Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza should be tried here for the crimes they're suspected of - we shouldn't deport even our worst enemies to be tortured

I completely agree that Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza's views are extreme and morally wrong - and that if they have encouraged people to carry out terrorist attacks targeting civilians or helped fund or organise them they should be charged, tried and jailed. None of that can justify deporting them to countries where they will most likely be tortured and convicted based on statements made by other people under torture though.

"Assurances" from the Jordanian government (basically a dictatorship under the King of Jordan) that they will not do either of these things to particular prisoners extradited to them from European countries including the UK have been proven worthless. This has been established by investigations by Human Rights Watch and by Amnesty International (1) - (2). They've also found that torture in Jordanian prisons is routine and brutal right up to present (3) - (4). That makes Home Secretary Theresa May making a great show of seeking of "assurances" on Qatada just a pantomime done for the sake of appearances.

The right wing media circus in the US could to lead to Hamza, if he is deported to America, being sent to Guantanamo in Cuba for torture, or the US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan, or secret US prisons in Afghanistan, where prisoners are tortured and tried by 'military tribunal' kangaroo courts (5) - (10).

If Hamza and Qatada have encouraged, funded or helped organise terrorist attacks on civilians, as they are alleged to have done while in the UK, they should be given fair trials here, with a jury. If they're found guilty they can them be jailed for their crimes.

There are excuses given by the Home Office about the supposed difficulties of getting a conviction in court, but British Historian Professor Mark Curtis in his book 'Secret Affairs' (on British government dealings with radical Islamists) and investigative journalist Richard Norton-Taylor say the real reason this option has not being taken is that British intelligence and the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch had many mutually beneficial dealings with Hamza and Qatada throughout the 1990s which would be likely to come up during a court case here and embarrass them, the British government and possibly senior members of both main UK parties (11) - (12).

Another likely reason that neither have been charged and brought to trial here is that the Conservative party are keen to create an easily avoidable dispute with the European Court of Human Rights as part of their propaganda against the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act. Neither prevents us trying or jailing either of these men. Neither have anything to do with the EU - they existed long before the EU, were always separate from it and the European Community and are based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights which was written in order to ensure that we never slipped back into the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War.

The right wing of the Conservative party also have an irrational hatred of anything European or foreign which is so extreme that they might as well be calling for the abolition of foreign countries and foreigners.

Those who promote extreme interpretations of Islam often call those who disagree with them "hypocrites". We are more likely to deny them more recruits by showing their claims false by upholding the principles we say we stand for, than by ignoring them when they become inconvenient and so seeming to prove the extremists right.

If we throw away our principles of opposing torture, demanding fair trials and holding people being innocent until proven guilty, the moment they apply to someone whose views the majority of us dislike, then we will really have allowed our enemies to destroy our way of life in a way that no terrorist attack could manage to.

Sources

(1) = Human Rights Watch 06 Oct 2011 'Diplomatic Assurances: Empty Promises Enabling Torture', http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/06/diplomatic-assurances-empty-promises-enabling-torture

(2) = Amnesty International 12 April 2010 'Europe must halt unreliable 'diplomatic assurances' that risk torture', http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/europe-must-halt-unreliable-diplomatic-assurances-risk-torture-2010-04-12

(3) = Human Rights Watch 08 Oct 2008 'Jordan: Torture in Prisons Routine and Widespread - Reforms Fail to Tackle Abuse, Impunity Persists', http://www.hrw.org/news/2008/10/08/jordan-torture-prisons-routine-and-widespread-0

(4) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2012 : Jordan , http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-jordan ; 'Perpetrators of torture enjoy near-total impunity. The redress process begins with a deficient complaint mechanism, continues with lackluster investigations and prosecutions, and ends in police court, where two of three judges are police-appointed police officers. '

(5) = Scotsman 27 May 2004,'Soldier left brain damaged after playing unruly prisoner at Guantánamo', http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/soldier-left-brain-damaged-after-playing-unruly-prisoner-at-guant-225-namo-1-532722

(6) = Independent 14 Oct 2006 - ‘Guantanamo guards 'admitted abusing inmates',

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guantanamo-guards-admitted-abusing-inmates-419992.html

(7) = Human Rights Watch 01 Jun 2010 'The Bagram Detainee Review Boards: Better, But Still Falling Short' , http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/06/02/bagram-detainee-review-boards-better-still-falling-short

(8) = CBS News 13 Nov 2011 'Bagram: The other Guantanamo?' ,

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57323856/bagram-the-other-guantanamo/

(9) = BBC News 15 Apr 2010 'Afghans 'abused at secret prison' at Bagram airbase', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8621973.stm

(10) = BBC News 11 May 2010 'Red Cross confirms 'second jail' at Bagram, Afghanistan',

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8674179.stm

(11) = guardian.co.uk Comment Is Free 14 Feb 2012 'Why is Abu Qatada not on trial?' , http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/14/abu-qatada-not-on-trial

(12) = Mark Curtis (2010) 'Secret Affairs : Britain's collusion with radical Islam' Serpent's Tail/Profile Books, London, 2010 , chapter 16 (pages 265 - 276 of paperback edition)

Cameron's government is still arming dictatorships - including Saudi, Egypt and Kuwait, which is not a democracy

British Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed the British government was wrong “in the past” in supporting dictatorships in the Middle East and condemns the “appalling violence” against protesters (1).

Yet his government is still backing these dictatorships and their violence by approving sales of lethal arms and crowd control weapons to Kuwait, Saudi, Egypt and many others besides, as they torture, jail and kill democracy protesters and dissidents. This has been hidden behind the fig leaf of suspending a most export licences to Libya and Bahrain in order to try to give the false impression that all arms sales to dictatorships have been suspended (2) – (6).

Cameron travelled to Egypt with a delegation of British arms company salesman on his coat tails. Egypt’s government is not a democracy. It remains an entirely undemocratic government even after Mubarak’s resignation. It includes the Generals of a military which has been involved in torturing democracy protesters, sitting alongside Mubarak’s appointed henchmen, including his notorious torturer in chief Omar Suleiman, who has said Egypt isn’t ready for democracy (7) – (17). These are the people who helped Mubarak torture and murder Egyptians for decades – they’re not going to have changed overnight. This regime refuses to hand over to a government of national unity that would include the opposition and exclude Mubarak’s cronies (18) – (22). That means that it’s promise of democratic elections could be as empty as Mubarak’s was in 2005 (23).

It's also a bit late to suspend arms export licences if you wait till after the dictatorships start killing people by the dozen or the hundred - as in Bahrain and Libya respectively.

The Guardian reports that "Labour MP Denis MacShane has called for an immediate stop on all arms exports to Bahrain. Amnesty wants a ban extended across the region." (that suggests the UK government is still issuing some export licences for arms to Bahrain). The Guardian continues "Defence contractors said they felt "battered and bruised" by the condemnation that they had received, following the violence throughout the Middle East and north Africa.". The poor souls. They're so much worse off than all the people who have been tortured, beaten and murdered by the dictatorships they're arming for profit.

Cameron responded to criticism of his hypocrisy by saying that it’s “unrealistic” to expect “small democracies” like Kuwait to produce all their own arms (24). Kuwait is not and never has been a democracy. The Emir rules like a medieval king, appoints his own governments without having to respect election results and has anyone who criticises his government or organises political meetings jailed. There are elections to the Kuwaiti parliament, but that parliament is largely powerless in practice and the Emir can disband it at any time (25) – (30).

Cameron's strange definition of democracy seems to be "sells us oil cheaply and buys our weapons".

So is our Prime Minister actually going to support democracy, or does he prefer to just continue mouthing empty platitudes while securing profits for British firms by selling dictatorships weapons with which they are still intimidating, torturing and murdering their own people whenever they demand democracy? It can’t be both at once, no matter how much he might like it to be. His government’s foreign policy is currently as much of a hypocritical joke as Blair’s ‘ethical foreign policy’ was.

 (1) = guardian.co.uk 22 Feb 2011 ‘Cameron says UK prejudiced for believing Muslims cannot manage democracy’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-uk-muslims-democracy

(2) = guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 2011 ‘Abu Dhabi arms fair: Tanks, guns, teargas and trade at Idex 2011’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/abu-dhabi-arms-fair-idex-2011

(3) = guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 2011 ‘UK firm defends Libya military sales’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/uk-firm-defends-libya-military-sales

(4) = guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 2011 ‘David Cameron's Cairo visit overshadowed by defence tour’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/21/cameron-cairo-visit-defence-trade

(5) = Independent 19 Feb 2011 ‘Crackdown on arms exports to Bahrain’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/crackdown-on-arms-exports-to-bahrain-2219269.html

(6) = Campaign Against the Arms Trade 18 Feb 2011 ‘CAAT condemns empty words from Government as arms sale drive continues’,http://www.caat.org.uk/press/

(7) = ABC News 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egyptian army vows transition to democracy’,http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/13/3137352.htm ; ‘"The current government and governors undertake to manage affairs until the formation of a new government," a senior army officer said in a statement delivered on state television.’

(8) = BBC News 14 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt crisis: Protests switch to demands on pay’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12448413 ; ‘During the transition the cabinet appointed by Mr Mubarak last month will go on governing, submitting legislation to the army chiefs for approval.’ ;        ‘Military statement - Constitution suspended ; Council to hold power for six months or until elections; Both houses of parliament dissolved; Council to issue laws during interim period; Committee set up to reform constitution and set rules for referendum ;Caretaker PM Ahmed Shafiq's cabinet to continue work until new cabinet formed ; Council to hold presidential and parliamentary elections ; All international treaties to be honoured’’

(9) = Al Jazeera 12 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's military leadership - Brief profiles of members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as it assumes power from Hosni Mubarak’,http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201121185311711502.html ; ‘General Omar Suleiman, vice-president and former intelligence chief, is among the key retired or serving military officers on the council.

(10) = Press TV 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt army to decide on Suleiman fate’,http://www.presstv.ir/detail/165105.html ; ‘"The role of Omar Suleiman will be defined by the Higher Military Council," Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said on Sunday.’

(11) = Reuters 10 Feb 2011 'Egypt VP democracy comment misunderstood-state agency', http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE7192CG20110210 ; ‘In the ABC interview in Cairo on Monday, Suleiman was asked if he believed in democracy. Speaking English he answered: "For sure everybody believes in democracy, but when you will do that? When the people here would have the culture of democracy."’

(12) =  Al Jazeera 07 Feb 2011 ‘Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo  - Suleiman, a friend to the US and reported torturer, has long been touted as a presidential successor’, by Professor Lisa Hajar of the University of California, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201127114827382865.html

(13) = ABC News 01 Feb 2011 ‘New Egyptian VP Ran Mubarak's Security Team, Oversaw Torture’,http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/egypt-crisis-omar-suleiman-cia-rendition/story?id=12812445&page=1

(14) = New Statesman 17 May 2004 ‘America’s Gulag’, http://www.newstatesman.com/200405170016

(15) = Human Rights Watch 09 May 2005 ‘Black Hole – the fate of Islamists rendered to Egypt’,http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11757/section/1

(16) = Bloomberg Businessweek 01 Feb 2011 ‘Mubarak’s Top Spy Rejected by Cairo Streets as Masses March’,http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-01/mubarak-s-top-spy-rejected-by-cairo-streets-as-masses-march.html

(17) = guardian.co.uk 09 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's army 'involved in detentions and torture'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/09/egypt-army-detentions-torture-accused

(18) = guardian.co.uk 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's military rejects swift transfer of power and suspends constitution’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/13/egypt-military-rejects-swift-power-handover

(19) = guardian.co.uk 12 Feb 2011 ‘Army and protesters disagree over Egypt's path to democracy’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/12/egypt-military-leaders-fall-out-protesters

(20) = Reuters 30 Jan 2011 ‘ElBaradei urges U.S. to abandon Mubarak’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/30/us-egypt-usa-elbaradei-idUSTRE70T30920110130?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews ; ‘"I have been authorized -- mandated -- by the people who organized these demonstrations and many other parties to agree on a national unity government," ElBaradei told CNN.’

(21) = Scoop NZ 14 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's Protesters Communique Number 1’,http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1102/S00466/egypts-protesters-communique-number-1.htm

(22) = ABC News 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egyptian army vows transition to democracy’,http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/13/3137352.htm ; People's Communique No. 1", issued by the protest organisers, demands the dissolution of the cabinet Mr Mubarak appointed on January 29 and the suspension of the parliament elected in a rigged vote late last year.The reformists want a transitional five-member presidential council made up of four civilians and one military person. The communique calls for the formation of a transitional government to prepare for an election to take place within nine months, and of a body to draft a new democratic constitution. It demands freedom for the media and syndicates, which represent groups such as lawyers, doctors and engineers, and for the formation of political parties. Military and emergency courts must be scrapped, the communique says.’ (From the full text linked to above - (27) – ‘syndicates’ here is almost certainly a mis-translation of ‘trade unions’.)

(23) =  Human Rights Watch 23 Nov 2010 ‘Elections in Egypt’,http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/11/23/elections-egypt

(24) = guardian.co.uk 22 Feb 2011 ‘David Cameron hits out at critics of Britain's arms trade’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-britain-arms-trade

(25) = US Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs  ‘Background Note:Kuwait’,http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35876.htm

(26) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Kuwait

(27) = Human Rights Watch 21 Jul 2010 ‘Operation Roll Back Kuwaiti Freedom’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/23/operation-roll-back-kuwaiti-freedom

(28) = Human Rights Watch 11 Dec 2010 ‘Kuwait: Permit Peaceful Political Gatherings  - Security Forces Violently Disperse Parliamentarians and Professors’,  http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/12/10/kuwait-permit-peaceful-political-gatherings

(29) = Human Rights watch 31 Jan 2011 ‘Kuwait: Free Speech and Assembly Under Attack’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/01/31/kuwait-free-speech-and-assembly-under-attack

(30) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2011: Kuwait , http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/kuwait ; ‘Freedom of expression markedly deteriorated in 2010. The government continued criminally prosecuting individuals based on nonviolent political speech, denied academics permission to enter the country for conferences and speeches, and cracked down on public gatherings. In April state security forces summarily deported over 30 Egyptian legal residents of Kuwait after some of them gathered to support Egyptian reform advocate Mohammed El Baradei.

In May prominent writer and lawyer Mohammad al-Jassim was detained for over 40 days and charged with "instigating to overthrow the regime, ...slight to the personage of the emir [the ruler of Kuwait],... [and] instigating to dismantle the foundations of Kuwaiti society" over his blog posts criticizing the prime minister. A judge released al-Jassim in June and adjourned the case until October.’

Bahrain, Libya and Kuwait : Causes of the protests and foreign governments’ involvement

Bahrain and Kuwait - the supposed Shia 'fifth column' for Iran

The monarchy in Bahrain say there should be a dialogue once peace is restored, as if saying “let’s all have a nice talk together, you know, once I’m finished having more of you killed to try to frighten any of you who’re still alive by then into backing down” was the most reasonable thing in the world; and has copied Mubarak’s line of pretending to mourn for the dead, as if they had nothing whatsoever to do with ordering them killed.

The British and French government had been arming and training Bahrain's police and  military. In Bahrain those police have murdered democracy protesters, then murdered the mourners at the funeral. The UK and French governments have suspended arms sales. Don’t expect that suspension to last longer than media coverage does.

Bahrain is seen by both the Saudi monarchy and it’s allies as being too close to and too similar to Saudi Arabia to allow it’s government to be toppled &ndash (not to mention the US fifth fleet being based there); though I hope the protesters succeed in toppling it.

Bahrain also has a Sunni elite and a Shia majority – one of the causes of the protests as the Shia majority feel excluded from the best jobs. To the simple minded Pentagon planners and the Saudi monarchy, all Shia are seen as potential fifth columnists for the Iranians. (They even managed to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy in Iraq by driving the Iraqi nationalist and anti-Iranian Al Sadr and his Medhi army into the arms of the Iranians). Saudi Arabia also has a large Shia minority in provinces which contain significant amounts of it’s oil reserves.

In Kuwait demonstrations by migrant workers who have lived and worked there for years and decades, demanding citizenship and chanting “we are Kuwaiti” may also spread to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Emirates who rely almost entirely on migrant workers – including Pakistanis, Phillipinos and Palestinians.

Libya and the US, France and UK - Why Bahrainis being shot leaves western governments “concerned” while Libyans being shot makes them “horrified”

Britain and France were also arming and training the forces of Gadaffi's regime in Libya - plus providing SAS training for the Libyan military , since he took the hint at Saddam’s overthrow and renounced WMDs and terrorism – and much more importantly started giving US and British oil firms contracts again. Despite the synthetic outrage over the release of Megrahi (who was almost certainly innocent of any involvement in the Lockerbie bombing and fitted up in a jury-less show trial) American oil firms were back in Libya in 2004, five years before BP.

The reconciliation between Libya and the US and it’s allies is far from perfect though, partly because the US government continues the dodgy claims about Megrahi, but even more because Gadaffi has been demanding that his government keep a higher share of oil profits  – and even suggesting the possibility of nationalisation (which was enough to get the CIA and MI6 to overthrow Mossadeq in Iran when he did the same in 1953).

That may be why British foreign secretary William Hague called the Libyan military shooting protesters dead by the dozen “horrifying”, while similar murders on a similar scale by Mubarak’s police and those of Bahrain’s monarchy only made him and Hillary Clinton “deeply concerned” rather than horrified.

The fact that the British government approved sales of sniper rifles to Libya and that many of the dead protesters there are being killed by Libyan military snipers may also have something to do with it

UPDATE: Sky news has reported that only a small number of sniper rifles were approved for export to Libya by the British government and that these were in storage, for display purposes only and had the firing pins removed.

The problem with nation building in Afghanistan

NATO governments have tried to persuade themselves and us that their “mission” in Afghanistan is a benevolent project of “Nation Building” in which they prevent terrorists having a safe base and provide Afghans with “security” and protection against a new Taliban government. Neo-conservatives have also compared the invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq to the overthrow of the Nazis and of the militaristic regime in Japan, both of which were replaced with democracies.

The trouble is that the post World-War Two occupations of Japan and Germany were not nation building at all, because Japan and Germany had both been single states for decades with people who all saw themselves as German (for decades) and Japanese (for centuries). So the nations involved had actually been built long before World War Two even began, in some very bloody wars. There is no existing nation which most Afghans identify with as the group they primarily belong to.

Most Afghans do not see themselves as Afghan first, nor even Pashtun, Hazara, or Tajik. They identify with their own tribe in it’s own valley. This may well not be a sign of backwardness either, but a sign that the central government has never done much for people outside the main cities other than make war on them to try to get them to submit – and send police and soldiers many of whom abuse their power by stealing and worse.

US intelligence analysts say that the main enemy in Afghanistan is not the Taliban. The majority of people NATO forces are fighting are not motivated by religious fundamentalism, but are just local Afghans resisting the invasion of their territory by troops from elsewhere according to  these intelligence reports (1).

Recently leaked NATO documents include a revealing interview by NATO officers of a former Taliban fighter, who told them they he had been timber merchants who had first joined the Taliban after being held without trial or explanation by NATO forces. He also said a senior Taliban commander first joined after NATO destroyed his house (2).

Matthew Hoh, a former US marine who served in Iraq as a Captain and also worked as a civilian contractor for the Pentagon in Iraq and in the US embassy in Afghanistan during the current war there, says he initially believed it wasn’t Jihadim but nationalism that motivated most of those fighting the US in Afghanistan. He says he later realised it wasn’t nationalism, but what he calls “valley-ism”. He found that in most of Afghanistan people see themselves as part of the people living in the valley they live in, not any larger group or country. So the problem went beyond sending foreigners into Afghanistan or Hazara or Tajik Afghan troops into Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. Any armed force not from the same valley is seen as an outside invasion which must be resisted according to tribal codes, just as Iraqis resisted invasion of Iraq as their country and just as Americans would resist any invasion of their country by foreign forces (3) – (4).

Other driving forces behind people joining those fighting NATO and Afghan government forces include killings of civilians by those forces. For instance a report by the US National Bureau of Economic Research found a strong link between civilian casualties caused by NATO forces in Afghanistan and the number of insurgent attacks on NATO forces in the areas where the casualties had been caused in the six weeks after them (5) – (6).

 (For more on civilian deaths caused by NATO forces (including US led Afghan militias and death squads on the El Salvador model) and by the Taliban in Afghanistan click here)

This shows that in Afghanistan as in other countries in the past actual nation building is not just a process of democratisation or rebuilding economy, state and society, like that in Germany, Japan or even Iraq. It has not been everyone coming together as equals as in Rosseau’s imagined “social contract”.

In every country it has been a process in which one group forces others to submit to them by force in bloody and oppressive campaigns of war and massacre, as English Kings, Queens and soldiers did in Scotland, Wales and Ireland over centuries to form the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’ and French kings did in the Albigensian Crusade in southern France and in campaigns of subjugation in Flanders, Brittany, Aquitaine, Brabant, Burgundy; as well as against the Hugenot Protestant rebels.

The same happened in Germany, which was only unified by a series of wars and getting small principalities so indebted to Prussia that it could buy them over under Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck in the 19^th century.

In Japan there were centuries of bloody warfare over who would be ‘Shogun’ of the whole of Japan (after the previous inhabitants, the ‘Ainu’ had been largely wiped out).

The same happened in the US as European colonists attacked and massacred Indian tribes across America – and then Northern forces did much the same to Southerners in the American Civil War (which, despite being dressed up as being about “liberation” for black slaves in the South was accompanied by lynchings of black people in Northern cities when it was announced black soldiers would be recruited, segregation of military units by race and continuing lynchings and ‘Jim Crow’ segregation laws in North and South long after the war was over.

After this process is over then the state indoctrinates generations of children from birth to think of themselves as all “British” or “American” or “Iraqi” and to think of their country as uniquely tolerant, progressive, benevolent and good. This indoctrination is generally quite successful.

I am not arguing that other nationalisms which call for separation from the then established state are necessarily more progressive or less brutal – the wars in the former Yugoslavia showed that every nationalism involved was harmful.

I am pointing out that actual nation building in every country in history has not been a benevolent process in which the majority were peacefully persuaded to become part of the state, but one of oppression and force in which those with more power and wealth imposed their will on others to gain even more power and wealth. There have often been some in the countries being absorbed by force who were in favour of the union – but usually just as many opposed to it and whose acquiescence was only gained by being attacked, fought, having many of their civilians massacred and their lands and property taken.

It would be nice to think that the war in Afghanistan was a unique case, but it’s not. The Karzai government and its police and military are as corrupt and brutal as all the other factions in Afghanistan.

Helping impose a strong central government’s authority across Afghanistan, if continued, will continue to be a process of creating new enemies by invading the territories of local tribes with forces from other tribes, other identity groups (Hazaras, Tajiks and others invading lands populated by Pashtuns) and foreigners invading Afghanistan and killing people who resist the invasion. It will continue to involve accidental killings and deliberate massacre of civilians, jail without trial on mere suspicion and torture, creating new enemies or “insurgents” in a process that could go on for decades.

We can try and persuade ourselves this is a benevolent process on the grounds that our government and military are surely basically good (when in fact they’re no better or worse than most others) ; and on the grounds that we are giving them the unity and peace we have (forgetting that centuries of war, oppression and massacre actually created unity by force – with the apparently “natural” unity which came after it only being achieved by a subtle life-long process of indoctrination over generations).

By invading the lands of Afghan tribes and killing them if they try to resist the invasion we are not promoting democracy, but it’s opposite. Once a relationship between government and people based on the people obeying or being killed is established it will take decades or centuries to reverse and democratise.

Democracy as a system of government only survives as long as people believe in it. That means it can only be promoted by persuasion and example. As soon as you try to force people to obey a central government who don’t recognise it as being their government at all – and do so by killing any who resist – you de-legitimise democracy and make it seem like hypocrisy. This will not make Afghans more moderate in their religion or nationalism any more than September 11^th made most Americans more moderate in their views on foreign policy. In both cases it makes the majority more extreme, because  they are suffering extreme pain, mourning, anger and the desire for revenge.

If Afghans in the outlying regions of Afghanistan are to be persuaded to accept the authority of a central government then they should be persuaded by that government aiding them with infrastructure projects – clean water supplies, electricity, healthcare, education etc. Sending troops in instead not only won’t work, it’s backfired spectacularly.

Militarising aid and reconstruction projects has similarly back-fired according to many charities operating in Afghanistan, resulting in the Taliban and other insurgents seeing them as part of the occupying forces rather than as people bringing assistance with no strings attached. Despite much propaganda by certain governments most aid agencies said they had no problem in operating in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

It can’t be denied that most Afghans do not want the Taliban back in power in Kabul – and that Pakistan’s military and military intelligence have continued backing the Taliban so they can exclude Indian influence from Afghanistan and have “strategic depth” for guerrilla campaigns if India invades Pakistan.

That is unlikely to change once NATO forces leave Afghanistan. Pakistan’s military will try to get a Taliban government back in Kabul, as they did using military aid and tacit support from the US government in the 90s, also aided by Saudi money.

Our governments could however end all military aid and arms sales to Pakistan so that it can’t continue to pass these on to Taliban forces in Afghanistan, reducing Pakistan’s ability to fund the Taliban and forcing the Taliban to negotiate a coalition government deal with other Afghan factions – and they could increase funding for civilian infrastructure and aid projects in Afghanistan as a viable way for the Afghan central government to gain the support of people across Afghanistan. That could achieve what no “nation building” war ever will at a fraction of the cost in money and lives.

(1) = Boston Globe 09 October 2009 ‘Taliban not main Afghan enemy - Few militants driven by religion, reports say’,http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/10/09/most_insurgents_in_afghanistan_not_religiously_motivated_military_reports_say/

(2) = Times 28 Jul 2010 ‘‘He said they were scared of the Taleban leaders’ http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/afghanistan/article2662453.ece?lightbox=false

(3) = Washington Post 27 Oct 2009 ‘U.S. official resigns over Afghan war’,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html

(4) = Matthew Hoh’s resignation letter,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/ResignationLetter.pdf?sid=ST2009102603447

(5) = NBER Working Paper No. 16152 Issued in July 2010 , Luke N. Condra, Joseph H. Felter, Radha K. Iyengar, Jacob N. Shapiro (2010) ‘The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq’,http://www.nber.org/papers/w16152

(6) = BBC News 24 July 2010 ‘US military curbs 'reduce' Afghan attacks in some areas’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10746832