Unbiased pros and cons of EU membership 2 : Are the EU's actions towards Greece undemocratic? Would the UK leaving the EU help or harm Greeks?

Is the EU’s treatment of Greece democratic or not though? Unelected officials from the ‘Troika’ (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund) were sent to oversee Greek government departments’ spending , with the stipulation that “No unilateral fiscal or other policy actions will be taken by the [Greek] authorities. All measures, legislative or otherwise, taken during the programme period, which may have an impact on banks’ operations, solvency, liquidity or asset quality should be taken in close consultation [with the troika]” (1)

The Greek electorate voted in a party – Syriza – whose manifesto included scrapping EU imposed austerity. Then they were told this would not change the agreements made with the Troika by previous Greek governments.

German and Hungarian government politicians argue that they were representing the electorate of their own countries who were paying for financial support to Greece.

The reality is a lot more complicated than that as Germany benefited most from a free trade zone and single currency with weaker economies like Greece.

Despite myths of Greeks being lazy and tax avoiders, they in fact worked longer average hours than any other country in Europe even before the crisis , with Germans working considerably less hours on average(2) – (3).

And tax avoidance by the very wealthy is hardly something unique to Greece with e.g Switzerland, Luzembourg and the British Channel Islands being notorious tax havens, and many British companies, banks and billionaires avoiding tax in tax havens.

Greeks also had the options of defaulting on their debts and dropping the Euro as a currency and going back to their own currency, so they could issue money themselves, rather than having to ask the European Central Bank to issue them with Euros.

The Syriza Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis favoured at the least threatening to do this, and if necessary, doing. However the Greek government did not do it as the majority of Greeks in polls were against it, fearing that if done during a crisis it would lead to more panic and hyper-inflation.

This is still an option for the Greek government though, if it believes the damage done by EU imposed austerity policies is so bad that the other risks couldn’t be worse.

What there can be no doubt about is that the refusal of the same 50% debt forgiveness that Greece approved for Germany after World War Two, and the austerity policies imposed on Greece are both unfair and completely counter-productive.

Severe austerity cuts on the scale imposed on Greece reduce the size of the economy as a whole by reducing demand for private sector goods and services, reduce growth, and so make paying off any of the debt impossible.

From 2008 on during protests and riots against austerity measures Greek riot police have killed dozens of protesters and rioters, starting with what seems to have been the unprovoked murder of a 15 year old boy by armed police in December 2008 (4).

The EU have demanded that Greece run a budget surplus of 3.5% of GDP by 2018, which is over five times as large as the largest budget surplus that Germany, the strongest economy in the EU has ever had, at 0.6% of GDP in 2015 (5) – (6).

Even the IMF – one part of the Troika – has now said this ridiculous and argues that debt forgiveness and a relaxation of austerity are required for Greece (7).

What they don’t say is that, as Syriza have pointed out, some of the 1 trillion euros of Quantitative Easing money which have been created by the European Central Bank to hand to private banks could be used to pay off much of Greece and Spain’s debt (8) – (9).

Some people would argue that the UK leaving the EU could lead to the collapse of the EU and that this would free Greece from EU austerity policies.

However some Greeks, like Yanis Varoufakis,  a leading critic of EU austerity policies, want the UK to stay in as an ally for reform , arguing that if the EU splits up the result will be chaos and panic, which will be even worse for Greece (10).

He has launched an EU wide movement for democracy and against austerity policies called Diem25.

And the majority of Greeks , while they are angry and unhappy at what the EU has imposed on them, believe they are not in a position to leave the EU or go back to their own currency at the moment.

(1) = Open Democracy 14 aug 2015 ‘Greece has become the EU’s third protectorate’, https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/jan-zielonka/greece-has-become-eu%E2%80%99s-third-protectorate

(2) = BBC News 26 Feb 2012 ‘Are Greeks the hardest workers in Europe?’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155304

(3) = OECD Stat Extracts ‘Average annual hours actually worked per worker’, http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS

(4) = BBC News 05 May 2010 ‘Three dead as Greece protest turns violent’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8661385.stm

(5) = BBC News 22 Jun 2015 ‘Greece spells out terms for debt crisis 'breakthrough'’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33228119 (scroll down to subheading  ‘Greece debt talks : main sticking points’ ‘EU officials say Greece has agreed to budget surplus targets of 1% of GDP this year, followed by 2% in 2016 and 3.5% by 2018; Greece says nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’ )

(6) = AFP 23 Feb 2016 ‘Germany notches up record budget surplus in 2015: stats office’, http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1417803/germany-notches-record-budget-surplus-2015-stats-office

(7) = www.guardian.co.uk 23 May 2016 ‘IMF tells EU it must give Greece unconditional debt relief’, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/23/imf-warns-eu-bailout-greece-debt-relief

(8) = Greek Reporter 28 Jan 2015 ‘Greece: This is SYRIZA’s New Government Plan in Detail - See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/01/28/greece-this-is-syrizas-new-government-plan-in-detail/#sthash.ahNA2k1R.dpuf’, http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/01/28/greece-this-is-syrizas-new-government-plan-in-detail/

(9) = BBC News 22 Jan 2015 ‘ECB unveils massive QE boost for eurozone’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30933515

(10) = www.guardian.com 05 Apr 2016 ‘Yanis Varoufakis: Why we must save the EU’,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/yanis-varoufakis-why-we-must-save-the-eu

German and EU hypocrisy and short memories on Greece : Syriza aren't extremists - they're asking for the same debt relief deal Greece gave Germany in 1953. The EU is handing the banks almost ten times the amount of money Greece is asking written off in debts

Syriza extremists or unrealistic? No, moderates, asking for deal Germany got in 1953

The deal Syriza are looking for is a reasonable one. For their creditors to forgive 50% of their debts, for debt repayments to only have to be made once the Greek economy is growing again, for the EU to stop privatising Greek government assets and services by selling them off for buttons at the bottom of the market, and an end to austerity policies which prevent growth (1).

This is a plan based on the 1953 London Agreement under which Germany was forgiven 50% of its debts incurred during two world wars and from Marshall Plan aid from the US after them. The creditors forgiving half of those debts included the governments of Greece, Ireland and Spain, three of the four countries much derided as ‘PIGS’ over the debt crisis. The London Agreement also included Germany only having to pay back debts out of 3% of its export earnings, so that its creditors imported German products (2).

While saying there will be no more debt reductions for Greece, Angela Merkel and other EU government leaders have approved issuing 1.1 trillion (one thousand one hundred billion) euros of “quantitative easing” money to be handed straight to private banks (3).

How is it that there is infinite money available to the banks, but none to keep ordinary people in work? Or even on benefits while there are more unemployed people than job vacancies?

How is it that one thousand, one hundred, billion euros can be created and handed to the banks, but none of it can be used to reduce Greece’s debt of around 300 billion euros by half (150 billion)? (4)

Syriza’s proposal is that some of the QE money should be used by the European Central Bank to buy bonds not just from private banks, but from governments suffering debt crises, like Greece and Spain’s.

Some Greek and American economists are saying the only problem with Syriza’s proposals are that they’re not radical enough (5) – (6).

While many have tried to paint Syriza as being left wing extremists, mirroring the neo-nazi Golden Dawn party’s right wing extremism, in fact Syriza’s leadership are moderate left wingers. Even the Telegraph newspaper, which favours the right wing of a Conservative party whose centre is right of Thatcher, considers Yanis Varoufakis, Syriza’s Finance Minister, to be a moderate (7).

Far from being ideologically opposed to EU or Euro membership, Syriza leader Alexis Tspiras preferred a coalition with the right wing but anti-austerity Independent Greeks party to one with the radical left KKE party which wants to leave the Euro and the EU (8).

Lazy Greeks? Nope – they work the longest hours in Europe

The supposedly “lazy” Greeks work, on average, the longest hours of any nationality in the EU according to OECD figures, over 2,000 hours per year, and did so even before the crisis. The “hard working” Germans rank 33^rd at under 1400 hours a year .The average employed person in the UK works 1,600 hours a year, 400 less than the average Greek. (9) – (10)

Other studies found that Greeks work on average 38 hours a week, compared to 35 in the UK and Germany (11).

And Germans take  more days of holidays per year than Greeks too (12).

Greece allowed more tax avoidance and corruption?
There are tax havens and corruption in UK dependencies and across Europe

Tax avoidance by Greeks is also often raised to try to justify the conditions imposed by the EU. Tax avoidance is certainly a serious problem in Greece, but the idea that other EU countries have done anything to prevent it is laughable. The UK allows offshore ones in the Channel Islands and in the UK dependencies of Bermuda and Belize, as well as the main party in government in the UK getting more than half its donations to party funds from the financial sector. Both Luxembourg and Switzerland are renowned tax havens.

It’s highly likely that much of the tax money avoided by wealthier Greeks is in those tax havens in other EU countries and territories they control. Since they’re demanding a crack down on tax avoidance and evasion by the Greek government, perhaps they could help out at the other end by closing down their own tax havens?

Mark Field, the Conservative MP for the City of London & Westminster, Mark Field, boasted in 2010 about all the foreign money coming into UK tax havens (13).

Government minister Francis Maude said in 2012 that turning the UK into a tax haven is “exactly what we are trying to do” (14).

Lord Fink, Treasurer of the Conservative party, and director of three firms with subsidiaries in tax havens (the Cayman Island,s Luxembourg and Guernsey) called for the same (15).

And progress has been made towards making the mainland UK a tax haven, with many US firms now relocating their headquarters for tax purposes here (16).

Ireland’s economic “miracle” and then collapse were, like Britain’s , largely down to deregulation (though worse for Ireland as it didn’t have it’s own currency). This included Ireland slashing its corporation taxes to the lowest in Europe in order to get companies to relocate there for tax purposes (17).

That’s why Ireland was able to recover relatively fast from the crisis. But, as Greek government ministers point out, there is not room for every country in the EU to have the lowest taxes, and competition to reduce taxes results in crises for government funding in all of them.

As the firms and banks benefiting most from tax havens also tend to be big donors to party funds for the biggest parties in countries across the EU, corruption is as much a problem in the UK as in Greece, it’s just done in a more formalised way and at a higher level in Britain.
Cash in brown envelopes is for amateurs. Donations to party funds, and jobs as advisers or directors for retiring ministers for favours done in office, are preferred.

Does Greece have any choice but to do what the EU and Germany say?

Yes. It could drop the Euro as a currency and return to the drachma, or adopt another currency, such as the dollar. This would likely cause another crisis and considerable hardship, but with the austerity imposed by the EU having seen average incomes cut 40% and unemployment over 25%, most Greeks are already suffering plenty of hardship and might decide that having control of their own government and economic and welfare policy and budgets again was worth a bit more.

This would likely lead to a run on the Euro, which might well lead to Portugal, Spain and maybe even Italy also dropping the Euro as currencies. The Eurozone benefits Germany most of all. Countries leaving the Eurozone would reduce German export earnings, which have been greatly increased by the Eurozone effectively reducing the price of German exports in countries using the Euro (18).

Sources

(1) = Greek Reporter 28 Jan 2015 ‘Greece: This is SYRIZA’s New Government Plan in Detail’, http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/01/28/greece-this-is-syrizas-new-government-plan-in-detail/

(2) = EU Observer 07 Jan 2015 ‘Europe's debt revolution: Can Syriza's plan work?’, https://euobserver.com/news/127115

(3) = BBC News 22 Jan 2015 ‘ECB unveils massive QE boost for eurozone’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30933515

(4) Washington Post 30 January2015 ‘Greece really might leave the euro’ =
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/30/greece-really-might-leave-the-euro/

(5) = Truthout 22 Jan 2015 ‘Economist Leonidas Vatikiotis: Syriza's Proposals Don't Go Far Enough for Greece’, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28661-economist-leonidas-vatikiotis-syriza-s-proposals-don-t-go-far-enough-for-greece

(6) = NYT 26 Jan 2015 ‘Ending Greece’s Nightmare’,  by Paul Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/paul-krugman-ending-greeces-nightmare.html

(7) = Telegraph 26 Jan 2015 ‘Yanis Varoufakis: Greece’s future finance minister is no extremist’, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11369851/Yanis-Varoufakis-Greeces-future-finance-minister-is-no-extremist.html

(8) = Guardian 26 Jan 2015 ‘Greece: claims of a far-left victory are nonsense’,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/greece-claims-of-far-left-victory-are-nonsense

(9) = OECD Stat Extracts ‘Average annual hours actually worked per worker’, http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS

(10) = BBC News 26 Feb 2012 ‘Are Greeks the hardest workers in Europe?’,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17155304

(11) = Busting the myth of France’s 35-hour workweek, http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140312-frances-mythic-35-hour-week

(12) = See (10) above

(13) = Bloomberg 03 Nov 2010 ‘Tax Havens Send ‘Massive Capital’ to London, Lawmaker Says’, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-11-03/tax-havens-send-massive-capital-to-london-lawmaker-says

(14) = This IS Money 07 Apr 2012 ‘Francis Maude in new row after saying it would be a compliment if Britain were seen as a 'tax haven' under coalition’, http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2126452/Francis-Maude-new-row-saying-compliment-Britain-seen-tax-haven-coalition.html

(15) = Guardian 21 Sep 2012 ‘Tory treasurer wants UK to become more like a tax haven’,  http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/20/tory-treasurer-make-uk-tax-haven

(16) = Reuters 09 Jun 2014 ‘Britain becomes haven for U.S. companies keen to cut tax bills’, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/09/uk-britain-usa-tax-insight-idUKKBN0EK0BA20140609

(17) = Forbes Magazine 06 Nov 2013 ‘If Ireland Is Not A Tax Haven, What Is It?’, http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2013/11/06/if-ireland-is-not-a-tax-haven-what-is-it/

(18) = Business Insider 20 Nov 2011 ‘Why German Taxpayers Should Be Forced To Bail Out Italians And Greeks’, http://www.businessinsider.com/why-germany-should-bail-out-italy-and-greece-2011-11#ixzz3QRQBjDjw

There is a magic money tree for governments with their own currency - and Cameron has already used it in quantitative easing for the banks - so why not for things that benefit everyone?

Prime Minister David Cameron is completely wrong when he says there is “no magic money tree” – there is for any government that has it’s own currency which it can issue in any quantity it likes; and for private banks which can create money – but only create it as debt. Cameron’s government, like the last government, has used it’s “magic money tree” repeatedly in “quantitative easing” to pad the banks’ reserves. There is no reason he can’t use it to create money for more worthwhile causes that benefit everyone.

Vince Cable is right that we need stimulus spending, but why should we borrow it from banks and hedge funds, increasing our debts, when the government can print it or issue it digitally instead? It’s created out of thin air either way. The financial crisis was the result of most money being created as debt - loans and mortgages - by the banks, combined with deregulation, as Australian economics professor Steve Keen points out (1).

The government should print money and spend it on green energy research, investment in infrastructure (transport, education etc), plus grants and zero or low interest loans to small and medium sized businesses. If that creates a little inflation, that's not so bad, as devaluation of the pound will also reduce the size of our debts denominated in pounds.

The British government’s 2% inflation target and reliance on borrowing rather than printing money are the result of over-sized banks that can donate to much to party funds. Nobel prize winning economist Ha Joon Chang points out that even IMF studies suggest inflation doesn't negatively affect growth till it reaches 8% - other studies say 20%. (2)

Some will immediately cry hyperinflation, but in actual cases of hyperinflation, like Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe, the causes were French military occupation and control of the steel and coal output of the Rhur valley, and international sanctions, respectively, combined with political crises, not printing money (3). The bank executives and hedge fund managers would like people to believe otherwise because they profit from other peoples’ debts and don’t want those debts shrunk by moderate inflation.

If the government won’t do that we still have one other option – set up lots of small local or regional savings and loans companies like the “Bank of Dave” (Burnley savings and loans) set up by businessman Dave Fishwick (4) – (5).

This also has implications for the debate on whether Scotland should become independent. One potential advantage of independence would be that Scotland could print it’s own currency and spend it how it chose whatever the City of London financial sector said.

(1) Steve Keen (2011) ‘Debunking Economics’, Zed Books, 2011

(2) = Ha Joon Chang (2010) ‘23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism’, Penguin / Allen Lane, London, 2010, ‘Thing 6’, page 55 of Allen Lane hardback edition

(3) = Ha Joon Chang (2010) ‘23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism’, Penguin / Allen Lane, London, 2010, ‘Thing 6’, pages 51-62 of Allen Lane hardback edition

(4) = Burnley Savings and Loans, http://www.burnleysavingsandloans.co.uk/

(5) = Guardian 01 Mar 2013 ‘Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats; The Wedding Shop – TV review’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/mar/01/bank-of-dave-fighting-fat-cats

Why Germany will lose export earnings if Greece leaves the Euro

German and British politicians and IMF officials are fond of talking to the Greeks as if they were doing them a favour by offering any debt write down or bail out at all, even on the extreme austerity terms they're offering - and that Greeks can take it or leave it.

The dominant view seems to be that Germany and other northern EU members were doing Greece a favour by letting it into the EU and the Euro-zone, or that Greece is so backward or corrupt that it should never have been allowed in to either. This is very far from the truth. In fact Germany gains massive amounts of trade income as a result of weaker economies' membership of the Euro.

Greek membership of the EU and the Euro-zone has actually boosted German exports to Greece and to the rest of the world massively - and if Greece leaves the Euro German exports both to Greece and to countries outside the EU will fall and so German export earnings will fall.

With Euro currency zone membership the first reason is that before the Euro was introduced as a common currency the German Deutschmark was worth many Greek drachma. This meant that German exports were too expensive for most Greeks to buy, so they would be more likely to buy cheaper products made by Greek or other producers or companies. With the introduction of the Euro the price of German exports was effectively lowered, so Greeks bought more German products, increasing German exports and export earnings.

The second reason is that the value of the Euro is based on the average economic strength of the entire Euro-zone, making it worth less than the Deutschmark, which had a value based on the very strong German economy. As a result, with the introduction of the Euro, German exports to countries outside the EU also became cheaper to buy for consumers in other countries - once again leading to an increase in German exports and export earnings.

If Greece leaves the Euro the crisis will likely spread to, at the least, Portugal and Spain - and possibly to Ireland and Italy, meaning all those countries might leave the Euro. They would then return to their own, weaker, currencies, effectively increasing the price of German exports to buyers in those countries and reducing German exports.

On top of that each weaker economy leaving the Euro will increase the value of the Euro, meaning exports from Germany and any other remaining Euro-zone countries worldwide will rise in price to buyers in other countries, reducing exports for Germany and any other remaining Euro-zone countries.

With EU membership the reason is free trade between a relatively strong developed economy and a barely developed one. German and British and French industries and companies built up over centuries of protection and subsidy before World War Two and decades of investment (including the lion's share of Marshall Plan aid) after it, are free to export to Greece and Portugal and Spain with no barriers up to protect Greek or Portugese or Spanish industries and companies or allow them to develop.

The Graph at the top of the page is from Antonio Fatas' post on Insead blog

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