Not to be missed
Josh Slocum suggested that I should flag up Alaina Podmorow’s retort to Melanie Butler’s article here, so that people who read just this page wouldn’t miss it. Good idea. So if you read this page and no other – well one, you’re a chump, because the front page is updated every day, so you’re missing news items and the occasional Flashback goody as well as a lot of very good articles – but two, don’t miss Alaina’s piece. Alaina is 13, she founded Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan when she was 9, she has raised a lot of money for women in Afghanistan and has seen the money matched by the Canadian government. She doesn’t agree with Butler’s strictures on ‘Western’ feminists who try to support women in Afghanistan.
No one will ever tell me that Muslim women or any women think it’s ok to not be allowed to get educated or to have their daughters sold off at 8 years old or traded off at 4 years old because of cultural beliefs. No one will tell me that women in Afghanistan think it is ok for their daughters to have acid thrown in their faces. It makes me ill to think a 4 year old girl must sleep in a barn and get raped daily by old men. It’s sick and wrong and I don’t care who calls me an Orientalist or whatever I will keep raising money to educate girls and women in Afghanistan and I will keep writing letters and sending them in the back pack of my friend Lauryn Oates as she works so bravely on the ground helping women and girls learn what it is to exercise their rights. I believe in human rights so I believe everyone has the right their own opinion, I just wish that the energy that was used to write that story, that is just not true, could have been used to educate a girl in Afghanistan.
I’m happy to see that several blogs have linked to Alaina’s article; Terry Glavin’s for one. So don’t miss it.
Thanks for pointing us to the essay(s). Much appreciated.
I can hardly summon up very much sympathy for Mr. Glavin’s considered opinion that “Canadian universities are cesspools”. Perhaps his life in Toronto has bred contempt through familiarity.
Concerning the thesis itself. Yes, a lot of it is abstract and wrongheaded blather which attempts a decontextualized sociological analysis.
Still, it’s interesting to look at the concrete claims and critiques. On some issues, I can’t deny feeling as though I’m on the same page.
That sounds like a reasonable critique, if it’s true. Why should I believe that the Harper government gives a damn about women’s rights if even *the PR* is being outsourced to an NGO? If this is how things are, then why should I have faith that they have what it takes to conduct the mission in Afghanistan according to priorities that I can vouch for?
Another reasonable critique, if true. It is sheer Orwellian doubletalk to condemn the mere mention of the invasion of Afghanistan as “disturbing misinformation”. We were not invited by the Taliban over for tea. We invaded and conquered the country, because the Taliban was/is scum and because we wanted bin Laden dead. We can argue whether or not it was a good invasion, a justified invasion, and we can argue whether or not it has helped women’s rights, or was meant to help women’s rights, and we can argue about there is a case for colonialism, or that all empires are equally evil. But as to whether or not we invaded, and whether or not we’re an occupying force — there is simply no argument here. We did, and we are, and it is a shock to our collective intelligence that we are supposed to draw attention away from the severity of the means involved in this serious international action.
If the grim reality of war, invasion, and occupation makes honest Canadians queasy (which is effectively what is at issue here), then all this tells us is that Canadians need to think more seriously about global affairs. That might mean that we ought to all be neocons, or it might mean we ought to be isolationists, or whatever. But citizens of a democracy are obligated to resent the deception, in no small part because it trivializes the debate, and hence trivializes the issues involved.
Alaina Podmorow clearly has a big future as an independent thinker.
I think I have Butler right here (sorry, but I can’t indent it):
There is an international movement for womens’ rights in Afghanistan which is likely to support the so-called ‘War on Terror’ by opposing the so-called ‘oppression’ of Afghan women. Though perhaps well-meaning, members of this movement finish up supporting the ‘oppression’ they are ostensibly fighting against. Human rights must always be considered in their local social context, and so this movement should tread warily; which means do nothing to oppose the Islamists, lest it unwittingly support the Islamists’ opponents, who if not outright imperialists are their unwitting supporters.
I think Alaina’s critique of this is spot on.
“We were not invited by the Taliban over for tea.”
But what legitimacy does the Taliban have? One could say the Taliban invaded Afghanistan, one could say that the Taliban is occupying Afghanistan. I’m not sure an invitation from the Taliban would change an invasion into something more tactful.
I’m not saying ‘hooray let’s occupy Afghanistan.’ But I am suggesting that whether a given operation is an invasion or a something else often depends on whom you ask. (Often, not always.)
I figured the aspersion on Canadian universities was a considerable exaggeration though, which is why I didn’t quote it here or in News!
Oh wait, I take it back, I did use the university crack in the teaser. Sorry. It was meant to be at least ironic. (I thought when I read that line, ‘I bet Benjamin Nelson would not entirely agree with that.’)
Oh, the Taliban had no legitimacy whatsoever, because that means something approaching legal or ethical recognizability. (It’s a separate question whether or not it was *legitimated* by the norms of the region, or whether or not it could be internationally recognized as the local thugs.) Anyway, whether or not they’re colonizers, I don’t know, a lot of that depends on the degree of estrangement of the ruling powers from the population. For the sake of argument I’ll just agree that they are colonizers — that’s fine. And I fully agree that Butler’s analysis suffers from the defects of the body of theory she’s drawing from.
It’s true that any term will be relative to the way it is used by the person speaking. The problem is that we want our uses to have some stability over time and across contexts, and that we be able to rationally defend that usage as legitimate and/or practically useful. Convenient redefinition of a term according to whether or not a term benefits me at the time of speaking is surely not legitimate. Merely verbal debates over the use of terms like “terrorist v. freedom fighter” or “invasion v. liberation” are unstable and illegitimate, semantics in the worst sense.
In that spirit, an invasion can be described as something like: a military group entering into a territory with the use of force in order to seize and occupy that territory. Some of us think that this seizure was a means to an end, the end being protecting women’s rights. That’s fine, for present purposes. But it’s still an invasion. Somebody else might want to define “invasion” in their own idiosyncratic way, which would then need to be subjected to inferential prompts; for instance, perhaps a person might add to my definition “but only in order to rape the land and steal its resources”, and I would then ask them what to make of the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, which was purely political.
Or whatever — you get the idea. Nobody owns the words, but not all uses are equally respectable.
With that out of the way, I have pretty severe problems with the quoted selections that Butler provides (assuming they’re accurate). Whatever one’s foreign policy might be — multi-lateralist, uni-lateralist, isolationist, interventionist, or just war theorist — I think everyone can and ought to be able to agree that active deception and encouragement of revisionism are not legitimate ways to operate a civil democracy. I’ve been shellshocked by the amount of times the NATO governments have betrayed their civil structures over the past decade. (Nowadays I seriously consider donating 10% of my pathetic student income to Wikileaks just to keep these villains in check.)
About the Canadian universities bit, that’s okay, I thought it was funny. Though I still reserve the right to mock Mr. Glavin for his histrionics.
Excuse the duplication, but I wanted to comment on Alaina’s excellent article here as well. I’d also like to support Terry Glavin’s so-called “histrionics”. You know, BN, cherry-picking the relatively sensible parts of a truly pathetic attempt at cultural relativism by using the “orientalism” card to somehow validate it is really unworthy. TG is entirely correct to tear a strip out of what passes for Leftist/Marxist/Feminist intellectualism at Cdn. universities these days, regardless of what political views one holds, not only for the dreary uniformity and reductionism but also for the dismal, mostly inscrutable prose.
As for Alaina:
The stark contrast between Alaina’s clear prose and clearheaded view of human rights and morality and that of the POMO-babbling anti-“colonialist” couldn’t be greater. Maybe it takes a 13 year old uncluttered by intellectual pretensions deliver the message in such unequivocal terms.
Two cliches come to mind that very much apply here:
1-Out of the mouth of babes.
2-The emperor has no clothes.
I just breezed through the original article so aptly critiqued by 13-year-old alaina: It is far worse than I could have imagined. From a scholastic point of view it deserves a failing grade, with its entire critique based on ad hominem kind of assumptions that aren’t even demonstrated, much less proven. Take the following sentence as a tiny representation of the whole: “What follows is a final, wordless image of a woman in a burqa accompanied by three small children. Like the students who do not fit into the category of being “like us”—white and privileged— the Afghan woman’s identity is reduced to being someone we must help.”
I think you have to be pretty twisted to come to a conclusion like this based on an image like that. One could be excused for thinking the sentence — like the entire article — is a psychological response to the guilt of not trying to do something to help Afghans by twisting oneself into a pretzel, both logically and linguistically, to mak the act of helping itself into something sinister.
The entire article is like this. I could go on and on about it, analyzing it paragraph by paragraph, but it’s all the same as above. And in the same spirit of clarity that suffused Alaina’s article, I would sum it all up by saying I couldn’t — wouldn’t — finish such a vile article; that it made me literally feel ill; and finally, that it left me with an overarching sense of sadness and despair. Thankfully, there is Alaina.
Yes vildechaye, the post-PoMo future is looking bright.
Well vildechaye, when you announce that you could “go through it paragraph by paragraph”, I look forward to that effort, histrionic or no. Before long you’ll have to reckon with the first concrete cases she deals with, which are the ones I cited. I think you can make a case that her thesis misfires. I don’t think you can make a case that the evidence and their role in the practice of legitimating institutions should be ignored. I also think that the NGO comes across poorly, if those selections are accurate.
When you use the phrase “cherry-picked”, I wonder what you think you mean. What are you suggesting, I wonder? That I’ve ignored the main thesis? I hope not, given that I’ve given summary disapproval thrice now. I’ll do it a fourth time, if you think it will overflow my cherry basket. Perhaps by “cherry-picked” you think that this issue is irrelevant? If so, say why. I have my own share of nausea to prove why I would disagree.
But by all means, please do tell me if my Canadian Leftist/Marxist/feminist education has gotten ahead of me. I’m genuinely curious as to what you’re saying, and how it relates to the legitimation of a war by purposefully massaging conventional wisdom into righteous denial of the basic facts of the matter. You haven’t come down one way or the other on that, so presumably part of you can agree that it is not “misinformation” to describe our invasion and occupation of Afghanistan as an “invasion” and “occupation”, yes?
Benjamin,
Of course you may argue that the Afghan government itself is illegitimate and that the UN Security Council is but a self-appointed arbiter. However, since the Western forces (ISAF) are in Afghanistan at the invitation of the former and authorized by resolutions of the latter, I would say that your use of the word “occupation” would in fact qualify as “disinformation”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation
http://www.cfr.org/publication/20040/un_security_council_resolution_1386_afghanistan.html
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/category/178-afghanistan.html
http://www.un.org/News/dh/latest/afghan/un-afghan-history.shtml
Dave, yes, you can say that. I too thought that piece was quite staggering.
As i mentioned in my previous post, i “could” go through the sickening thesis by Butler paragraph by paragraph, but someone would have to pay me to do it, just like they’d have to pay me to edit Discourses in Marxist Thought or the National Enquirer.
RE: “I also think that the NGO comes across poorly, if those selections are accurate.”
You can think what you like. But if that’s what you truly believe, it’s you who comes across poorly. And if it isn’t, and this just another intellectual masturbatory exercise, that doesn’t reflect particularly well either.
As an example, your “invasion”/”occupation” diversion, is simply quite the red herring. Surely, Canandian women for afghanistan are not protesting the use of neutral terms like invasion and occupation, but rather the negative connotations that those like Butler put on those terms in the Afghan context. That’s a valid point. All you’re doing is quibbling about semantics. For example, the allies invaded and occupied Germany during and after WWII; had organizations gone in during the war to help the Jews (if only) or were those organizations that went in after the war to help refugees merely abetting the government’s — how did she put it — “strategy of co-opting [jews and refugees] rights discourse and
mobilizing the [aid organizations] to support the war [against Nazism]”, in the Canadian case, it is [those aid groups] who appear to be making up for their government’s ineffective use of this strategy, soliciting the government to co-opt their discourse in order to legitimize Canada’s participation in the war—and therefore their own support for that participation.”
What else can you say but — total garbage.
This paragraph you quote so approvingly actually says it all:
In a recent newsletter, for example, CW4WAfghan vice-president Lauryn Oates praises a government-issued report on Canada’s future role in Afghanistan, while at the same time acknowledging the report’s complete lack of attention to women’s rights. Rather than condemning the report—or Canada’s role in Afghanistan—Oates offers on behalf of her organization “to further share our insights and analysis regarding gender in Afghanistan” with the panel in charge of the report.”
Basically, the feminist strategy espoused by Butler is to “condemn condemn condemn”, never for a moment considering that Lauren Oates might have reasonable strategic considerations for why she “acknowledged” the omission, but didn’t “condemn” it. Elsewhere in this “thesis”, the author amplifies these “points” by maintaining [and I will paraphrase here, read the report if you don’t believe me] that true solidarity with Afghan women doesn’t involve helping Afghan women, but rather portraying Canadian woman as just as oppressed as afghan women (try telling that to an afghan woman!) so that there is no perceived cultural superiority or “orientalism.” I’m not so sure the Afghan women would forego help for that kind of rubbish solidarity.
The only thing left to say is that if you’ve actually read parts of this “thesis” and haven’t noticed how positive human traits such as altruism, charity and caring for the unfortunate are demeaned into a negative (culturally superior, orientalist) quality, we have nothing further to discuss.
Ophelia,
The reason why I never miss any of your Notes & Comments posts or the daily updates on the front page is that they both have RSS feeds, while I haven’t yet found one for the articles. Is it there?
Tea – no – but never mind – B&W is just about to move and be redsigned at the same time. The front page is all different.
vildechaye, if you really want to get exasperated, check out the anonymous sniggerers at Aaronovitchwatch on this.
Alain, we can reasonably disagree over whether or not it’s an occupation now, but it was an occupation minimally up until the establishment of the new government. That is both a consistent reading of what you’ve said, I think, as well as fodder for criticism of the NGO.
Vildechaye,
The first, and most obvious thing that has to be addressed, is that you clearly have a problem with leftism and feminism, as you express in your previous post. This is a remarkable view to take, in a thread that is ostensibly (and rightly) in praise of a leftist feminist 13 year old’s essay, which is held on a site that is by-and-large intellectually leftist and feminist. Welcome to the cesspool, we’re glad to have you.
The second interesting thing is that you agree with me. That is, you agree that it was an invasion and — at least until the establishment of the new government — an occupation. Very good. I’m glad we see eye to eye.
Of course, you go on to say that this isn’t a big deal. You explain: “Surely, Canandian women for afghanistan are not protesting the use of neutral terms like invasion and occupation, but rather the negative connotations that those like Butler put on those terms in the Afghan context.” Surely…? Why on earth do you think this? It seems like an absurd claim on the face of it. It could be true if Butler took it out of context or misrepresented its contents — if so, prove it. Don’t just wave your hands around.
Third. Having understood that we are in a broadly leftist forum, and also understood that we invaded and occupied a country, there remains the question of whether or not the debate is merely verbal.
On the left, these debates — on matters of international war, justice, human rights, oppression, foreign policy, and so on — can be made by sensitive and thoughtful people. An analysis of abstract meta-narratives in order to do this is neither sensitive nor thoughtful, as is clear to everyone here. But then again, it’s neither sensitive nor thoughtful to deem the use of neutral terms as “misinformation”. Barring a sudden sea change in your sensibilities, it seems as though any discussion of propaganda, rhetoric, and the responsibilities of a government in making a case for war is trivial for you; hence, the quotes are mere “semantics”, “intellectual masturbatory exercize”, and so on. Tell it to Orwell.
It’s important to stop for a moment, at this point, and remember that debate about confusing and hard moral issues is of critical importance to the value of democracy. So, in 2002, I stood before an audience of my peers and heckled a professor in a debate who took an anti-war stance. I yelled: “If America doesn’t free the people of Iraq, then who will?” I thought that’s a good question. I still do. Approximately 24 months later, I would find myself in front of Michael Ignatieff, who is (ostensibly) a just war theorist, asking something entirely different. “The American government lied its pants off about WMDs. How is that in any way democratic?” I thought that’s a good question. I still do. You see, I think they are distinct kinds of questions, but also that they can be asked in good faith on the basis of compatible sentiments. Moreover, I think that it is immoral, unjust, and pig-ignorant to not want answers to these questions.
I mention it because you don’t seem to share my values — that is, the values of truth, honesty, and civil debate. For in your opinion, there are “reasonable strategic considerations” behind villifying people who use neutral rhetoric to describe the facts about the invasion and occupation of a foreign country. That shows that you think a democratic debate amongst rational citizens is optional. Given that the war is ostensibly about democracy in the first place, I think that is a trivial, anti-democratic attitude that ultimately disrespects the sacrifices of the soldiers and the deaths of the civilians. This is unfortunate.
Benjamin,
Unlike what occurred in Iraq, the initial military intervention in Afghanistan consisted nearly entirely of aerial bombing in support of the Northern Alliance in its ongoing civil war with the Taliban.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war_in_Afghanistan_%281996-2001%29
At most a few hundred special forces and advisors were airlifted into northern Afghanistan at the invitation of the Northern Alliance. The large-scale landing of western forces in Afghanistan occurred in 2002, after the Northern Alliance had routed the Taliban and they and their Pashtun allies had installed a government in Kabul. The ISAF were sent at the invitation of the new government and authorized by the UN. Despite all your verbal chaff about “the values of truth, honesty, and civil debate”, it was not then and is not now an “occupation”.
Ophelia,
Followed your link to Aaronovitch Watch. Reminded me why I gave up reading Davies and his supercilious enablers on Crooked Timber (my apologies to the few genuinely courteous and thoughtful posters on that site).
Alain – quite so.
Benjamin, i’ll be as clear as day for you. Your respect for “truth honesty and civil debate” is totally bogus.
Example 1:
The first, and most obvious thing that has to be addressed, is that you clearly have a problem with leftism and feminism, as you express in your previous post.
No, I’m centre-left and pro-feminist and always have been. Radical feminism and Marxism, which leads to stunted intellectualism like the master’s thesis under discussion, are another matter.
Example 2:
This is a remarkable view to take, in a thread that is ostensibly (and rightly) in praise of a leftist feminist 13 year old’s essay, which is held on a site that is by-and-large intellectually leftist and feminist.
But clearly not supportive of radical leftism of feminism which leads to such shoddy and predictable (not to mention unintelligible) intellectual work, and rote responses to complex issues.
Example 3:
RE: Surely…? Why on earth do you think this? It seems like an absurd claim on the face of it. It could be true if Butler took it out of context or misrepresented its contents — if so, prove it. Don’t just wave your hands around.
It’s you who is waving your hands around. If, as you maintain, the words are neutral, there’s nothing to complain about. The invasion of France by the U.S., the occupation of Germany by the allies (as I’ve mentioned in the previous post, which you conveniently ignore) are considered positive developments by most sensible people. When Po-Mo-Fo intellectuals like Butler use the term, in the context of a U.S.-led operation, we can surmise that it’s meant in a negative context, and that is what is being objected to. It’s disingenuous to claim otherwise. Nor do I believe you seriously mean it. In any event, to focus on that tiny part of the thesis and ignore its main thrust is intellectually vacuous.
Example 4: RE: there remains the question of whether or not the debate is merely verbal. On the left, these debates — on matters of international war, justice, human rights, oppression, foreign policy, and so on — can be made by sensitive and thoughtful people. An analysis of abstract meta-narratives in order to do this is neither sensitive nor thoughtful, as is clear to everyone here. But then again, it’s neither sensitive nor thoughtful to deem the use of neutral terms as “misinformation”.
Straight out of Po-Mo U 101. First, it’s unintelligible. “Whether the debate is merely verbal.” Huh? And what the hell is an analysis of abstract meta-narratives, and who are you to say that this is “neither sensitive nor thoughtful,as is clear to everyone here.” Is that so. Nothing in that sorry sentence was clear to me. What i HAVE been able to gleam between among the hoity-toity verbiage and psychobabble is that I said something was “misinformation.” Of course, I never used the term. But don’t let reality get in the way of a good critique … that’s the Po-Mo way.
Example 5: hence, the quotes are mere “semantics”, “intellectual masturbatory exercize”, and so on.
I made very clear and cogent points regarding my objection to the quotes you highlighted. You on the other hand are only quoting my descriptions, which is the fun after the study. And don’t schlep Orwell into this. He would have detested that piece of crap you’re defending, as would any clear-thinking individual.
Example 6: “There are “reasonable strategic considerations” behind villifying people who use neutral rhetoric to describe the facts about the invasion and occupation of a foreign country.”
I see. In this obtuse sentence, which I really have trouble making head or tails of, you’re either (a) Condoning the vilification of real feminist human rights workers in afghanistan because they use “neutral rhetoric” about the “occupation”; (b) implying that I am vilifying somebody, I have no idea who..; or (c) implying that Alaina was vilifying Butler. I have no idea which, but the only one that even remotely makes sense — though it’s also wrong — is option c. And how that shows that I think a “democratic debate amongst rational citizens is optional is beyond me. Perhaps if I’d suggested that Butler’s pathetic thesis be repressed or censored, or that the NDP should be expelled from the House of Commons, or that the Universities fire all their po-mo profs, you might have a point. It seems to me the only person trying to stifle debate is you, via red herrings, misdirections, and either purposeful or ignorant misreadings and cherry-picking.
Example 7: Given that the war is ostensibly about democracy in the first place, I think that is a trivial, anti-democratic attitude that ultimately disrespects the sacrifices of the soldiers and the deaths of the civilians.
My theory about the above is that it’s pure projection. This is beyond conflation, this is attributing positions to me and then arguing with yourself about it. You’ve basically concluded i’m anti-democratic based on inferences that make no sense. It’s quite pathetic really.
I do agree with you about one thing, though. I certainly don’t share your values.
Uh oh. Count to three, look at the ceiling and think of Britain, try to text and crochet at the same time. Do something to moderate the heat a little. I don’t think you disagree very substantially, so I don’t think it’s worth a brawl. I think there’s been some misreading on both sides.
Sorry. Sorry to be annoying. I’ve just been re-reading some ancient brawls with tedious Daniel Davies, because he threatens to recyle his distorted version of them on that thread at Aaronovitchpester, so I thought I would refresh my memory. Ugh. I prefer not to think of Daniel Davies ever from one year to the next – but he will keep accusing me of bad faith, hypocrisy, child-murder, etc.
So don’t be emulating him.
Hi Ophelia: I will try out of deep respect for you, though I don’t believe I’m emulating anybody or, for that matter, being particularly combative, despite being accused of being anti-democratic for simply for speaking my mind.
Hi vildechaye – sorry, I was unclear – that was addressed to both of you! Ben, I think that one use of the word ‘feminist’ wasn’t enough to conclude v.c has a problem with feminism.
So both just…you know…be mellow. Not that you’re being particularly combative. Just a precaution.
The don’t be emulating thing was a joke! Not a joke-joke, just a flippant sign-off kind of thing. Anyway not a serious order.
“Before long you’ll have to reckon with the first concrete cases she deals with, which are the ones I cited.”
Where the charity criticises the government and seeks to take practical steps to reform its policy?
At the same time as taking practical action to improve actually existing women’s lives?
I don’t see that as a particularly damning charge.
Ignorance of how one gets things done in bourgeois society isn’t a criticism of bourgeois institutions. Focussing on throat clearing while ignoring the critique that follows is not effective criticism. If it’s done as a matter of intent rather than incompetence it is a rhetorical move that raises some awkward questions.
While I assume Benjamin Nelson tries to be consistent, his particular choice of words is interesting.
What has happened to the “good old” leftist term: LIBERATION?
Cubans troops varius places in Africa and e.g. North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. Were these also instances of “Occupation”?
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Alain,
Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s discount the limited physical presence during the interim. We’re then left with the reasonable disagreement — as I put it earlier — over whether or not the moment after the establishment of the coalition provisional authority is an occupying force. Calling this “misinformation” is incredible, since it depends entirely upon whether or not that provisional government is an effective and autonomous working democracy, which it isn’t (nor could it be, to be fair).
Ophelia,
He said, Marxist/leftist/feminist, with forward-slashes. The intimation is that these are interchangeable concepts to be painted with the same negative brush. If he were interested in saying what he means, then he would have criticised the thing that everybody, including myself, criticises (in my case, not including the present sentence, four times in this thread alone) — postmodernism and postcolonial sociology. Instead, he overgeneralised. So I don’t think I’ve misread him at all, though it is possible that he misread himself.
V,
Oi. We’ve gotten pretty quickly to the aphasic part of the conversation. I’ll save you the trouble of having to parse sentences with commas.
“If, as you maintain, the words are neutral, there’s nothing to complain about.” Yes there is. I complain about the fact that they call the use of these words “misinformation”. And so if someone says the sentence: “We invaded and occupied Afghanistan”, then by the NGO’s lights, they are either an fool or a villain. I find that accusation reprehensible, precisely because they actually are neutral terms, as you admit. Orwell Orwell Orwell times infinity.
Cassanders,
I don’t know anything about the Cuban/African episode(s), you’d have to be more specific. But the North Vietnamese incursion into South Vietnam was clearly an invasion and occupation of certain regions, yes.
The word “liberation” is interesting. Do you think that calling an invasion a liberation makes it any less of an invasion? Even in a best-case scenario, they’re not mutually exclusive.
well BN, if that’s all you’re left with, i.e. (1) quibbling about an NGO’s calling the words “occupation” and “invasion” “misinformation”, (2) persisting in ignoring the salient point that the misinformation they’re referring to is clearly the negative connotation put to those words by the person writing it (i.e. Butler), and (3) going after an NGO doing humane, risky and brilliant work for supposedly misspeaking, then so be it.
If ever there was a “missing the forest for the trees” moment, this would be it.
And think what you will, I doubt Orwell would be very proud of this dubious argument, so you would be wise to stop dragging him in as a source when he’s dead in the ground and can’t speak to the issue. You’d be on more solid ground speaking for that other language expert, Chomsky… and you can keep him.
Benjamin,
Your reply to me is such a mishmash that calling it a “reasonable disagreement” just won’t do. Let me repeat:
1. There never was an “occupation” nor “an occupying force”. Neither then nor now. To pretend otherwise is to beg the question.
2. There never was a “coalition provisional authority”. Western military assistance had long been solicited by the Northern Alliance (all indigenous Afghans, in case you are unfamiliar with the country’s history) in their civil war with the Taliban. But Western countries largely avoided direct interference in Afghan affairs until 9/11. Under the impetus of 9/11, this policy changed and direct military assistance was now provided in the form of aerial bombing support and a small number of special forces. This was enough to tip the civil war in favour of the Northern Alliance, who immediately installed a new government in Kabul including some of their Pashtun allies. Again: no “coalition provisional authority”.
3. This new Afghan government invited western countries to send troops to help them rid their country of the Taliban, especially in those areas (Kandahar, the south and the border area with Pakistan) where the Taliban were still strong. These western troops, the ISAF, were requested by the Afghan government and authorized by the UN. They were provided in 2002. Again: no “coalition provisional authority” and no “occupation”.
4. The word I used to describe your insistence on using the word “occupation” was not “misinformation” (which, according to Wikipedia, “is false or inaccurate information that is spread unintentionally”), but “disinformation”. “Misinformation” – according to Wikipedia – “is distinguished from disinformation by motive in that misinformation is simply erroneous, while disinformation, in contrast, is intended to mislead.” Which pretty much sums up Butler’s thesis as well.
V, I think our disagreement is crystal clear at this point, even if in all other respects you can’t make sense of your own intuitions.
Alain,
1. That’s just an incredible claim. It could only be true if a) the 55,000 ISAF troops were phantoms, b) Afghanistan had a working democracy. Neither are the case, so — you don’t have much of a case.
2. I was wrong about the name of the transitional administration. It was not the CPA, but the Afghan Transitional Administration (headed by Karzai). I apologise for the semantic error. The facts remain as they are, of course.
3. Given (1), you are begging the question, as the burden of proof rests with you at this point in the conversation.
4. Given (1-3), you are predicating your perspective upon errors that seemingly have no reasonable grounds, apart from your assertions of their truth. That’s a problem. But this is all quite a bit worse — not only do you beg the question, but trivialise and debase the debate to a degree that pales even V’s efforts. Ugly stuff, my anonymous internet friend.
RE: I think our disagreement is crystal clear at this point, even if in all other respects you can’t make sense of your own intuitions.
Being patronizing and condescending is bad(Strike 1). Being so with no grounds or evidence is that much worse (strike 2). And doing so with such inarticulation, as in “even if in all other respects” etc etc. yada yada yawn (strike 3). You’re out.
Sorry Ophelia. I’ve had enough of this incoherent, obtuse creep.
Ophelia,
I thought a clear, point-by-point timeline of what occurred in Afghanistan after 9/11 would forestall any further strawmen and prevarication on Benjamin Nelson’s part. My mistake. I won’t waste any more of your bandwidth on what is clearly a hopeless effort.
Well that went well.
I don’t know, Ben – I think in the name of truth-telling and seeing things as they are, you’re eliding real differences that matter. Not all invasions are alike. It’s misleading to think of Afghanistan as a smooth uniform object that has been penetrated by foreigners. I know you’re not silly enough to think of it that way, but you are verging on presenting it that way.
No, Ophelia, I’m actually not eliding any differences. It goes without saying that there are appreciable differences between any invasion and occupation from another. But that’s besides the point. All I’ve argued here is that terms like “invasion” or “occupation” are neutral descriptive terms, and that it is outrageous slander to describe those who use these neutral terms as “misinformation” (or, in Alain’s case, “disinformation”) in the context of the invasion of Afghanistan. Your friend at the NGO is wrong to have done it.
To be sure, all along the way, I’ve said Alain’s point of view is consistent. It’s unrealistic, and requires us to be unduly credulous by accepting the labels imposed by our governments. By contrast, I prefer an approach that looks at the facts and the properties of what’s happening and says, “this is how it is”. To be clear (though I’ve said this before), when it comes to both invasion and occupation, I look for a) whether or not the country was invited, and b) whether or not the inviting government is the working democracy that it claims to be, and not just a proxy. So, for instance, I say that Soviet Russia really did invade Afghanistan, since it was a proxy government that invited them. But since I believe that this is the case, I am also pressed to say that NATO invaded Afghanistan, regardless of the status of its temporary (now permanent, corrupt) government.
Maybe you disagree. If so, why don’t you say what it is we disagree about? I mean, It’s clear that I disagree with Alain, and we resent each others’s positions, for reasons that are quite explicit. But I don’t know where you fit in.
Do you think this it is disinformation to call the operation in Afghanistan an “invasion and occupation”? If so, why? What do you think of my standards for evaluating occupation and invasion, (a) and (b)? (Perhaps you think that Afghanistan is a functioning democracy, and/or is not a proxy government?)
Surely the truth is rather that ‘occupation’ and ‘invasion’ can (or perhaps even could) be neutral descriptive terms, but they can also be tendentious. Surely they’re much more likely to be context-dependent than they are to be neutral. It’s hard to have anything that even could be called an invasion that is unemotive on all sides.
Suppose Fred Phelps and his 3 followers took over Seattle, and after a few weeks of tyranny the feds came along and booted them out. The Phelps faction would consider that an invasion. The tree-hugging latte-drinking nerds of Seattle would not.
Right, but surely adjusting to the context by playing favorites is permissible with some words and not others. In the context of a discussion of war and peace, we are starved for stable, neutral rhetoric that in theory can even be applied to the people we sympathize with. If we aren’t willing to take this step, we can’t have any hope that we’ll ever be able to resolve intellectual disputes.
There are two problems with the example you gave: first, the Phelps crew is unlikely to provide a democratic order when it comes to a city full of hippie nerds, and second, the Feds have a legitimated jurisdiction over the city. (Municipalities do not have any illusion of sovereignty.) So it can’t pump the right intuitions.
Yes that’s true. I suppose what I would say is that one should keep both sorts of terms in mind.
For some people right now the US is under the “occupation” of the Obama socialist Muslim Kenyan invaders.
Yes, but they’re dummies. I don’t waste time worrying about rejoinders to them. They’re just old people who are regressing into babyhood and need the vocal exercise.
I’m more worried about people like Alain, because they rationally and consistently accuse anyone who uses the term “occupation” with respect to Afghanistan of being liars. (Though, to his credit, his accusations are cloaked with UK-libel-friendly terms like “disinformation” and “prevarication”.) I think that’s really lousy, but SIWOTI.
It’s much more worrying to me that the same line is being trotted out by my own government, or from NGOs that are in line with government policy and which are presumably otherwise doing good work. How am I supposed to think I live in a meaningful democracy when I can’t call a spade a spade without being told I’m a liar by otherwise rational people?
Hmmmmmmmm.
I don’t know – I think you may be asking too much. This kind of discussion is always heated and contentious. Look at Randolph Bourne and John Dewey. Look at every other person on the planet. Look at Thucydides, for that matter.
Okay, and I’ll expect that from the dummies, and continue to throw food at them.
But for people who are friends of Orwell and enemies of the Orwellians, people who have respect for reasoned debate and so on, I expect them to say without flinching: “Truth is evaded or concealed when it is inconvenient, criminalized when it is ‘insulting’, denied when it contradicts religious beliefs, tampered with when it is in conflict with ethnic or national self-esteem, ignored when it is irritating to the powerful. Truth is always potentially a stumbling-block, because it is of the nature of truth that it is what it is, regardless of anyone’s wishes. However, because it is the case that it is what it is, in the long-run it is generally better to heed it than to ignore it.”
In this case, of course, it hurts the Canadian self-esteem to acknowledge that we invaded and occupied a country. For we, perversely, pride ourselves on the intense delusion that we are not a colonial power. So members of the Canadian intelligensia — in the spirit of full credulity towards our granfalloon — gerrymander a lexicon for themselves. Hence, we are instructed to believe that it’s not an occupation if the proxy government dependent upon us for security also happened to invite us ex post facto.
I think the occupation is what it is, and in the long-run it is generally better to heed the truth than to ignore it. And if people on Alain’s side of things really do have something like a mature ethical sensibility, and a feeling for reality, then explicitness about the facts shouldn’t hurt their Canadian self-esteem. Oh sure, they would have to prepare themselves not to flinch when somebody talks about the White Man’s Burden — maybe they could, and should, point the way to Alaina’s essay and let it speak for itself. Fine and good; that would be a grown-up response, and would demand that we have grown-up conversations about foreign policy.
So why don’t we demand that rational people hold themselves to the standards of grown-ups? Aren’t we obliged to do that, at minimum? Sure, they might not figure it out for a while. But that shouldn’t stop us from saying, “Folks, it’s time to raise your game.”
I think by now it’s quite clear that this fellow has such a high and elevated opinion of himself that the only person worthy of debating such a free-thinking, truth-seeking, civil debater is himself. He’s clearly the master debater, and I’m happy to leave him to it all by himself. No doubt in this way the level of the debate will reach the lofty heights only he appears to be able to reach.
Oh no, to be sure, I think Alain is reasonable in the sense of being ostensibly consistent, though both naive and incorrect. Though I am curious as to what he thinks about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; if he admits that there was such a thing, then I’m prepared to revise my opinion of him.
Actually come to think of it you’re the only person in this thread who seems to have moderate-to-severe problems. Just a few examples. As I mentioned, it’s not clear you even know what you believe (see the alternating opinions regarding Marxists/leftists/feminists). It’s entirely clear that you don’t understand much of what I’ve said, since it has been nothing but fumbles in this area, where everyone else has pretty much been able to glom onto the places where they disagree from the beginning, or (barring that) have asked questions if they were unclear. And of course, with little phrases like “quibbling about semantics”, and so on, you indicate no acquaintance whatsoever with Orwell even in broad caricature; though that doesn’t stop you from invoking him.
Now I’m not a fan of the kind of people who just go to town, trying to prove they’re high and mighty and cleverer than the whole world. I don’t get a lot out of domination and superiority and that kind of thing. But I do like — actually, love — passionate arguments about interesting subjects, when done between reasonable people who aren’t primarily interested in a pissing contest.
Unfortunately, you’re not one of them (at least, not in your anonymous internet hobgoblin form). But I do wish you the best of luck with whatever it is you do with your time.
Canada invaded and occupied a country…
I just don’t buy it. You think those verbs are neutral descriptives, but I think they aren’t. They imply at least some kind of self-interest. Does Canada really want to grab Afghanistan?! Nobody wants Afghanistan. And if anybody did I shouldn’t think it would be Canada.
Occupying and invading isn’t exactly the same as grabbing, but it’s not a million miles away, either.
To be clear, I speak of Canada with respect to its role as part of the ISAF.
A military occupation is just control of a territory by military force. So up until the point where Afghanistan has a cohesive army and operating police structure that is governed by a legitimated civilian body, it will be de facto under our control. (It doesn’t mean “with the intent to stay forever” or the like, since that is totally inscrutable.) Actually, it kind of has to be under our control, because that’s the cost of nation-building during a period of instability. And nation-building is what we need to do, whether or not we set out to do it in the first place — as Colon Powell said with his Pottery Barn Rule, you break it, you bought it. So we’re a rag-tag team of plucky, lacklustre occupiers. Ho-hum. The only question is whether or not we ought to be occupiers with gusto.
Who wants Afghanistan? I don’t think it matters what we want so much as how we act. Still, it’s still a good question in the abstract, since conventional wisdom is that it’s the graveyard of empires. Quite so.
But then you also have to ask why it is these different kinds of clever imperialists keep getting stuck in the trap if it’s so useless. The fact is, Afghanistan is a key geostrategic location, and this is terribly clear to the people who run things. i.e., Zbigniew Brzezinski, the strategist and hawkish National Security Advisor for Carter, knew it quite well; see his 1997 book “The Grand Chessboard”, whose purpose is to lay out the best means of maintaining “American primacy” by control of Eurasia. He put Afghanistan in his sights rather explicitly.
In fact, it was through his advice during his stint as an NSA that we propped up the people who would eventually become the Taliban. (Causing us to “add a hemisphere” to the Monroe Doctrine, as I once read, which I thought was quite an apt way of putting it.) As he put it in 1998: “What is most important to the history of the world? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” The implication at the time presumably being that the “stirred-up Moslems” were less significant to history. Though, of course, three years later he would find out that the answer was actually “both”.
Colin Powell! Poor man – just because Murkans pronounce it colon doesn’t mean it has to be spelled that way.
Hmm, Freudian slip. I suppose I can never quite forget all the crap that he gave to the international community in 2003.
But seriously — I’m a bit uncomfortable, because I feel like I’m lecturing you on the same material you wrote in “Why Truth Matters”. Surely you must have some concrete intuitions that I haven’t understood. What standard would you set for “occupation” of a country — is it something other than control of territory by military force? You seem to want to focus on intentions of the visiting power, as if it’s not an occupation so long as we promise to leave. Is that right?