Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, Kubrick’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ exemplars of the new American war policy in Afghanistan.
A US special forces major who published a paper last fall advocating that US Special Forces “go native” has been hired to implement the idea. Major Jim Gant’s experience with “going native” was described recently in the WaPo:
In an unusual and unauthorized pact, Gant and his men were soon fighting alongside tribesmen in local disputes and against insurgents, at the same time learning ancient tribal codes of honor, loyalty and revenge — codes that often conflicted with the sharia law that the insurgents sought to impose. But the U.S. military had no plans to leverage the Pashtun tribal networks against the insurgents, so Gant kept his alliances quiet.
No longer. In recent months, Gant, now a major, has won praise at the highest levels for his effort to radically deepen the U.S. military’s involvement with Afghan tribes — and is being sent back to Afghanistan to do just that.
A writer at the Small Wars Journal lit into Gant’s paper back in November:
Where to begin? The paper is a collection of nativist mythologies that have run as a theme throughout the West’s imperial age. Last of the Mohicans? Lawrence of Arabia? Dances with Wolves? They’re in there. So is an element of Stockholm Syndrome, for that matter. The problem arises not with Lawrence, of course, but with his evil twin, Kurtz, who has already served as a symbol of colonial-era (Heart of Darkness) and modern American (Apocalypse Now) hubris.
And if that seems like hyperbole, consider that Gant’s narrative begins with his apparently arbitrary and unilateral decision to take the side of one tribal chieftain over a rival group from within the same tribe, based solely on his gut feeling.
Or as this blogger points out, “…going in blind and picking winners and losers actually creates insurgency, not the opposite.”