This isn't really specific to Anglo-Saxons. Bearing grudges seems like a universal human preoccupation. Southern Europeans are famous for the vendetta, and Arabs and Afghans take grudge-bearing to the next level. Which is why the rising numbers of civilian casualties was a guarantee that the NATO mission would fail.Endovelico wrote:I think the problem goes deeper than that. In the Anglo-Saxon culture any violence committed against one of the group is seen with a great sense of outrage, and it must be paid back tenfold. Soldiers know they are at risk, but when any comrade is killed this is seen as an attack and an insult to all. This need of revenge is then directed not against those who may have killed your friend, but against the whole enemy nation, civilians included.Ibrahim wrote:I think Americans know little about Afghans, but Muslims have been actively demonized by a vocal minority, with a resulting shift in overall perception, for a a decade now, and to that extent Americans have a negative view of Afghans as a whole. Also, 9/11 terrified Americans to the extent that anything was acceptable if it gave the illusion of more security.
So, Americans (and allies) have killed Afghans for over a decade, killing far more civilians than al Qaeda has ever killed in its entire existence by several orders of magnitude, and this is justified by assuming that most people killed must be terrorists (Afghan = Muslim = terrorist) and when it can't be avoided acknowledging that civilians were killed, this is justified in the name of security.
What bothers me is that this recent massacre is rightly condemned, but its not really any different than the baseline American (and allied) strategy since day one. Like I said, murders like this happen every day, just with airstrikes instead of some animal dragging a little girl out of her parents' home by her hair and stomping her to death.
But when the toy plane does it the headline is "16 Taliban fighters slain in drone strike." If they are feeling really rigorous they may toss in a "suspected."
Well that is impressive. A famously ugly conflict.I spent three years in the military, and was for two years in Angola during the war there.
I'm surprised to hear that, but I can't contest your personal experience. I've read many accounts and spoken to many veterans, and the sense of personal insult and need to recompense is usually pretty common. The exception seems to be WW1, where the entire situation was so absurd and indiscriminately lethal that it was harder to personalize. FOr it to be absent in a colonial conflict is rare to say the least.With very few exceptions our soldiers grieved for their dead comrades, but did not look for revenge. While in action we certainly saw as our objective to avoid getting killed, to kill the enemy, and destroy their capacity to fight against us. However, never did I witness that feeling of outrage and desire for revenge when any of ours was killed.
That is an enlightened attitude, but the majority of military history shows that hatred and bloodlust have been a part (if not a celebrated and encouraged part) of warfare for all of human history. As long as there is warfare there will be massacres of this kind, but a sign of civilization is of course to try and avoid it, and punish it when it occurs.And civilians were completely out of bounds. That did not prevent a couple of well documented massacres occurring, but such actions were very rare and overwhelmingly condemned. I think we never came to hate those we fought against, but had no qualms about killing them, if we saw the opportunity. In matter of fact I think that hatred has no place in war. The more you respect your enemy and his capabilities, the more successful you will be in defeating him.
I think the decade of murdering civilians has just eroded the Afghan population, and this might be a "last straw" situation.
Space too dangerous to have any one entity dominate......
