Link I don’t think civilian society understands what the mind of the warrior is, what the culture of the warrior is. When you are created as a soldier or a warrior, you are segregated from the rest of civilian society, you see yourself as quite different. There is the Churchill saying: “We sleep safely in our beds because rough men are willing to do violence …”
Soldiers really believe they are a special mob and the way they bring this together is through a notion of brotherhood. Four blokes, four kills, urinating on four Taliban, just works to enhance that sense of brotherhood and establishes the sense of the Americans being above the law and being better than the people they are trying to help.
And the consequences of these warriors actions?
It is massive. This is an insurgency. Afghanistan is a very diverse cultural environment, there is infighting and conflict between clans and tribes.
When the Americans came in they created elites and distributed resources to some and not to others. There is no sense of the Americans creating a sense of nationalism for the Afghanis.
When Americans come in and do this, it completely undermines their authority, it destroys the sense of respect. This happens with collateral damage – through air and drone strikes and the failed capture-and-kill missions they are engaging in that inadvertently kill civilians – and that is exacerbated when you get soldiers engaging in this degradation of corpses. It shows a complete lack of respect and the Afghani people will become more resistant to this force.
Respect, is that what these afghanis are fighting for?
