The article posted "Leupp on Afghanistan War: Ignorance There…. and Here"

-in my opinion a load of racist shit.
as a matter of fact I would argue that Afghanis are a hell of a lot smarter than the average racist dumb fuck american whose main priority in life is stressing out over who won "Dancing with the stars".

Unlike the average gutless cowering american at least the Afghanis have the common sense to know that the US and it's US miltary are nothing more than a pack of racist imperialist exploiters,murderers,invaders,thieves.

<b>Most Afghans Unaware US Invaded Because of 9/11:</b>

<i>"92% of respondents in the Pashtun-dominated south are unaware of 9/11 events, or their relationship to the presence of foreign troops."</i>

Hell,that's a lot better than the 99.9% of Americans unaware that 911 was an inside job,had nothing to do with either Afghanistan or Iraq,and that in fact was a fabricated event meant to provide a popular rationale to rally US citizen support for an invasion in order to rip off oil resources,gain geopolitcal/miltary advantage in the middle east and central Asia.

[personal attack on author snipped]

CF:

I often admire and even share the passion that pour out here on this site. I value many of your contributions.

But here, comrade, I think you are off base.

I read this article on Counterpunch, and think that it is excellent.

Leupp is not judging or demeaning the Afghani people for being "stupid" or anything like that, but talking about the real concrete conditions that have been imposed on them by various forces (foreign invaders, as well local reactionaries), and that have impacted their (in)abilty to develop literacy and other vital means of communicating with and learning about the outside world.

It is important, I think, not to romanticize the position (and ignore the deprivation) of those who are fighting against US imperialism.

Moreover, I think you are misreading the article and Leupp's position more generally--check out his *hundreds* of anti-imperialst articles on Counterpunch or Dissident Voice-- if you believe he is saying that the US "really invaded Afghanistan because of 911" or that the US had any justification in doing so. Read his articles from way back. He opposed this US invasion from the start, and has been one of the people most actively exposing the public lies and misinformation that the US imperialists have used to cover their true motives in these conflicts.

And the ultimate point of his piece, if you read through to the end, is to say, essentially that Americans (even with the access to literacy and education and technological means of communication) are as or more steeped in ignorance (thanks to the political and media systems here) than the so-called "backward" masses of Afghanistan. Moreover, that the so-called "leaders" of the "mission: in Afghanistan, are as or more bigoted and reactionary in their views of ("eastern peoples") as the US generals were in Vietnam.

I think you need to read more carefully before rashly lashing out at a comrade, CF.


****

Also, on a different note, you speak as if you "know" that "911 was an inside job." I think this is a pretty extreme and unsubstantiated view. Certainly, the US took advantage of this event to launch policies and actions that had been on the agenda for a long time, and that had little to nothing to do with the events of 9/11/01. They hijacked the catastrophe, absolutely. But the idea that the US govt. "staged the whole thing and got away with it" is pretty preposterous, in my view. What is the evidence to back such a view?

As communists I don't think that we should be giving quarter to conspiracy theories, even when (polls show) that masses of Americans find them credible. The rarity of scientific and rational thinking in this country, even on the left, is a reminder of how much work we historical materialists have to do!

I’m sorry Chicanofuret thinks my article is a load of bullshit, but he/she misunderstands it, apparently conflating value-free data about people’s ignorance of events with an accusation of stupidity. But it is obvious to most people that ignorance (unawareness of certain information) and stupidity (mental deficiency) are very different things.

He/she does not question the accuracy of the pollsters’ finding that 92% of men in southern Afghanistan are unaware of the 9/11 attacks, however one interprets them. (Chicanofuret seems absolutely sure they were “an inside job” while castigating 99.9% of Americans, whom he/she characterizes as “dumb fucks” whose main priority is to stress out about who won on “Dancing with the Stars," for not knowing that.)

In my piece I am not concerned with advocating literacy or access to radios as goods in themselves (althoiugh I think they are) but merely explaining why I think the reported widespread unawareness of the 9/11 attacks, and the U.S. attribution of them to al-Qaeda and therefore the Taliban, exists.

The question of the intelligence of the Afghan people is not the issue here. Again: intelligence on the one hand, and literacy and access to information on the other, are two different things.

I do not think that people living in the U.S. are “dumb fucks” because they are manipulated by the corporate media and politicians who lie. They are ignorant for reasons that can be analyzed politically and socially, from a materialist point of view. One can’t help them to understand by insulting them as Chicanofuret does above.

This is where dogmo-romanticism really hurts revolutionary analysis, especially in the eyes of the advanced. C'mon, nowhere in this article is Leupp saying Afghanis are stupid and in fact exposes the hardships -- political and social -- that continued and enforced (especially amongst women) illiteracy brings donw on the people.

The worst that can be said about this essay is an odd hedging Re Soviet invasion (as if that wasn't an imperial adventure) and noting that theyat least" raised literacy (if the US did this we would hardly be celebrating this as a "benefit" of this war, would we?

There is power in this exposure, and as RE notes, the differences between illiteracy in Afghanistan and actual ignorance in the US is stunning. But the ranting about racism and stupid Americans does nothing to illuminate.

you know I hate to interject here, but, I disagree with this whole idea of people being 'manipulated' by the media, as if, the all-strong arm of ideology is totally responsible for the backward ideas of the masses. No, the masses empower the asses, it is only through their consent that they retain certain ideas. We have to get over this 'false consciousness' b.s., because, that's really what it is. There is no such thing. You can see that it is not simply manipulation because when you confront a backward person with facts -- in fact it doesn't really matter how many facts you have- it is a fetishistic disavowal.

&gt; as if, the all-strong arm of ideology is totally responsible for the backward ideas of the masses.

No, but you seem to be drawing a caricature in response to a caricature. A very high percentage of dedicated activists from the 1960s came from a background where one could not really say that they gained any material benefits from protesting war in Vietnam. Such people were won over intellectually, not on the basis of their pocketbooks.

It is easy to draw a caricature under which the average USAian is just a well-meaning dupe. Chomsky &amp; Herman have done a skillful job of this in many ways. But their picture is a caricature as well.

People should read the header article and comment #1 by CF much more carefully. Neither is as good and/or bad as are made out/thought to be by coments #2, #3 and #4.

The accusations by CF may well be flawed and way overboard, but hardly baseless.

@NPSF: Header is one thing, and admittedly, if you stopped there you could get them impresison that the essay might be saying "equal ignirance." But upon reading don't you get the sense that Leupp is qualifiying (and quantifying) the ignorance in Afghanistan based on poverty and illiteracy and the ignorance of the average American as based on propaganda, willful ommissions, and, yes, the consciousness that often comes with being citizens of the empire (being bought off in so many ways)?

By "header article" I did not mean header (title) of the article (by Gary Leupp) posted here for discussion. I meant the whole essay (article) as reproduced from the Counterpunch; what is usually called on this site the post.

It is precisely upon reading the whole article that I felt the need to write the previous comment.

Yes. I do "get the sense that Leupp is qualifying" and all that; if I didn't, then I would say the artilce is pandering to racism, which I am not saying.
I also think I understand that he is addressing a certain type of audience and trying to win them over to a better position on the war and all that. Still, and perhaps partly because of this there are nagging problems with the article that leaves it open to accusations of the type leveled by CF.

I think the piece reads a little differently when accessed in the version that Dissident Voice posted, which includes all the original links that Counterpunch for some reason omitted. http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/11/ignorance-there-and-here/

2vm rejects the idea of people being “manipulated by the media” declaring instead that the “masses empower the asses.” My point is that the overwhelming majority of people in this country---who in fact supported both the invasion of Afghanistan and that of Iraq--- were subject to systematic disinformation and bought it. The notion that the masses are responsible for the centralization of corporate media power and influence, the rise of the neoconservatives who systematically use fear and bigotry to obtain their ends, the agendas of the military-industrial complex etc. is as absurd as the doctrine of Original Sin which blames something innate in people for the rottenness of their conditions. It rejects class analysis.

NSPF says that Chicanofuturet’s “accusations…are hardly baseless,” and adds that “there are nagging problems with the article that leave it open to accusations of the type leveled by CF.” It would be nice if he identified these “nagging problems” that leave me open to Chicanofuturet’s “accusations” which are (to review):

1. My piece is a load of racist shit
2. That the average Afghani is a “lot smarter” than the average “dumb fuck american” ( and by implication, that I deny this---which of course I do, because evuating whole peoples in terms of smartless and dumbness is ridiculous)
3. That unlike “the average gutless cowering American at least the Afghanis have the common sense to know that the US and it’s US military are nothing more than a pack of racist imperialist exploiters, murderers, invaders, thieves” (and by implication, that I deny this assertion---which I do in part, since I find it pointless, irrational and unhelpful to characterize the “average” person in this country as “gutless”)
4. That 9/11 was “an inside job” and that most people in this country including me are too stupid to realize that. (There is evidence for Israeli monitoring of the 9/11 hijackers etc. But I’m not convinced that 9/11 was an inside job and I resent the implication that anyone who hasn’t come to that conclusion on the available evidence is a fool.)


I personally see no “problems” here (in terms of political, factual, ideological issues lingering
“naggingly.” I see no meaningful “accusations,” just vitriole so inappropriate the monitors felt obliged to snip it.

Maybe NSPF can clarify what he sees as valuable or constructive in CF's post.

"Maybe NSPF can clarify what he sees as valuable or constructive in CF’s post."

It is so unnecessary to put words in my mouth. I will of course, in due time, explain and clarify what the problems with the article are as I see them. Obviously CF thinks that the article is a load of racist shit, which I disagree with. But apart from that, I am curious to know if I am the only one reading this who thinks there are some problems with the article that could be misconstrued as pandering to racism.

By the way, NSPF is not gender specific.

I apologize for not writing he/she, as I normally do. In any case, I am not putting words into your mouth, NSPF; the parenthetical material in my post above pertains to Chicanofuret's initial post. I appreciate your comments and look forward to your explanation/clarification.

Let me begin with the story of the straw that broke the camel's back. I think we have all heard that and probably used it sometime during our lives to explain certain situations.

From the perspective of an “outsider”, it may look unreasonable and inexplicable, especially if the whole load already on the back of the camel is not taken note of, why the camel’s back suddenly caved in. Was the camel so weak and uninitiated to carrying loads that a mere straw can break its back? It might indeed look funny too and the “outsider” would perhaps have a giggle or two at the weakling that is that camel. Looked at from the perspective of the camel, it’s a totally different story; one of continuous aches and pain that is grinding bones and mussels right to the core. It will, sometime, become so unbearable, that even the site of a straw will be enough to make the camel nil down and refuse to carry any load. I believe this will happen several times in the life of any working camel anywhere in the world.

Now, I believe those who have had to deal daily with racism and/or sexism will know what I am talking about. You are bound to one day snap at the slightest indication of racism or sexism; sometimes even “unreasonably” harsh and uncalled for because the person at the receiving end of your wrath didn’t mean it that way at all and to an onlooker you look like a lunatic. Been there, done that; that’s why I understand it. I don’t have to agree with it or condone it, but I understand why it happens when it does. If you don’t explode sometimes, you’ll implode by having a heart attack.
It is in this spirit that perhaps I appeared to be “defending” CF’s comment.

Fast forward to the problems of the article by Gary Leupp.

Lets look at a case of daily occurance; that of police brutality, say of a police officer beating the shit out of black man. How do people who see this react and object to such a scene, that is those who do really react and object to it?

Broadly speaking, and I am way oversimplifying, there are two types of objection:
The first group will react by saying something like “what has he done to deserve it?” and the other group will react by saying something like “you have no right to do this.” I think there is a world of difference between these two reactions. One is generally accepting, implicitly, the right and the authority of the police officer, the other one is questioning it. In our countering of imperialist wars we have to be careful not to too deep into excavating the victim’s background. Why not deeply excavate the motive of the perpetrator? Wouldn’t it be more illuminating? I know about humanising the “hajjis” and all that, but we have to be careful here.

If I tried hard to be short and to the point, the best I could do would be to say I hate the storey of Uraz and why it could not be representative of Afghan society even with the little that I know of it.
I could go on to say how it is impossible for a society to exist and function even at the level of remotest Afghanistan village, let alone the whole country as a unit, without knowing and using on a daily basis, a basic level of numerical computation even while being totally unable to read or write.
I could go on to use some of the data provided and prove the existence of a vast sophisticated yet simple and un-modern network of communication enabling the likes of Taliban to compete for winning hearts and minds.
I could go on to really question the theory of “unsophisticated Afghan” population by proving that south Asians, including Afghans, in general and throughout history and at present are one of the most sophisticated people on earth, and that deliberately appearing to be unsophisticated to the outsider is precisely part of that sophistication and defence mechanism. And on and on and on … to almost every single detail of the data on Afghanistan provided and its interpretation.

What would be the purpose of it and what would I achieve? That Gary Leupp’s article has problems? If I did that, not only it would be unfair on him, since he is hardly the only one or the worst ( I actually think he is one of the best) for that matter, but it would be highly misleading and extremely self-deceptive. The fact of the matter is that the communist movement, in its broadest sense possible, has deep shortcomings in practice and theory that goes right back to Enlightenment and beyond, but specially to the enlightenment; after all, our movement is a branch of enlightenment and modernity. Some say it is the highest achievement and its pinnacle. I think it is equipped to be, but not so at the moment; specially not so in women’s question and racism.

The academic institutions of Europe and America in the 19th century were neck deep in formulating the doctrine of racism and Eurocentric worldview around the axiomatic notion of backwardness, stagnancy and isolation of non- European people. Marx and Engels failed to counter racism and being creature of their time couldn’t and didn’t draw a clear line of demarcation with Eurocentrism and in fact to a degree reflected it themselves.

If we are to progress on this issue we have to, as a first step, stop looking at and analysing non-Europeans through the prism of “backwardness, stagnancy and isolation.”

I know there is a lot of claims here and little detail, but there is a limit to what can be done in a comment in a short time. Its better than nothing.

Thank you again for your comments NSPF. Since I’m not sure where to begin I will just replicate your post and respond here and there.

Let me begin with the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think we have all heard that and probably used it sometime during our lives to explain certain situations.
From the perspective of an “outsider”, it may look unreasonable and inexplicable, especially if the whole load already on the back of the camel is not taken note of, why the camel’s back suddenly caved in. Was the camel so weak and uninitiated to carrying loads that a mere straw can break its back? It might indeed look funny too and the “outsider” would perhaps have a giggle or two at the weakling that is that camel. Looked at from the perspective of the camel, it’s a totally different story; one of continuous aches and pain that is grinding bones and mussels right to the core. It will, sometime, become so unbearable, that even the site of a straw will be enough to make the camel nil down and refuse to carry any load. I believe this will happen several times in the life of any working camel anywhere in the world.
Now, I believe those who have had to deal daily with racism and/or sexism will know what I am talking about. You are bound to one day snap at the slightest indication of racism or sexism; sometimes even “unreasonably” harsh and uncalled for because the person at the receiving end of your wrath didn’t mean it that way at all and to an onlooker you look like a lunatic. Been there, done that; that’s why I understand it. I don’t have to agree with it or condone it, but I understand why it happens when it does. If you don’t explode sometimes, you’ll implode by having a heart attack.

[GL]OK. White middle-aged male that I am, privileged in general by the system, I empathize…and I’m not thin-skinned and don’t take it personally even when accused by Chicanofuturet of being a “dumb racist fuck.” I understand the context. [end GL]

It is in this spirit that perhaps I appeared to be “defending” CF’s comment.

{GL] I appreciate that. You were being dialectical. [end GL]

Fast forward to the problems of the article by Gary Leupp.
Lets look at a case of daily occurance; that of police brutality, say of a police officer beating the shit out of black man. How do people who see this react and object to such a scene, that is those who do really react and object to it?
Broadly speaking, and I am way oversimplifying, there are two types of objection:
The first group will react by saying something like “what has he done to deserve it?” and the other group will react by saying something like “you have no right to do this.” I think there is a world of difference between these two reactions. One is generally accepting, implicitly, the right and the authority of the police officer, the other one is questioning it. In our countering of imperialist wars we have to be careful not to too deep into excavating the victim’s background. Why not deeply excavate the motive of the perpetrator? Wouldn’t it be more illuminating? I know about humanising the “hajjis” and all that, but we have to be careful here.

[GL] Here you, having noted (in your discussion of the camel’s back) the problem of subjectivity in responding to objective analysis of historical conditions, return to and apparently embrace Chicanofuturet’s point of view. You imply (correct me if I’m wrong) that in posting to Afghan illitarcy and radio distribution figures, and the apparent lack of awareness in Afghanistan on the 9-11 events and their broad interpretation globally, that I am somehow analogous to the observor of police brutality asking “what has he done to deserve this?”

I think that’s very unfair to me. I don’t think the analogy is entirely appropriate, but if it were, you might note that I have been speaking in support of the bludgeoned against the cops all along. [end GL]

If I tried hard to be short and to the point, the best I could do would be to say I hate the storey of Uraz and why it could not be representative of Afghan society even with the little that I know of it.

[GL] Fine. Maybe you should read the novel. I mentioned it only because it was a reference point in my own personal history of reading about Afghanistan. (I don’t think I’ve seen it since I was in eighth grade.) I don’t have any particular assesment of Joseph Kessel, and maybe he’s a colonialist writer like Rudyard Kipling or Pierre Loti (although I wouldn’t urge anyone to avoid those writers, who have their own insights); my point in referencing the Uraz story was that it seemed to realistically depict what Engels in 1842 called the Afghans’ “indomitable hatred of rule, and their love of independence.” It happens that that rejection of foreign rule is accompanied by mass illiteracy, and this makes it less possible for Afghans to understand the outside world and deal with its encroachments. [end GL]

I could go on to say how it is impossible for a society to exist and function even at the level of remotest Afghanistan village, let alone the whole country as a unit, without knowing and using on a daily basis, a basic level of numerical computation even while being totally unable to read or write.
I could go on to use some of the data provided and prove the existence of a vast sophisticated yet simple and un-modern network of communication enabling the likes of Taliban to compete for winning hearts and minds.

[GL] I’m not sure whom you’re trying to refute here. I did not contest the ability of villagers to do the math needed for agricultural planning or commercial interactions. I noted that imperialist military trainers were frustrated by Afghan recruits’ computational abilities. And my point was not that this lack of “book-learning” spoke poorly for the Afghans but rather that it’s a welcome irony that that such inabilities hinder the occupation in its goals. [end GL]

I could go on to really question the theory of “unsophisticated Afghan” population by proving that south Asians, including Afghans, in general and throughout history and at present are one of the most sophisticated people on earth, and that deliberately appearing to be unsophisticated to the outsider is precisely part of that sophistication and defence mechanism. And on and on and on … to almost every single detail of the data on Afghanistan provided and its interpretation.

[GL] I did not in fact present any “theory” of “the unsophisticated Afghan.” Indeed I pointed out that Balkh was once one of the most advanced centres of learning on the planet. And I have real problems with conflating the (many) peoples of Afghanistan (which by the way is often regarded as a “Central Asian” rather than “South Asian” country due partly to location and partly because of the largely Persian , Turkic and Mongol ethnic origins of its different peoples) and “south Asians…in general” as “one of the most sophisticated on earth…”

Why put “South Asians” (including Begalis, Tamils, various Adivastis, etc.) all together, as “one” people? That is like randomly categorizing everyone in Europe from the Samian tip of Scandinavia to the Bosporus and Iberian peninsulas as “Europeans” and calling them “one people.”

And why present them as particularly “sophisticated”---as opposed to whom, and on the basis of what criteria? There are a huge variety of peoples in South Asia, however you define that region, with widely varying degrees of literacy and information access (the things I happened to be discussing in my piece on Afghanistan) and widely differing lifestyles, urban settlement statistics, etc. None of these factors, it should go without saying, should determine our respect and appreciation for their cultures. [end GL]


What would be the purpose of it and what would I achieve? That Gary Leupp’s article has problems?


If I did that, not only it would be unfair on him, since he is hardly the only one or the worst ( I actually think he is one of the best) for that matter, but it would be highly misleading and extremely self-deceptive.

[GL] I of course appreciate the fact that you think I’m “one of the best” people with problems. But you still haven’t established that there are “problems.” [end GL]

The fact of the matter is that the communist movement, in its broadest sense possible, has deep shortcomings in practice and theory that goes right back to Enlightenment and beyond, but specially to the enlightenment; after all, our movement is a branch of enlightenment and modernity. Some say it is the highest achievement and its pinnacle. I think it is equipped to be, but not so at the moment; specially not so in women’s question and racism.

[GL] I’m not sure what it means to say that the Enlightenment (an intellectual movement of the 18th century) is not “equipped to be” the “highest achievement and pinnacle” of enlightenment and modernity. (I am always problematizing “modernity” in itself because I think the concept often obfuscates the category of capitalism and existence of both “progress” and enforced/constructed backwardness in the rise of capitalism and capitalistic imperialism…as Walter Rodney discusses in his How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.) And I think that while in a sense “our movement is a branch of enlightenment” it is also an advance on something---some theoretical breakthrough achieved by human minds---that necessarily preceded it. There is a line from Kant to Marx. And beyond. [end GL]

The academic institutions of Europe and America in the 19th century were neck deep in formulating the doctrine of racism and Eurocentric worldview around the axiomatic notion of backwardness, stagnancy and isolation of non- European people. Marx and Engels failed to counter racism and being creature of their time couldn’t and didn’t draw a clear line of demarcation with Eurocentrism and in fact to a degree reflected it themselves.

[GL]Not sure what all this has to do with my Counterpunch/Dissident Voice piece but I agree that M/E failed to counter racism as well as they should have. You can find in Marx’s discussion of China (and for that matter comments on his part-African son-in-law) some statements that unscientifically characterize or disparage people on the basis of genetic background. But his clear internationalism is the principle aspect. [end GL]

If we are to progress on this issue we have to, as a first step, stop looking at and analysing non-Europeans through the prism of “backwardness, stagnancy and isolation.”

[GL] Fine, I agree. And I don’t think I’ve done that. But I’ve noted specific details about Afghan history that involve what many (I think most communists, certainly) would consider “backwardness” including a degree of illiteracy that is truly tragic. It affects the people in reducing their tools for coping with external attack and building an alternative, better society. [end GL]

I know there is a lot of claims here and little detail, but there is a limit to what can be done in a comment in a short time. Its better than nothing.

Gary,
in the interest of not spreading too thin, I will not comment, for now, on a lot of issues you raised in the previous post.
in the style adopted in your previous comment, here are "problematic" parts in your article as i see them, and a few commnets on it. of course I accept the possibility that it may all turn out to be subjective on my part in which case i'll be glad to accept and acknowledge.
****



“92% of respondents in the Pashtun-dominated south are unaware of 9/11 events, or their relationship to the presence of foreign troops.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised at the 92% figure. After all, Afghanistan is one of the least literate societies on earth, and a 2005 report indicated that any “press is scarce in rural areas.”

“The radio is the most widely used method of communication in Afghanistan, but there are fewer radios per capita than in any other country on earth.”

……
“The Afghans are not just benighted in their illiteracy, but terribly lacking in access to basic communications technology.”

“general lack of education”

“[The] occupation [is] seeking to remake Afghan society.”!!! is this really why they want to do? Is this why they are there? Sounds like “we are there to civilise them.”
……..
……..
“In rural areas where 74 % of all Afghans live, however, an estimated 90 % of women and 63 % of men cannot read, write and do a simple math computation. . . “

“In other words, there has been no significant progress since the U.S. and its allies invaded and occupied Afghanistan nine years ago.”…” it’s all a drop in the bucket. “

No significant progress!!! What there has been, is “all a drop in the bucket”!!!
Again, how will the target audience sum this up? Or how should they?
…..

“Why did Afghanistan plunge into the nations of lowest literacy rank?
I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with multiple invasions over centuries (Arabs, Mongols, Turks, British, etc.) and the cultivation of a particularly anti-intellectual Islam as a defense mechanism.”

“In any case, why has the U.S.-led occupation force and the regime it placed in power been unable to dent the illiteracy figure in an interval as long as the Soviet occupation that produced fairly dramatic results?”

Again the article does not have a clear answer to this question. At best the audience might think the occupation was a futile adventure and a mistake.

…..
…….
“Ironically the illiteracy they positively promoted then by backing the most extreme Islamists has come back to haunt them now.”
…….
……

“How can U.S. troops boast of their good work in building schools when no one can attend them, or students are terrified to do so?”

“The Taliban never had a monopoly on conservative Islamist thinking, and just as the occupation has not eliminated the wearing of the burqa, it has not changed the way that most Afghans think.”

“..the occupation …. has not changed the way that most Afghans think.” !!!

How does the target audience will interpret this and what will they sum up from it? That the occupation should do a better job? Or would they think the Afghans are a hopeless lot that better be left alone to kill each other? Or nuke them all.


…..
…..

“On the other hand you have uneducated Afghans who, while accustomed to the presence of foreign invaders (a near-constant in Afghan history), don’t quite understand the present invader’s justification for his own presence. 40% of those polled think the foreigners are occupying Afghanistan as part of a campaign to destroy Islam.”


“They don’t know that he (thinks he) is seeking out bad guys who, if they take over the Afghan state, will sponsor terrorists who will strike the U.S. again. They might find that whole story beyond imagining. Their country, their village, a threat to this powerfully armed intruder from seven thousand miles away? It doesn’t make any sense. The natural default understanding is that he and his comrades are hostile to their religion.”

The natural default understanding!!!
There is nothing natural about it and doubt very much if it is spontaneous. This is a very familiar and universal verdict among Moslem believers throughout the world. We are dealing here with a powerful (even if reactionary) ideology, spread by quite capable ideologues, theorists, politicians, strategists, tacticians and fighters. Not in the interest of the people of course, but never the less, they are quite capable reactionaries. How can we defeat our enemies if we don’t see their strengths as well as their weaknesses?


…..
Uraz Story:

“Uraz is frightened and disturbed by the gleaming white walls of the hospital, the manners of the foreign doctors, and the sense of confinement. He is puzzled about the nature of the cast (“the evil box”). To escape he leaps from the window to mount his magnificent horse waiting below, then makes the long trek back to Maimana. After he cuts away the evil cast, his leg atrophies and eventually has to be sawed off. But he eventually makes it back home, only to head off for another adventure.”


“Kessel was plausibly depicting the mindset of proud, fiercely independent tribesmen little concerned with and largely ignorant of the outside world. Uraz probably wouldn’t have known about things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, just as so many today are clueless about 9/11. (44% of the Afghan population is under 15 and many don’t remember much that happened in 2001.)”

“ Uraz isn’t a warlord, Islamist militant, or evil man.
He’s just an unsophisticated guy reflecting his culture.
The U.S. invaded Uraz’s Afghanistan…”

Unsophisticated guy reflecting his culture!!!
…..

“people in the U.S. can be as ferociously tribal and inclined to exact blood vengeance as any illiterate villager in Afghanistan.”

The reference point and the yardstick is clear; we are behaving like them.
…..
“The problem is, these Uraz-types aren’t picking up the baton very capably. They can’t read. They’re not aware of or concerned about the outside world, or about fighting the west’s battles. They just want to be left alone.”

[Uraz-types, not aware of or concerned about outside world!! One might ask where is the outside world? U.S. and Europe only?
It doesn’t make sense. Even Uraz of the film is aware of the existence of Capital Kabul and the annual Buzkashi game there and is quite capable of travelling some 400km to reach there at a certain time and without any modern navigational equipment. We just have to remember that Mohammed, the prophet of islam was probably the inventor of tourism industry and islam the largest and oldest tour operator in the world. Tourism of Mecca is one of the pillars of that religion and every moslem, male or female, is required to travel there at least once in their lifetime. For well over a thousand years Afghan villagers have travelled to Mecca and other places mostly on foot and mingled with others from the four corners of the world and come back to tell tales and stories of other Moslems from lands far and wide. That is to say nothing of the fact that most Afghan villagers have some close relative or a son abroad nowadays who is in contact with them.]
* * *

“One might say that the very ignorance of the people they strive to control militates against the ignorant invaders.”

They fight the invasion out of ignorance!!


“Thus U.S. forces on the ground are burdened with the impossible task of detaching themselves from the quagmire Bush and Obama have created by teaching Afghan recruits to read and write, transform their world outlook, master sophisticated equipment,…..”

What I am concerned with is if the picture of the Afghan society drawn here is accurate and deep enough, and how will it affect the preconceptions and prejudices prevalent in the target audience; would it counter those prejudices or strengthen them?

NSPF:
Thanks for your latest comments clarifying your earlier ones on my Counterpunch piece. I’ll try to address most of them, noting at the outset that I had a modest goal: I was responding to information contained in a poll, writing a column, not attempting a general history of recent Afghan history.
1. After quoting without comment my own citation of the poll findings (implying that there was something objectionable in my doing so?) you respond to my statement that the “occupation [is] seeking to remake Afghan society.”
“Is this why they are there?” you ask. “Sounds like ‘we are there to civilise them.’”
The full quote from my piece is: “As we will see the illiteracy problem, and general lack of education, has become a major headache for the invaders who arrogantly toppled the old regime and imposed an occupation seeking to remake Afghan society.” That may translate into “civilize them” for you but that is not what I am saying. Clearly the US and NATO want to force the Afghan people(s) to accept a long-term foreign presence and comply with a model of economic development that serves imperialist ends (including construction the TAPI natural gas pipeline through the Helmand River valley). I’ve explored in other columns the question of motives for the Afghan invasion, which include the need for a war perceived as “just” and “necessary” as a prelude for the Iraq war. The highly influential neocon faction within the U.S. ruling class, which wants to impose “regime change” throughout Southwest Asia for reasons that partly pertain to U.S. corporate profits but also (even more) pertain to Israeli “security” does make a big deal about “democratization,” “women’s rights” etc. in Afghanistan. I think that’s because depicting the invasion (and that of Iraq) as a democratizing humanitarian project deflects attention from the lies that were needed to whip up public support for war. Remember how Laura Bush took over for her husband in giving the weekly presidential radio address on the eve of the Afghan invasion, depicting the plight of Afghan women forced to wear the burqa (which of course most still wear)…?
In context, I don’t think my reference to the imperialist desire to “remake” Afghanistan prettifies or justifies the enterprise at all. The point is that to obtain their ends the imperialists have to make changes, including training puppet troops, which means teaching them to read manuals etc.
2. You find a problem with my observation that “there has been no significant progress since the U.S. and its allies invaded and occupied Afghanistan nine years ago… it’s all a drop in the bucket. “
You exclaim: “No significant progress!!! What there has been, is ‘all a drop in the bucket”!!! Again, how will the target audience sum this up? Or how should they?’”
I don’t understand the criticism. Plainly I’m simply noting on the basis of the statistics I found on line (and again, the Dissident Voice version has the links that Counterpunch omitted) that there has been no real progress in elevating the literacy rate since the invasion. The “drop in a bucket” refers to the literacy programs since 2001, which have been grossly inadequate in meeting the puppet government’s stated goal of 50% literacy by 2010. Nowhere do I suggest that it was a good thing for the U.S. to invade, in order to advance the cause of literacy or for any other reason; indeed my opposition to the war is very clear.
“How will the audience sum this up?”

I can only go by emails I’ve received and comments posted on the sites carrying the piece. Like these:

“I have found your recent articles on Yemen and Afghanistan in Counterpunch excellent.
The one on Yemen rang true and my Yemeni friend echoes your analysis. In the case of Afghanistan, I lived there in the Seventies and it makes perfect sense.” [South Asian surname]

“Your recent article (Counterpunch 22-11-2010) on Afghan illiteracy is one of the most poignant yet absurd articles on this vile war that I have read. You point out very clearly the tragic element of this horrible misadventure: most of the Afghans don't know why their country was invaded. If this is a war on terror, it is the US which is giving the example of what terror actually is. A fine article.” [someone in Lima, Peru]
“I just read your piece in Counterpunch on the appalling level of basic literacy in Afghanistan, but I do not see a source for the statistics on literacy during the Soviet Occupation other than the passive "was estimated." I would like to present these statistics to my students, but first I would need a citation for the Soviet period. (Incidentally, judging from the pitiful results on map tests in my classes, I suspect that 92% of so-called literate and informed Americans - with or without radios - could not find Afghanistan on an unmarked map.)” [high school teacher]
The only quasi- negative comment was this one on the Dissident Voice site, by someone who constantly inveighs against U.S. academics in general:

however, u.s ‘educators’ r as fiercely against an education for all of its people as r talibs, wahabbis, islamists, catholics, protestants, sunnis, talmudim, all supremacists, et al.
no american is getting an education save the one imposed on herhim by supremacists.
and one that dehumanizes to the degree that 99.99% of such dehumanized people wld even kill any one who’d attempt to make humans out of them.
in my judgment, pashtuns r better off not attending schools or reading a paper, book, etc.
and i am better off and not to mention polar bears if pashtuns wld refuse to attend any school run by talibs or any plutocrat. tnx

3. You quote me as saying I don’t know why Afghanistan has such a low literacy rate (which I don’t, having not investigated the question in any depth) and quotes my question: “In any case, why has the U.S.-led occupation force and the regime it placed in power been unable to dent the illiteracy figure in an interval as long as the Soviet occupation that produced fairly dramatic results?”
You state, “Again”---as though this was one in a series of omissions---“the article does not have a clear answer to this question. At best the audience might think the occupation was a futile adventure and a mistake.”
The Counterpunch and Dissident Voice audience by and large knows that I see the invasion and occupation as a crime. Looking back through this piece I notice that I don’t spell this position out anywhere. But I do at the end compare Afghanistan to Vietnam and state, referring to comments by generals in the two wars: “Here is ignorance plus racism plus indifference to human suffering, all in the service of imperialism. The ignorance of the illiterate Afghan is by comparison benign and innocent.” I don’t think this depicts the invasion as a “mistake;” it depicts it as an expression of a SYSTEM.
4. You take issue with my pointing to certain ironies. The US once backed forces which were adamantly against female education and suspicious of any learning other than the study of the Qur’an. But now trainers complain about the fact that the puppet troops lack education. I point that out (obviously, I think) not to disparage the latter but to point out that US imperialists could care less about Afghan education (and women’s status, etc.) in the 1980s when they found an alliance with the most backward elements in Afghanistan (most notably the vicious Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) useful in their confrontation with the USSR, but now feel the need to promote literacy in connection with their current goal of consolidating control over the country. And still they’re failing at it.
You find fault with this sentence in particular: “The Taliban never had a monopoly on conservative Islamist thinking, and just as the occupation has not eliminated the wearing of the burqa, it has not changed the way that most Afghans think.”
You ask: “How does the target audience will interpret this and what will they sum up from it? That the occupation should do a better job? Or would they think the Afghans are a hopeless lot that better be left alone to kill each other? Or nuke them all.”
I think someone reading carefully would “interpret it” to mean that the type of changes the occupiers want to make are not the kind that can easily be opposed from without or above upon a people who resist their presence. The occupiers would like a school system through which they could shape the thinking of the masses. They’d like to do away with the burqa (some would, anyway) because early on they made the mandatory imposition of the burqa by the Taliban a major issue in their vilification of that group (even though it’s been around for 1000 years and is for better or worse part of traditional culture, not a Talib innovation). The fact that they can’t make all these changes shows that their presence is rejected by the occupied people. I am not suggesting that the occupiers “do a better job” and I think most readers discern that I’m not hoping they do. The gist of the piece indeed is that the consequences of their failure to meet goals is a form of (appropriate) “blowback.”
5. You takes issue with my statement that many Afghans who (according to the poll cited) don’t know about 9-11 or the fact that the invading soldiers are trained to think their mission is a response to 9-11 see the invasion as “part of a campaign to destroy Islam.” And that this is the “natural default understanding.”
Me: “On the other hand you have uneducated Afghans who, while accustomed to the presence of foreign invaders (a near-constant in Afghan history), don’t quite understand the present invader’s justification for his own presence. 40% of those polled think the foreigners are occupying Afghanistan as part of a campaign to destroy Islam.”
“They don’t know that he (thinks he) is seeking out bad guys who, if they take over the Afghan state, will sponsor terrorists who will strike the U.S. again. They might find that whole story beyond imagining. Their country, their village, a threat to this powerfully armed intruder from seven thousand miles away? It doesn’t make any sense. The natural default understanding is that he and his comrades are hostile to their religion.”
“The natural default understanding!!!’ you respond. “There is nothing natural about it and doubt very much if it is spontaneous. This is a very familiar and universal verdict among Moslem believers throughout the world.”
But obviously I am not saying that the belief (expressed by 40% of those polled) that the invasion of Afghanistan is part of a war on Islam is “natural” in the sense of innate in the mind. It is learned. But in calling this a “very familiar and universal verdict” is not my critic saying pretty much the same thing as me? It is at any rate UNDERSTANDABLE that Muslims under attack by primarily non-Muslim forces anywhere in the world conceptualize the conflict in religious terms.
6. You find fault with my summary of the Kessel novel and my observation that the protagonist Uraz, who IS undoubtedly illiterate and “unsophisticated”---not a warlord or jihadi, just a normal guy reflecting his culture. I think it clear here that I am referring not to the totality of Afghan culture (I indeed allude in passing to the role played by Balkh in world history) but to the culture of Uraz’s village. Unless we want to say we should expunge the adjective “unsophisticated” from our language (as inherently demeaning to those described as such) I think it’s appropriate to use it as I do.
7. Me: “people in the U.S. can be as ferociously tribal and inclined to exact blood vengeance as any illiterate villager in Afghanistan.”
NSPF: “The reference point and the yardstick is clear; we are behaving like them.”
Yes and no. (I would not first of all use the word “we” since I dissociate myself from the troops in Afghanistan and from the supporters of the war here in the U.S.) I am saying that the overwhelming support for the invasion of Afghanistan that was apparent in the US in the fall of 2001 showed a kind of tribalism (unthinking patriotism) and a sort of jihad mentality (Bush having even early on called it a “crusade”). But it is very clear that I do not morally equate imperialist aggression to anything in Afghan behavior (and certainly not to the resistance, however much it’s colored by reactionary religion).
8. You seem to think I insult the fictional Uraz by saying he’s not concerned about the outside world. My point is that, given the education level, lack of news from press or radio, the geography of Afghanistan, many are apparently not very aware. The statistic about 9-11 suggests this, does it not?
As for Mohammed, I don’t think he was the “inventor of tourism industry.” He advocated a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a believer’s lifetime (if he/she was able-bodied and had the funds). Christians, Hindus and Buddhists had been going on long-distance pilgrimages for a long time before Mohammed, and inns and shops had popped up around religious sites catering to pilgrims/religious tourists. The fact that there is a tradition of long-distance pilgrimage within a religion with over a billion adherents doesn’t tell us much about the degree of Afghan villager interest in the outside world. The people living abroad you refer to are mostly in Pakistan (Pashtun areas that many Afghans see as an extension of their country) or neighboring Iran. Most fled during the Soviet invasion. That is, their presence abroad doesn’t tell us much about the thinking of the sort of Afghans polled in the study I cite.
9. Me: “One might say that the very ignorance of the people they strive to control militates against the ignorant invaders.”
NSPF: “They fight the invasion out of ignorance!!”
No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying the illiteracy and lack of schooling of the Afghan military/police recruits that so frustrates their foreign trainers (whom I characterize as ignorant in their own, very different ways) is working against the invasion. It’s a bit of an ironic point. But I don’t see how one can read into it the charge that Afghans are resisting occupation out of ignorance.
10. NSPF: “What I am concerned with is if the picture of the Afghan society drawn here is accurate and deep enough, and how will it affect the preconceptions and prejudices prevalent in the target audience; would it counter those prejudices or strengthen them?”
Again I can only point to the comments I’ve received, which don’t at all suggest that I am strengthening prejudices. Is the circulation of the figures I cite about illiteracy and radio availability itself likely to contribute to a negative stereotype of Afghans? (Should such data then not be discussed?) Or is it more likely to weaken the charge that those fighting the occupation are somehow linked to al-Qaeda and “global terrorism”? Is it more likely to strengthen support for the war or weaken it?

Gary,
I appreciate your substantial comment above.


“Is it more likely to strengthen support for the war or weaken it?”

If after nine years of swimming against the tide of imperialist war and occupation, we limit ourselves to shallow waters or think only in terms of how far and wide to swim, without ever attempting to learn deep sea diving, we will never see the beautiful sight of the corral reefs and the exotic synchronised dance of the fish inhabiting it. Much less capable of instructing others on how to dive deep.
Would you swim with sharks in muddy waters too, just for the sake of going against the tide?

This is a very inadequate and therefore wrong question to ask. How do you want to weaken the support for that war and from what position do you want people to oppose the war?

The balance and orientation of the article is the problem in my opinion. On balance, the attention is diverted to the cultural (percieved and real) problems of afghan society and how the occupation is not capable of solving those problems or ironically its coming back to haunt them.
The occupations, russian and the u.s., ARE the main cause of the problems and anything predating those occupations were exacerbated and institutionalised.
Any valid data can and should be used to drive this point home. The article loses sight of this and instead goes on tangents and hence can be quite confusing.
****
You cite a few responses from the counterpunch as evidence that the reactions to the article are positive. But for me this is not convincing at all for the following reasons:

1- unless you believe the purpose of writing that article and other articles by you against the imperialist wars is to preach to the already converted, you will agree with me that the respondents of the type you cite could not and should not be considered as the target audience. These are definitely not the people I would consider Target Audience. These are intermediaries, if you like, who would, it is hoped, use your article and its arguments and info as a tool in their arsenal to reach and convince others to look at the occupation of Afghanistan differently than what the mainstream media is telling them. The more you can cite their agreement with you, the more I will be convinced that the problem is larger than one article or one person. This is my main argument on this point.

2- secondarily, the emails or comments you received, it seems, are cited by you (Gary) to show that no one is raising the points that I am raising and are my concerns about the article.

Lets go through them one by one:

“In the case of Afghanistan, I lived there in the Seventies and it makes perfect sense.”

How are we supposed to interpret this? That they agree with you and like your article? Sure; but why? There is no substance here at all to discern the reason and comment on it one way or the other. It is just a pat on the back that is very valuable of course in its own right.

“Your recent article (Counterpunch 22-11-2010) on Afghan illiteracy is one of the most poignant yet absurd articles on this vile war that I have read. You point out very clearly the tragic element of this horrible misadventure: most of the Afghans don’t know why their country was invaded. If this is a war on terror, it is the US which is giving the example of what terror actually is. A fine article.” [someone in Lima, Peru]

This is a short note that has some substance as to why they think the article is fine. Note that the article is referred to as an article on Afghan illiteracy which is characterised as the “tragic element” of this imperialist was, which in turn is viewed as a “horrible misadventure”. the u.s. is of course correctly seen as terrorising the Afghan people, but, it seems, not-so-deep a line of reasoning: poor illiterate Afghans were innocent of the charge. A tragic case of a horrible misadventure giving rise to a terrorising and terrible miscarriage of justice. I am not trying to disparage the person who wrote this. On the contrary, this is the type of people we should unite with and if possible try to win over to a better (anti imperialist) position on the war. Even if we take the most correct position and present it most convincingly, we may still not win majority of them over to our position and still we should unite with them against the war. But if our position is flawed, even if we win them over we still haven’t raised their sight to a higher level.

“I just read your piece in Counterpunch on the appalling level of basic literacy in Afghanistan, but I do not see a source for the statistics on literacy during the Soviet Occupation other than the passive “was estimated.” I would like to present these statistics to my students, but first I would need a citation for the Soviet period. (Incidentally, judging from the pitiful results on map tests in my classes, I suspect that 92% of so-called literate and informed Americans – with or without radios – could not find Afghanistan on an unmarked map.)” [high school teacher]
Your article, it seems, has not helped this progressive teacher to focus on the big picture. Instead, they are more worried about the scholarly norms of presenting data. I will not dwell on the diversionary comparison of one imperialist occupation with another. It is not clear what lesson plan has been crafted and how the data is going to be contextualised and what is hoped to achieve through the lesson. How this could be supportive of your case against my argument is not clear to me.
*********
there are a few other points that i would like to make but no time and have towait for later.
Thanks again.