses fact this not to excuse her behavior but to add an element of ambiguity to the moral choices she made. In the end, she is made a scapegoat for the institutionalized criminality involved in running extermination camps, which of course were designed to humiliate and eventually kill most of the people they processed.

In the movie, the Michael Berg character at Hanna’s trial is in a position to bring a crucial fact to the attention of the authorities: that Hanna was and is illiterate and couldn’t have been the one to write and organize the atrocity for which Hanna is being tried. She is guilty of a war crime certainly, but that she was probably not its ring-leader.

Berg decides to do nothing and his failure to act causes him pain. It is presented as him having the chance to step up to the plate but that he declined this opportunity. He let the moment pass and paid for his passivity for the greater part of his life. It is only much later, when he tries to connect to his estranged daughter that he begins to open up and start telling what he knows. The film implies that this opening up creates a new beginning for Berg.

In the context of the time, to defend a former SS guard, in a country which was eager to exploit scapegoats, would take significant courage. He lacked this courage at the time.

One message of the movie is that even if you are, in effect, helping a former Auschwitz guard, you should still behave morally. This lesson is one that Berg’s law professor tries unsuccessfully to teach his student.

The second takeaway is the profound life-altering choices and behaviors that illiteracy can make on people. People, if they are illiterate, usually view their illiteracy with shame. They blame themselves for being illiterate. Having two dyslexic children ourselves we have seen this dynamic first hand.

A failure to read is taken to be a general failure in personality, intelligence or motivation. It is presented as reason for feeling personal shame. Unfortunately, the idea that non-readers are either lazy, bad, or stupid is as prevalent today as it’s always been. It remains as one of society’s most enduring and destructive stereotypes and prejudices.

It seems that the reason most people are illiterate is either because they have not had the opportunity to learn, or that their brains are not structured in a way that their learning to read is natural. Luckily, reading is a skill that most children take to like ducks to water.

In the movie, it is not clarified why Hanna doesn’t read: is she from an impoverished background, or is she dyslexic? Probably, a little bit of both.

One of the most moving points of the movie is when Hanna and Michael go on a cycling holiday into the countryside and happen upon a church or abbey in which a children’s choir is practicing.

Hanna, who remember, is hiding two fundamental secrets—that she is former death camp guard who also happens to be illiterate—sits down on a pew and listens to the choral music wafting from above. The expression of astonishment on her face when she finds this performance moving is priceless.

Her look is one of disbelief that she wasn’t aware that such a thing existed—that children’s voices singing choral music can be an overwhelming sensory and aesthetic experience. She seems to silently ask her boy lover “Were you aware that such a thing existed?” He seems to reply: “Yes, I was aware it existed and I’m moved that you find it moving.”

This brings us to the underlying mystery of the 20th century—how a country, Germany, which has made so many fundamental contributions to world culture in literature, philosophy and even choral music—could descend into the utter darkness of a place like Auschwitz.

What The Reader encourages is the idea that this question is more nuanced and ambiguous than it first appears and that truth is ultimately stranger than fiction.

Reenactors on the British side at the Battle of Stoney Creek

Every year in Stoney Creek, Ontario for the last 30 years people have reenacted the Battle of Stoney Creek. This was a small but pivotal battle between the Americans and the British during the War of 1812.

The British at the time were a great European power while the US were destined to become a great North American power. The Americans were just establishing their nationhood, their standing army and their military capability. The British on the other hand had one of the most professional and disciplined armies in the world.

The War of 1812 is usually portrayed as a battle between two settler nations: the British (helped by Canadian militias and its native allies) and the Americans. Later in the 19th century, both the Americans and the British did rather well for themselves.

The natives were of essential help in helping the British defend itself against the American invasion. They knew the land much more intimately than the British. Their keen sense of how to survive in the northern woods was honed by thousands of years of settlement. Their dwellings and clothing appear the most suitable for warfare in northern forests. They were also known as fierce and skillful warriors who could terrorize their enemies.

Yet, as the actor portraying Chief Tecumseh at the reenactment explained, the native side did less well as result of the war than the British or the Americans. Despite their help in helping the British not lose the war, the natives were the only side that can be said to have ‘lost’ this war: their traditional way of life, their political autonomy and the hold on their territory was soon to be greatly diminished by the influx of mostly white settlers.

Southern Ontario and in particular the Niagara region, then as now, was an attractive target of invasion: a fruit-belt with a mild climate, with important centres of population, adjacent to impressive lakes and other natural waterways and with some of the most productive farmland in the region.

As luck would have it the War of 1812 was a draw and residents of Upper Canada remained British, later Canadian. As a result of the War of 1812 most of the current eastern boundaries between Canada and the US were defined.

Therefore, one of the war’s outcomes was the establishment of a stable frontier between two large countries. This has given the lands on either side of the border many years in which the inhabitants didn’t have to worry too much about the possibility of external invasion or other political or military calamities. Most other regions of the world cannot claim such stability of their frontiers so early in their political history.

This was a type of ‘peace dividend’ for the region, which unfortunately did not extend to its aboriginal population. Their history after this war was one of increasing marginalization – rather than stability and growth. The reverberations of this process of marginalization are still felt strongly in the region and have yet to be addressed adequately on either side of the border.

New York Republican congressman Mike King challenged those who say that “waterboarding doesn’t work.”

Congressman King, I don’t think the main issue is whether waterboarding worked or not, the main issue–which is as clear as day in almost all places, in all minds that have a molecule of rationality, sensibility or compassion–is whether waterboarding is morally reprehensible or not.

It is similar to arguing whether slavery ‘worked’ because it happened to raise the GDP of the confederate states.

Clearly, when it involves torture, in normal political discourse outside of Stalinist Russia or Khmer Rouge Cambodia, ends don’t justify the means.

It deserves a nanosecond of reflection to utterly reject such reasoning as that by King. No, make that less than a nanosecond.

I thought we were past all such nonsense–and it is complete nonsense–laughably so [read about it next in The Onion].

We live in an age in which headlines can be taken directly from mainstream newspapers, processed ever so slightly, then directly presented as satire. This is making satirists jobs so much easier! Isn’t there an app for that?

First, is this article from the Nation: With Osama bin Laden Dead, It’s Time to End the ‘War on Terror.’

Clearly, the war on terror has very little to do with the continued existence or not of Osama bin Laden, or his ilk. It appears to have much more to do with domestic politics in the USA. The war on terror was a war conceived for US domestic consumption, despite the undeniable hideousness and suffering of 9/11, and despite bin Laden’s almost certain complicity in that tragedy.

In order for this war to end, there must be a change in US domestic politics, which I can’t see happening anytime soon.

Operations such as the bin Laden killing are known as Black Ops. Obama is expected to do well politically as a result of this one. People dancing in Times Square is to be expected. Americans shouldn’t be surprised though if the dancing is more restrained outside of the US.

Another thing to consider is a comment I heard yesterday from an English phone-in caller to the CBC. He said something like this: even at the height of the IRA crisis in Britain, police there refrained from openly assassinating their enemies (not to say that they never did such a thing). But now it appears that in the US, Black Ops are the order of the day. He thought it odd that no one was talking about this. When did it become acceptable to brazenly assassinate your enemies–especially those in foreign countries? Is this really a good idea?

Of course of all the enemies the US has ever had, Osama is the one you would most likely want to kill. I bet even the Quakers would line up to get that guy.

One problem with Black Ops is that they’re black. This means they are illicit and that they derive a lot of their power because they aren’t talked about openly, in polite company. When they become a basic foreign policy technique–which a president proudly and openly announces at a press conference–then they get a little tawdry. It is like UFC cage matches suddenly becoming popular and then held in the Rose Garden of the White House. They might please the crowds but they also might diminish the respectability of the Presidency.

Black Ops are greatly effective in eliminating your enemies (when they work out as planned). They certainly serve to demonstrate the effectiveness and skill of the US military for targeted, Shin Bet style killings. What might be in question is the idea that physically eliminating your enemies is always wise.

Such operations must not only feel good, they must do something positive for the fortunes of the USA for them to be considered successful.

Bin Laden was demonized not only because he was a murderous terrorist, but also because he had the temerity to mount a private Black Op of his own against the sole remaining superpower.

Countries other than the USA are of course strongly discouraged from mounting their own Black Ops against their enemies. This is a form of American exceptionalism that the rest of the world may resent.

The Bin Laden killing reminds me of a widely circulated news item around the time of the start of the war in Afghanistan. A young man with a bellicose bent proudly announced that the the USA was the new ‘Roman Empire’ and that the world would just have to get used to that fact.

At the time I thought it was an odd thing to compare ones country–Land of the Free, Home of the Brave–to the Roman Empire.

Wasn’t this the same Roman Empire notable for its cruelty and decadence? And weren’t the Romans–who in addition to their military might and grand architecture–known as a civilization that eventually went into a long period of decline and eventually fell?

Yet, it appears this irony was lost on the man. He liked the sound of the empire idea–with a military that could kick butt with impunity–but without considering any of its potential downsides.

As the Romans clearly demonstrated, military power is only one aspect of power. Economic and moral power still count for something, and empires can sometimes become burdensome to their owners.

One of the downsides of being the sole superpower is that there is a tendency to pursue international relations as if their domestic political outcomes is the only thing that needs to be considered. It is like a Roman Empire frame of mind, but conceived by someone who has never left Peoria.

This attitude (also common in Canada under Harper) is short-sighted, parochial and often counter-productive to national interests. It works directly against seeing the ‘big picture,’ which you would think would be needed to maintain superpower status for long.

It comes as no surprise that Osama was hiding away in a secure compound in a garrison town in Pakistan. If he were hiding behind the Burger King in McLean, Virginia, now that would have been a surprise.

Finally, what struck me as really odd is the fact that Osama’s body was buried at sea. Now, how do we know if anything really happened in Abbottabad? Conspiracy theorists: start your engines!

Last weekend, I went with my sons to a powerful art show at the Brantford Arts Block called Mush Hole Remembered: R. G. Miller by the accomplished Mohawk artist R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks (This show runs until April 9, 2011).

The best commentary on this show is that which is included in the show itself. The artist and curator’s statements are powerful and moving. These statements are found at the end of this post.

The show consists of paintings and drawings inspired by Miller’s experiences as a child inmate at the Mohawk Institution, a.k.a. the Mush Hole. The Mohawk Institute was Brantford’s local Indian residential school, closed down in 1969. This former school lies about 3 km from downtown Brantford, near the banks of the meandering Grand River.

The fact that the artist refers to himself as an inmate, as opposed to a student, is indicative of the nature of the place. It was more a prison than a school. The brutalizing tendencies of this institution was more prominent than any educational intent or result.

Attending the Mohawk Institute was an extremely painful experience for the artist, which has reverberated throughout his adult life. Miller’s experiences at the school included beatings, rapes and hunger.

The fact that places like the The Mohawk Institute exist is an inconvenient truth in Canadian history.

Not surprisingly, this early trauma created demons for Miller, which he has had to overcome. One way he battles these demons is by producing art and exhibiting his work. His process of healing is an ongoing one.

Commentary

The art

The works in the show are in a variety of media. The most prominent are paintings of native boys and girls standing in front of the Mohawk Institute.

The children seem happy enough and appear to derive support and camaraderie from each other. One message you might derive from these paintings is that although the Mohawk Institute may have been brutal and racist, at least the children had each other. I’m sure the reality was more nuanced than that.

There are drawings in the exhibition that suggest the Mohawk Institute was a site of inhumanity on par with other physical and cultural genocides, such as the Jewish Holocaust and the Cambodian killing fields. There are images of skulls and of death cults. There is a drawing of an emaciated figure reminiscent of the liberation of death camps in WWII. One large drawing of a crying child reminds me of the famous photograph of the Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack. A painting of a very young child suggests that the abuse and horror of the Mohawk Institute were inflicted on even the youngest inmates.

The Mohawk Institute is clearly represented by Miller as Brantford’s ‘Heart of Darkness.’

Buildings have a prominent role in Miller’s paintings. They are painted in a lurid, expressionistic style that suggests that despite a facade of Victorian respectability, unspeakable cruelties occurred inside.

Also prominent in the artwork is the so-called Mohawk Chapel, which still stands across the road from the Mohawk Institute. The Mohawk Chapel, whose official name is Her Majesty’s Royal Chapel of the Mohawks (St Paul’s), was the first Protestant church in Upper Canada and is now the oldest surviving church in Ontario.

In Miller’s paintings these two institutions are joined together. In the daily routines of the children, they were probably either at the Mohawk Institute or they were across the road at the chapel.

However, the proximity and relationship of the Mohawk Chapel to the Mohawk Institute is a disquieting one. It was a close relationship between the two power centres of the time: the church and the state. However, it was a relationship that did not bode well for the humane treatment of native children.

The overall message of the exhibition is clear: native children suffered greatly at the Mohawk Institute, that the artist was one such child who suffered there and that this oppression was systemic, institutionalized and supported by church and state working together.

The final solution

As the curator Neal Keating writes: The Indian residential school system was an attempt at a “final solution” to Canada’s Indian problem.

The reference to a ‘final solution’ is clearly eliminationist in spirit. This is what ties the practices of the Mohawk Institute into instances of genocide in other parts of the world.

There is this two-fold aspect to such genocidal tendencies: one, that the mere existence of a people presents some kind of threat or problem to a dominant population, and two, that simply getting rid of the minority population is a sensible way to address the manufactured problem.

The Mohawk Institute closed in 1969, after 140 years of “killing the Indian in the child.” That is a long time for a system, which is today widely considered as fundamentally racist and abusive. This system was not a flash in the pan. It lasted far, far longer than the Nazi regime in Germany, the killing fields era in Cambodia, the genocide in Rwanda and even the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Having your kids taken away

A particularly appalling aspect of the residential school system is the fact that it involved forcibly separating children from their parents and other communal care givers.

Children were often removed from their families at an early age. The level of care at residential schools was typically brutal and oppressive. The mortality rates were shockingly high. Some children spent most of their childhood in places like the Mohawk Institute. The only reason that many native parents sent their children to residential schools was because the government forced them to.

Children were not allowed access to their language or culture. Indeed, this was the whole point of the residential school system: to break the bonds of traditional culture within aboriginal families.

If the government does not trust you to raise your own children adequately, this in effect devalues all of native culture. Indeed, the history of Canada like most other New World countries is noted for its pervasive devaluation of native cultures. This process of devaluation continues to this day.

A childhood spent in such appalling conditions is not conducive to forming habits of self that serve you well in adulthood. A process of self-alienation is expected to result in dissociative psychological disorders and self-destructive behaviors. This is what Miller reports happened to him. His experience at the Mohawk Institute is still a raw wound.

The system

As students of Canadian history are aware, the Indian residential school system is one of the darker episodes of Canadian history.

For those who study the system, it appears less like a curious anomaly in Canadian history and more of an inherent aspect of native and non-native relations in this country. The residential school system was systematic and bureaucratic in nature, fully supported by the Government of Canada.

In 2008, The Government of Canada apologized for the residential school system.

At the time, it seemed like the apology was of some significance to First Nations people but that it meant much less to those outside that community. It is this asymmetrical nature of the apology that strikes me as odd.

True apologies involve some moral cost to those making the apology. It should bring some sense of shame to some people. I am not sure that this apology was of that type.

When this apology occurred in was just another news item. It was like it happened long ago and did not necessarily affect people today. Yet we know from Miller’s work that the effects of the system reverberate loud and clear in the minds of its victims.

Therefore, I saw little psychological or emotional connection between the non-native population–most of whom see it as an issue which doesn’t affect them directly–and the very real psychological pain felt by First Nations people. The Schindler’s List of the residential school system has yet to be made.

Canadians haven’t arrived at the point where they see the racism and brutality of the residential school system not as an incidental aspect of sending native children away to learn from a supposedly superior culture, but as its fundamental aspect.

Conclusion

Standing in front of Brantford’s Mohawk Institute is a weird and disquieting experience. You really do get the feeling that if these bricks could talk they would tell a sad and painful tale.

There is something about this city of Brantford, its meandering Grand River, the former residential school with its spooky facade and grounds, the nearby Mohawk Chapel, all of which are down the road from the largest Indian reserve in Canada. There is a strange confluence of forces there, which do not appear to be benign or entirely in the past.

The children in residential schools were inmates. Their only crime was that they were aboriginal. Despite being completely innocent these children were treated as if they were guilty of some unspeakable crime. The fact that trauma was inflicted as a matter of government policy is a continuing source of pain for First Nations.

The artist R. Gary Miller suffered greatly under this system. His way forward–his means of survival–was not to remain silent. He expresses clearly through his art what the residential school system has done to him. I applaud his courage.

As the curator Neal Keating writes “The curriculum of the Mohawk Institute taught the artist that aboriginal culture was wrong, that aboriginal language was forbidden and that aboriginal spirituality was particularly abhorrent.”

This suggests that the opposite is likely true: that aboriginal culture is as correct as any other and is worthy of respect, that aboriginal languages are the bedrock of native culture and cannot be denied without harming the culture in fundamental ways, and that native spirituality is not only not abhorrent but likely presents the best approach in healing from wounds afflicted by an aggressive and brutal alien culture.

Statements from the exhibition

Exhibition title

MUSH HOLE REMEMBERED: R. G. MILLER

“Mush Hole” is the nickname for the Indian residential school that was
officially known as the Mohawk Institute. R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks (Mohawk, b. 1950, Six Nations) was put into the Mush Hole in 1952, when he was 2 years old. He was kept there for the next 11 years, until 1963. As a child-inmate in the Mush Hole, Miller was subjected to severe beatings, repeated rapes, and chronic hunger. All this delivered by the non-Native adult supervisors who exercised total power over the Indian children’s lives; this in the name of Christianity and Civilization.

Artist’s statement

This exhibition represents a combination of vague, mundane memories of years at the school, and flashes of horror experienced there. They are the strongest memories I could approach without descending into a place I would not be able to emerge from.

This project evolved from decades of need to express my personal outrage at the world, combined with a moment of political timeliness. I thought it would be groundbreaking and exciting to tackle – it turned into four years of nightmares and breakdowns, until I realized I had a more fragile grip on my center than I knew. This was as close as I could come with sharing my story.

Perhaps other Residential School Survivors will take up the gauntlet and excise their demons in their own way. Mine have only been exposed – not destroyed. l know now that I cannot carry on living on the surface of my self. My artwork previous to the conception of this project has always been an attempt to find a raison d’étre and self-respect. I am incomplete and l need help to heal and achieve peace with my past. You cannot cauterize an infected wound.

R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks, 2008

Curator’s Statement

Sometimes art is created for the purposes of revealing truths that hurt, and performing a rite of exorcism. This is one of those occasions. Like tens of thousands of other First Nations people alive in Canada today, R. Gary Miller-Lahiaaks (Mohawk, b. 1950, Six Nations) is surviving the Indian residential school experience. This exhibit is about that experience, and the memory of trauma induced by a genocidal system aimed at achieving a “final solution” to Canada’s Indian problem. The residential school that Miller was in was the Mohawk Institute, a.k.a. “the Mush Hole,” which finally closed down in 1969, after some 140 years of “killing the Indian in the child.” It is significant that the first opening of this exhibit is taking place on the site of the former
Mush Hole, which is today the Woodland Cultural Centre.

R. Gary Miller was put into the Mush Hole in the early 1950s, when he was very young, two or three years old. He remained there for the next 11 years, until 1964. In the four decades since then he has been hospitalized numerous times for a variety of psychiatric disorders. He has repeatedly attempted suicide, been arrested for assault, wrecked his marriages, and developed severe substance abuse and other health problems. A common pattern is evident in the thick file of medical and police records for Miller: when the doctors and nurses asked him why he did it, he invariably answered that it was because of what happened to him in the Mush Hole.

What happened to him? Like many others, Miller’s childhood was burned up in the aboriginal holocaust of Canada. His young body was regularly beaten for some nine years (starting at the age of four or live), serially raped and molested for more than six years, and undernourished for all eleven years. In addition to this, the curriculum of the Mohawk Institute taught him that aboriginal culture was wrong, that aboriginal language was forbidden, and that aboriginal spirituality was particularly abhorrent.

Neal Keating, 2008

Ben manning his rapid-fire Nerf assault rifle

Most boys love weapons. Cross-bows, battle axes, harpoons, guns: they can’t get enough of them. The latest implements of war to be installed in our house are a full complement of Nerf guns. These are built like colourful assault weapons, with laser scopes, auto-loading mechanisms and support tripods. They shoot day-glo coloured Nerf bullets — not just one a time but in a steady stream of foam-rubber mayhem.

The boys love them and find them vastly entertaining. They delight in staging long-lasting wars with both their male and female friends. Adults tend to avoid such battles in case they show something truly alarming or distasteful about the development of their children.

We didn’t buy these Nerf guns for them (they were Christmas gifts from relatives) but we don’t lose much sleep over the implications of them being in our house. Nor are we too concerned about the possibility they will inflict severe psychic damage on our boys. Boys will be boys. We predict these boys are as likely to be attracted to a career in video production or on the stage of musical theatre as on the battlefield.

As when training dogs, the technique that seems to work best in the boys’ education is to praise the behaviour we wish to encourage and ignore that which we hope to discourage. Therefore, we tend to ignore this latest Nerf gun invasion. If we don’t talk too much about it, it might just go away — like every other toy that has crossed their path.

What is amusing is to consider where this development in toy design — giving boys exactly what they really want in their most-Rambo-esque fantasies — might lead. Combining the infinite resources of the military-industrial complex with the innovative minds in toy design is ripe with possibility.

We predict: Pretend IEDs by Fisher Price — ‘trip the plate and you’ll have an explosion of fun!’ Guided attack drones by Lego Mindstorms — ‘your little sister will never even hear it coming!’ or Fun-time Phosphorus Bombs by Play-Doh — ‘you’ll bust a gut when you see the agony on your playmates’ faces!’

Quagmires are usually created by modes of thinking that ignore basic aspects of geo-political or common-sense reality. This appears to be the case with the Western-led war in Afghanistan.

Why do I think it is a bad idea to escalate this war?

• War is violent and dehumanizing by its nature and escalating a war tends to increase suffering, destruction and injustice
• War waged on the premise that it helps those it is directed against is nonsensical
• The war lacks public support in all countries in which it is being promoted
• The war is unlikely to be won by Western forces
• Governments friendly to occupying forces (such as Karzai’s) tend to lack basic legitimacy within their own populations
• The war is unaffordable for the USA — a country that is quickly running out of cash and credit
• It is unrealistic that a Western-friendly government – with any chance of longevity – will be formed in Afghanistan
• The war could easily escalate into a wider regional conflict involving the much more populous country of Pakistan
• The war lacks legitimacy — it is not a just war and never has been one

We have had seven years of punditry concerning the situation in Afghanistan. This commentary encouraged Western troops to invade an obscure, mountainous and poverty-stricken country in central Asia. Let’s review how we got there.

After 9/11, most people were shocked that such an attack could happen to the most powerful country in the world.

It became clear that given the state of American politics at the time that in response some act of butt-kicking would likely be performed by the US military. There was some concern about preventing future attacks, but simple vengeance was an important motivator right from the start. If you provoke the boss, expect some payback. The myth of redemptive violence, which so animates American popular and military culture, was in full swing.

The rhetoric at the time was that the USA had the right to ‘act out’ in some way that would involve its matchless armed forces. This was done without excessive concern about the legality or social propriety of its actions. This type of behaviour coincides with one definition of ‘acting out’:

acting out: a (usually irritating) impulsive and uncontrollable outburst by a problem child or a neurotic adult [thefreedictionary.com].

The USA has a powerful military, but often fails to consider how its military actions are viewed within the society of nations. This tends to encourage it to pursue armed conflicts that appear contrary to its own best interests — even commercial or diplomatic interests. This is one aspect of US exceptionalism that many in the rest of world find disturbing: its military power appears unconnected to any sensible rationale other than the projection of its own power.

Being currently the sole super-power, the USA is frequently given a free pass to do whatever it pleases when its military is concerned. Despite being enormously expensive, the US military is seen as a guarantor of American freedoms and prosperity. However, it increasingly appears to be source of weakness for the USA in that its use tends to obscure new geo-political realities not wholly based on military power, such as the rise of China and other BRIC nations. Not all problems are ones that can be solved with military force.

As well, the US military is fiendishly expensive.

One law even more iron-clad than the efficacy of military force in inflicting pain is that if you run out of money and credit, your position in the world can diminish quickly and substantially. You do not need to spend much time reading Victorian novels to understand the indignities that lack of cash can bring.

The USA, despite being a productive and creative society, does not have unlimited cash and credit. Eventually, debts come home to roost. The US military certainly attempts to serve the interests of Western capitalism but this assumes there is sufficient cash earned elsewhere to maintain this military. If the USA spends too much money in ‘saving’ failed states, it may just become one itself.

As it turns out the invasion of Iraq was based completely on lies, while the invasion of Afghanistan continues to be represented as a ‘just war.’ This is what gives Obama some cover when he decides to escalate the Afghan war. All wars though, even the most egregious, are portrayed as just wars. It is only much later that historians untangle the lies that may have lead to that impression.

If someone attacks you, you sometimes have the right to attack back if your attack prevents some greater evil from taking place. But the inconvenient truth about the Afghan war is that the Taliban didn’t attack the USA. Al-Qaeda did.

The Taliban — a particularly odious and fundamentalist regime, which most of the world considers a loathsome carbuncle on the face of the world politic — had the temerity to lend support and provide sanctuary to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s guilt was one of association rather than commission.

Clearly, Al-Qaeda and Taliban are separate entities. Al-Qaeda is a trans-national Islamic militant organization committed to the use of terrorism to forward its political goals, while the Taliban is a fundamentalist movement with a power base almost entirely within the Pashtun tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban appears to lack trans-national ambitions of exporting terrorism or of influencing politics outside its core region. Al-Qaeda on the other hand is expert in doing just that.

Al-Qaeda continues to be a threat to the West, while the Taliban continues to be a threat to Western interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan as long as the West occupies Afghanistan. Clearly, you don’t want to mess with the Taliban, but then you probably don’t have to unless you make the mistake of invading their homeland based on justifications not quite found in international law.

Al-Qaeda conspirators spent time conspiring in various places including San Diego, Hamburg, and at flight schools in Florida. Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. Why didn’t the USA attack those places instead? Because it would have been seen as ridiculous to do so. It is usually not seen as practical or moral to attack a whole country if a tiny minority within that country has behaved badly.

Gangs, cults and militant forces exist in most countries of the world, which if given the right opportunities could inflict serious damage to polite society. This is not just in failed states such as Somalia or the Congo, but also in places such as Idaho and southern Ontario. I bet if you travelled 100 kilometers down the road from Hamilton a group of radical bikers with a penchant for meth, murder and mayhem could be found. Fortunately, Canada is in no danger of being invaded by foreign forces to alleviate this security threat.

Why then were the Taliban conflated so seamlessly with Al-Qaeda in the popular Western imagination?  One reason may have been is that they represent the perfect ‘Other.’ The Western public knew little about their cultural or social belief systems and tended to believe the worst. The prevailing rhetoric in the West was that the Taliban’s beliefs are inimical to all Western notions of decency or civilization. This may or may not be true, but it does not constitute adequate grounds for invasion.

A basic lack of legitimacy is what makes the Afghan war so difficult to pursue and what makes it such a hard sell to American allies: it just doesn’t make much sense. A fight against Al-Qaeda has morphed into a fight against an anti-modern but essentially nationalistic enemy in the Taliban. This is why parallels to the Vietnam war seem more and more appropriate. The Taliban has replaced the Vietcong. Apparently, not everyone within the American establishment learned the same lessons about the quagmire that was Vietnam.

In Afghanistan the smart money is staying clear of that war as best they can. If you hope to ingratiate yourself with the USA, which includes such countries as Canada, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia then you might find some motivation for enthusiastically supporting this war. All others seem to have much less commitment to the idea that the West will eventually succeed there. They don’t call Afghanistan the ‘Graveyard of Empires’ for nothing.

For all those who had trepidation about the moral implications of Canadian participation in the Afghan war became more nervous with yesterday’s headline in newspapers:

“All detainees were tortured, all warnings were ignored”

Wow. This testimony was given by Canadian diplomat and whistle-blower Richard Colvin, to a parliamentary committee in Ottawa. Colvin had served in a diplomatic capacity in Afghanistan for 17 months. This is the first time a government official has made such far-ranging allegations of complicity in torture by the Canadian Forces and the Canadian government.

There has been suspicion for some time that some Afghani detainees may have been tortured after they were transferred from Canadian to Afghan Army custody. Colvin’s testimony suggests that the transfer of detainees — to probable or certain torture — was a widespread Canadian practice. If true, it would greatly discredit Canada’s conduct in Afghanistan and reduce its legitimacy as an occupying force.

The Canadians Forces apparently detain larger numbers of people in their military operations than do their allies. A large proportion of these detainees may be innocent of any crime.

Clearly, complicity in torture is a war crime. Armies of occupation such as Canada’s must follow rules as defined in part by the Geneva Conventions. If Canadian Forces were complicit in the torture of detainees, were aware of their involvement and still allowed the torture to occur, they are guilty of war crimes.

The Conservative government has experienced little political cost from previous torture allegations — or indeed from the entire Afghanistan war — from either the Canadian public or the opposition parties. The issue, oddly, gets little traction in Canadian politics. Previously, the Conservative government has managed to sweep all allegations of complicity in torture under the rug. It is unclear whether, with these new allegations by Colvin, they will be able to continue to do this.

What these allegations mean for Canada is that they reflect poorly on the political leadership of Canada, on the Canadian Armed Forces and on Canada as a whole. They conflict completely with the commonly-provided narratives about the roles Canadians play in Afghanistan.

Canadian politicians see these allegations as a domestic political issue and have failed to acknowledge their international implications — such as severe risks to Canada’s reputation.

This head-long rush to possible pariah status is an odd, self-defeating behavior on Canada’s part. It has similarities to the Canadian government’s recent policy on greenhouse gas emissions, which many view as obstructionist, disingenuous and fundamentally lacking in leadership.

One of the main reasons that the Canadian government has given about why Canada invaded Afghanistan in the first place was to raise the human rights conditions for its residents. At first this did not appear to be difficult to achieve given that the previous Taliban regime had an abysmal human rights record and was itself a pariah regime within the international community.

It now appears that the  Karzai government in Afghanistan is breathtakingly-corrupt and has little interest in improving the human rights conditions of Afghans.

The NATO occupying forces in combination with the Karzai government may have achieved what would seem to be impossible — to create a regime worse for the average Afghan than was the previous Taliban regime.