ANOTHER VIEW OF DRONE WARFARE II

By William Urban

Akbar S. Ahmed’s highly praised book, the Thistle and the Drone, tells us that the War on Terror is failing because we have completely misunderstood the problem. Drones can kill people, but they are not effective against ideas. Ahmed says that our misunderstanding of the terrorists’ motivations has led several American administrations astray — the terrorists are motivated much less by Islam than by tribal pride and anger.
This is, he says, much like Scottish resistance to English efforts to break the clan system. The combination of English force and persuasion worked, after a fashion, but more in the Lowlands than in the Highlands. When Scots finally got the right to determine their own future, they voted to have their own parliament, their own soccer team, and God Knows What Else, except that religion has little to do with it. It’s all about ancient tribal identities and loyalties.
These sentiments can be self-destructive. Britain was a world soccer power, but now fields four so-so teams. That loss of prestige parallels Britain’s decline as a force in world politics and economic importance. Other peoples are willing to sacrifice much more in order to be independent and self-sufficient.
The first half of Ahmed’s book is very theoretical. The second half turns very dark. In his opinion all crude efforts to educate or modernize tribal peoples will fail. The “steamroller”, as he calls the forceful methods by which western or westernizing societies crush tribal practices, has so far resulted only in many millions of deaths, even larger numbers of displaced people, and many angry bearded men whom we call terrorists and therefore try to kill with drones.
Ahmed uses more space and more nasty adjectives to denounce America (and especially Barack Obama) than all the other countries put together, even though the total number of deaths by drones is far, far less than the slaughter of minority tribes in Kenya, Sudan, and several other African states; and urbanized, westernized Pakistanis have killed many more of the tribal peoples of the mountains than Obama has. Still, these wars are ours, too, he says, because the leaders of westernizing nations have seized upon the War on Terror to get American money and weapons which they use upon the tribal peoples who object to being subjected majority rule. When the politicians shout “al-Qaida,” we send special forces, drones, and lots of money.
This has caused the tribal peoples to see America behind all their problems and corruption; in their view, we have encouraged their governments to reduce them to look-alike, act-like robots with all the familiar vices of the modern western world, but with more slums and unemployment.
Ahmed’s solution to these problems is to back away from them. President Obama seems to have acted on this when he announced that “Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida is on the run,” but then he had Benghazi. Now the Obama line is that there is a Core al-Qaida and a variety of wantabe local varieties, and that he has beaten the former. If we ignore the rest, they will ignore us. Forget Benghazi, which is now so long ago that who cares?
Ahmed would probably agree in principle. If America can deliver justice and respect, all we have to worry about are Muslims who have become persuaded that we are crusaders out to destroy Islam. But even more important are Muslims who dislike what they see of our society, with its loud music, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, alcoholism, drug addiction, and attacks on religion.
This is something I will want to think about. We know that rural girls who run away to the big city often end up on street corners in short skirts, but that argument could deprive all women of opportunities to get an education, hold a job, and to become self-sufficient. Clan leaders with too much power become tiny tyrants, and ignorant clerics can make you believe that the sun revolves around the earth. Besides, I like central heating, flush toilets, books, a variety of foods, and the ability to travel.
Still, the modern world is often so dysfunctional that western intellectuals dream about how nice it would be to return to the happy days when everything was simpler and no one knew what poverty was. Some like to observe happy primitive peoples in their native environments and don’t want them to escape to the big cities for jobs, entertainment and interesting vices. But more people want variety and change, and some women do not want to have to marry an unbathed elderly uncle or someone they’ve never met.
“Dream on,” is all that I can say to plans to return everyone to an imagined better past, because that is merely an uninformed dream. If someone wants to go live in a tepee in this year’s winter, I have no objection. Just “good luck” on finding some woman who will do all the work while you try to figure out how to get the dead buffalo home. If your values allow you to kill it. And if you can.
I am unwilling to release kidnappers and murderers just because they are carrying out an ancient tradition or revenging old wrongs. Whether it’s the Hatfields and McCoys or street toughs, we have to find ways to make ourselves safe while still allowing those who want to be different to do so in way that do not harm others.
Ahmed calls for specially trained administrators to join with clan leaders and clerics to find ways to made tribal areas peaceful. He advocates using anthropologists who have not been ruined by modern theories to help us understand what is going on, then applying their knowledge. Then put up a sign: Politicians stay out.
This takes us to Ahmed’s last recommendation (which might be his most controversial): Give the tribal peoples their own lands.
If only the world were so simple. Who would get America’s Great Plains, the Sioux or the tribes that were there before the Sioux got the horse in 1790, then thundered out of Minnesota? Then we have the big questions — the Celtic and Germanic migrations, the settlement of the New World, Russians in Siberia, and every other group that has migrated to lands once held by tribal groups.

Review Atlas (March 14, 2014), 4.