Time on Bush's Missile Defense Push · 6 June 2007, 06:46 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Why U.S. President Bush is so actively advancing his missile defense agenda according to Time’s Massimo Calabresi.
bush,
george bush,
massimo calabresi,
missile defense,
missile defense system
The Taliban as a Migration Age Tribe (1) · 2 June 2007, 10:17 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Let us start with the lack of a stable, societal and political context in both nowadays Afghanistan and Late Antiquity / Early Medieval Europe in which the Migration Age tribes came into being. In the May / June edition of Foreign Affairs (volume 86, number 3, pages 24-40) Bruce Riedel once more stresses that al Qaeda ‘thrives on failed and failing states’ (page 32) (Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Balochistan / Baluchistan-Pakistan). The same applies for the Taliban, which came into power in war-torn Afghanistan and which is apparently resurging from its sanctuary in Quetta in turbulent Baluchistan-Pakistan after being pushed out of Afghanistan. (Barbett R. Rubin, ‘Saving Afghanistan’, Foreign Affairs, volume 86, number 1, page 57-79) In this respect European Migration Age tribes were no different: a prerequisite for their creation seems to be that, in the words of Reinhard Wenskus, ‘der ganze Raum sich schon einem Unruhezustand befindet.’ (Stammesbildung und Verfassung, page 76) This brings us to another, closely related similarity: their capability to absorb various kinds of people and the considerable social mobility as a result of this capability which their presence in a certain area seem to bring about.
In ‘The Sham Fight with the Taliban’ (‘Het Schijngevecht met de Talibaan’), an article in M (April 2007, pages 50-57), newspaper NRC Handelsblad’s monthly, journalist Antoinette de Jong reports that the Taliban are mutated into a ‘sponge’ for the ‘growing group of opponents of the Karzai-government’, which makes them almost ineradicable anno 2007. As such they’re reinforced by drugs cartels and militants originating from bin Laden’s training camps. The fact that Hamid Karzai is a member of the Pashtun tribe the Durrani, furthermore, influences the ethnic composition of the Taliban, which apparently are attractive to the age old adversaries of the Durrani, the Ghilzai. In ‘Saving Afghanistan’, an article in the January / February edition of Foreign Affairs (volume 86, number 1, page 57-79) Barbett R. Rubin furthermore states that the Taliban ‘have drawn on fugitives from Afghanistan, newly minted recruits from undisrupted training camps and militant madrasahs, and tribesmen alienated by civilian casualties and government and coalition abuse to reconstitute their command structure, recruitment and funding networks, and logistical bases in Pakistan’. (page 58)
According to Wenskus the Migration Age tribes were no less dynamic. That ‘der ganze Raum sich schon einem Unruhezustand befindet’ and people were forced to leave behind their homes was important, because it meant that the existing ‘Klansystem’ came under pressure and splinter groups were enabled to break away from the clans. These splinter groups, Wenskus stated (ibidem), were better equipped to assimilate to other, larger groups than the clans. In such a situation the so-called Wanderlawinen (‘migration avalanches’), which formed the starting point of the typical Migration Age tribe (Stammesbildung, pages 439-441), could arise. These Wanderlawinen, however, were unstable constellations. While migrating their composition permanently changed as again and again new members joined the bands and others left. (Stammesbildung, pages 429-458 and passim) As a consequence of this Migration Age tribes were ethnic heterogeneous / polyethnic units by definition. Only after settlement in a certain area the Wanderlawine could morph into a more steady, lasting form. An example, drawn from Herwig Wolfram’s History of the Goths (Berkeley 1988) may illustrate this polyethnic nature of a Migration Age tribe:
In the same work Herwig Wolfram furthermore shows that Migration Age tribes were not only capable of absorbing people with various ethnic backgrounds; once in the Roman empire they offered the posibility of upward social mobility to ‘the native lower classes’ as well. In the case of the Gothic groups this meant that slaves, peasants, skilled craftsmen and merchants all tried to become a warrior in the Gothic army. For, as Wolfram states, ’[t]he principle of the time is clear: whoever proves himself as warrior is lord; whoever works (...) is and will remain a slave.’ (History of the Goths, pages 7-8 and passim)
As I wrote down above this posting is nothing more than some sketchy thoughts, some brainstorming written down, maybe ready to be thrown on the scrapheap for bad and useless ideas, so feel free to make short work of it.
afghanistan,
balochistan,
failed state,
gothic,
goths,
herwig wolfram,
migration age,
pakistan,
reinhard wenskus,
roman empire,
stammesbildung,
stammesbildung und verfassung,
taliban,
wenskus,
wolfram
'The Israel Lobby' Subtitled in English · 1 June 2007, 15:34 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Tegenlicht (Backlight) goes international! The makers of ‘The Israel Lobby. Portrait of a Great Taboo: the Power of the Israel Lobby in the United States’ have opened their own channel on YouTube, which contains episodes subtitled in English, that were originally produced for a Dutch speaking audience. ‘The Israel Lobby’ is also available.
backlight,
israel,
israel lobby,
tegenlicht,
youtube
Kaplan's 'Imperial Grunts' - Some Comments · 24 December 2006, 11:10 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Currently I’m reading Rovert D. Kaplan’s ‘Imperial Grunts: The American Military On The Ground’ (2005), in which he describes, among others things, the fascinating world of U.S. marines, Rangers and Special Forces (Green Berets). That is, the Dutch translation of the work, because that allowes me to read it wherever I want without the need of lugging around a dictionary. While reading it several descriptions and statements caught my eye.
Special Forces and Beards – A few weeks ago I dedicated a posting to Vic Franke’s documentary ‘09.11 Zulu. Onze commando’s aan het werk in Uruzgan’ (‘09.11 Zulu. Our commando’s at work in Uruzgan’. This documentary showed Dutch Special Forces, who had grown big ferocious beards. As such their appearance didn’t exactly matches ‘the image of the well-groomed western soldier’. It reminded me of Kaplan’s ‘Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan’ (1990), in which he ‘described how even journalists transformed after entering the martial world of the Afghan mujahideen. Adopting to local customs they grow wild beards as a sign of masculinity and start to despice their newly arrived fellow reporters with their smoothly shaved, effeminate faces’. But this only partly explained the behaviour of the Dutch Special Forces. On InfoVlad.Net Clearinghouse I found an interesting comment on my observation by a member of the site, Azog:
‘Special forces are usually exempt from the strict codes of the regular armed forces. US Special Forces are allowed to wear local clothes and to choose weapons as they please, you can see SEALs with AKs, keffiyehs and sporting beards just like locals do. The idea is that since they operate far away from the main forces that they should blend in with the populace as much as possible while maintaining the insignia and symbols of the US forces. Since most of the western countries armies are molded after Anglo-American model, it is no wonder that Dutch and Germans do the same.’
In ‘Imperial Grunts’ Kaplan adds another interesting explanation as he depicts the U.S. Special Forces, contrary to the U.S. marines, ‘standardized company men’ with extremely short haircuts and digital camouflage uniforms, as individualists who grow beards and wear baseball caps and Afghan garb (page 296). So according to Kaplan the appearance of the U.S. Special Forces is also the result of the individualistic culture of this Special Operations Force. Assuming that, as far as this feature is concerned, Dutch Special Forces are no different than their U.S. counterparts, it would explain why not all of them wore beards in Franke’s documentary.
Embedded journalism – In chapter six, ‘From the Army to the Marines-Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina’, Kaplan defends his role as embedded journalist. In it he demisses the idea of objective journalism, because of the unavoidable invidual perspective from which no journalist or any other author can escape. (page 265) No one would deny that, but the problem here is that any embedded journalist might be inclined to identify himself that much with the troops he hangs out with that he will be tempted to ignore any shortcoming or moral misstep which crosses his path.
The suspension of general conscription – In 1997 conscription was suspended in the Netherlands, as a result of which the Dutch army fully consists of volunteer professional soldiers nowadays. In chapter seven (‘horn of africa, winter 2004’) of ‘Imperial Grunts’ Chad Dickinson, a U.S. marine Staff Sergeant, says about the Marine Corps that it recrutes ‘people who are mean and troublesome and turns them into people that are simply very powerful’ (page 305). With this in mind one wonders what it does to a society when conscription is abolished or suspended and when only a small professional army remains. Does it result in more vandalism, crime, hooliganism?
afghanistan,
embedded,
kaplan,
pakistan,
robert d. kaplan,
special forces,
uruzgan,
vic franke
Dutch Special Forces Grow Beards in Uruzgan · 21 November 2006, 07:29 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Yesterday night I watched ‘09.11 Zulu. Onze commando’s aan het werk in Uruzgan’ (‘09.11 Zulu. Our commando’s at work in Uruzgan’) a documentary by Vik Franke on the (fighting) missions of Dutch commando’s in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. Franke joined them as an ‘embedded’ journalist on some of these missions. What caught the eye was that image of the well-groomed western soldier didn’t quite apply. Many of the Dutch commando’s wore big ferocious beards. At first I thought: no wonder, these guys stay out of their camps in the Afghan dessert for days, maybe for weeks and because of that they simply lack the possibility to shave. But on second thoughts that couldn’t be the explanation, because some of them combined their beards with perfectly cropped haircuts, while others had no beard at all and their interpreter had a neatly groomed whisker. Then I remembered Robert D. Kaplan’s ‘Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan’ (1990). In this book Kaplan described how even journalists transformed after entering the martial world of the Afghan mujahideen. Adapting to local customs they grow wild beards as a sign of masculinity and start to despice their newly arrived fellow reporters with their smoothly shaved, effeminate faces.
Update – Click here to watch the documentary (in Dutch).
09.11 zulu,
afghanistan,
commando's,
dutch special forces,
masculinity,
robert d. kaplan,
special forces,
uruzgan,
vik franke
North-Korea as a 'Failed State' and the Bomb · 14 October 2006, 10:15 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In an op-ed in last Thursday’s edition of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad entitled ‘Red de vrede, maak een atoombom’ (‘Save Peace, Make an Atom Bomb’) Israelian military historian Martin van Creveld states that the Bush administration overreacts on North-Korea’s recent nuclear test. Present-day Washington justifies its opposition to this by pointing at the threat that relevant nuclear technology might fall into the hands of terrorists. Van Creveld dismisses this as nonsense. First of all because no state would ever help terrorists to build a atom bomb, for the simple reason that it could be threatened itself by those terrorists. Secondly, it’s much easier for a small country with a small nuclear arsenal to prevent theft or abuse of its arsenal than for a great power, which possesses thousands of nuclear warheads spread all over the world. Van Creveld has a point here, but he wrongly doesn’t take into account the possibility that North-Korea, ranking 14th on the Foreign Policy and Fund for Peace Failed State Index in 2005, may very well collapse one day and fall into chaos. Who would control its arsenal in that case?
atom bomb,
bush,
failed state,
failed state index,
martin van creveld,
north-korea,
president bush,
van creveld,
washington
Unscrupulous Arms Trader Belarus · 9 October 2006, 20:42 CET by Charles Vermeulen
In an op-ed on the website of the International Herald Tribune Mark Douglas, ‘senior associate at the Democratization Policy Council’, depicts Aleksandr Lukashenko’s Belarus as ‘an eager and reliable supplier of illegal lethal military equipment’ to Hezbollah, North Korea, Sudan, Iran and Syria. Click here to read his ‘Choke off Belarus’s deadly arms trade’. (October 9, 2006).
Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, Arms Trade
The Emancipation of Barbarism · 7 November 2004, 23:37 CET by Charles Vermeulen
People who take the existence of this antithesis for granted usually call themselves ‘civilized’ and don’t want be called ‘babarous’. To them the word ‘civilization’ represents the good and ‘barbarism’ the evil. But in this weeks edition of Tegenlicht, a documentary program by the Dutch public broadcast organization VPRO, entitled ‘De Berg. Het ideaal van de gesloten samenleving’ (‘The Mountain. The Ideal of the Closed Society’) someone appeared before the footlights who rejected ‘civilization’ and who characterized himself as a ‘barbarian’: the Chechnyan leader Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev. To him ‘barbarism’ represents ‘the good’ and ‘civilization’ needs to be fought. Never before I came across the use of these words in this way. Off course there’s nothing new about people like Noukhaev resisting ‘modernity’ and defending ‘the age-old customs and traditions’ of their forefathers. The fact that someone sets himself up as a champion of barbarism, on the other hand, really is something new. But that’s not all as far as Noukhaev’s zest for change is concerned: the Chechnyan leader even scraps the centuries-old custom of connecting ‘civilization’ to ‘order’ and ‘barbarism’ to ‘chaos’, by having ‘chaos’ and ‘order’ trade places. Yes, as a barbarian Noukhaev sets himself up as defender of order and fighter against chaos.
barbarism,
civilization,
khozh-ahmed noukhaev,
noukhaev