War as is often said is an extension of politics by other means, but at the same time it is not reducible to politics - the guise becomes critically important and limiting (determining).
Just as in politics we constantly have to talk in the terms of politics in order to understand it, and part and parcel of this is accepting the assumptions of political actions in order to expose their real motivations. A President says that to help the poor he will institute some form of "tough love" - to criticise this we assume that helping the poor is the aim, follow through with what is being employed and show that it will do no such thing and that the real motivation is something else. I trust there is nothing exceptional in this logic.
Just as in politics war must assume some reason for being, some objective. It does not matter if this is justified or not, what matters is whether there are significant contradictions between the objective and methods for pursueing them. A justified war will no-doubt show a direct connection between method and objective. Theoretically an ÿllegitimate war will show a profound discontinuity in just this aspect, if only because the real issues have been buried under the rhetoric.
In any conflict whether it be political or military, a great many of the participants and supporters will only see things one sidedly, only consider the rhetoric and announced aims. They are by definitioin not open to simple opposition, they have already made up their minds that their side is doing something important, so important that they will often supress their own misgivings and all forms of criticism.
Winkling out this oyster always requires exploring the question based on their assuptions and exposing the weakness of the connections between aims and methods - in the end making plain the real motivations and machinations involved.
In war, any war, part of this requires exploring questions militarily and I would argue this is part of a long tradition within Historical Materialism and as Chris states, ably mastered by Engels, but far from restricted to him. For instance:
Strategic bombing is very different from tactical bombing (support for ground forces). Both use the same bombs and planes but the targets are very different. The history of strategic bombing started in Spain during the civil war where it was more honestly called Terror Bombing. Technically it has become less arbitary but its purpose remains the same.
By embracing Terror Bombing the US war machine is not just picking up an abstract weapon, but one that is a specific tool which renders specific results. At the same time its very method creates grand contradictions in what else can be achieved and how it can be achieved.
In all this the left has over the years become increasingly removed. People like Fisk and Pilger have done more by talking about the war on its own terms than I think the entire left has achieved (Chomsky ralks about it at another equally impoirtant level), but the left ignores what they are saying and certainly avoids following the same logic regardless of how avidly they are read. Yet what are they doing except exploring the contradictions of the war on its own terms as it emerges, for this is what opens up the possiblity of the criticisms they make of the actual interests and motivations.
The left has become altogether too prissy and other-worldly. When military force is unleashed we owe the victims ruthless criticism and are, I think, oblidged to look at those things we rather would not look at. The recent announcement by the US that its forces would not be part of the occupation of Afghanistan is perhaps the most cowardly cyncism I have ever remembered having heard.
The US declares unilateral war, builds a ramshakled alliance, employs Terror Bombing the length and breadth of a country, uses war-lords and tribal proxies to do the fighting for it, pushes allies into the front line of occupation and leaves the whole mess to the UN to clean-up. What a monument to cowardly murder and mayhem!
Will such a peace be anything but a prolonged civil war, can it be otherwise given the very nature of such a war. The Taliban, warts and all (and there were plenty of them) were, it must be remembered, a definite improvement on the US allies now installed in Kabul. Once having commenced such bloodshed, I believe the world owes the victims more than that, and yes even this is a military question, armed force is now and will for some time to come be the ultimate arbitrator in Afghanistan whether the US is present or chooses to ignore the result of its work.
At this point in time (and assuming the Taliban has actually been defeated), any real peace in Afghanistan will have to come from how armed forces are actually deployed. It is a mess that will not quickly go-away even if it swiftly lapses from US consciousness. This is stated as a simple material observation of the social foces at work, legitimate or not, armed force has become the judge jury and executioner of Afganistan's future, at least this deserves close scrutiny and critical comment.
In short Hakki, war must always be criticised first and foremost in terms of itself because this is the only way of knowing what it is beyond the glib statements of journalists and politicians.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia
--- Message Received --- From: "Hakki Alacakaptan" <nucleus at superonline.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 18:37:24 +0200 Subject: RE: Arguments for ground war - forget it
Greg,
Forgive me but I tend to be rather short with "left" tactics and strategy that presuppose this to be some sort of legitimate self-defense action rather than an imperialist war.
However, even if this war did have some degree of legitimacy - but Pilger has already said it's not about ObL but about OiL - we still have no business discussing military tactics. First of all, we're not qualified (hence my crack about Sandhurst), and I doubt anyone is, seeing how the rapid NA advance took everyone by surprise. Hitchens is going to look even sillier than he does now when Kabul blows up again, just like it did the last time the NA took it. All those cheering the "success" of US tactics will look glum indeed if the Afghans - not necessarily the Talibs - start filling up US body bags through the winter. We would really be assholes to root for a massive US troop commitment if that turned out to mean blowing up civilians from the ground rather than from the air, or a bunch of MyLai's and "free-fire zone"s rather than "kill boxes". And that brings me to the second reason: Endorsing a military move means endorsing - at the very least - its immediate consequences. Do we trust the Pentagon that much? Do we really want to put our John Hancock on all the future corpses and devastation?
What military tactic would further the demise of the imperialists? Big batallions? Blitzkrieg? Tactical nukes? Anything we say will be hogwash, nuts, or worse.
Hakki Alacakaptan