How to shoot oneself in the foot

Channel 4 screened "The Road to Guantanamo", on British television tonite. It's a drama re-creating the plight of three young British men in their early 20's, caught up in the fall of Afghanistan. After going there as a thing to do to kill time, they were turned over to a warlord's militia in Kunduz province when they tried to return. The warlord (incidently, the same one fighting FOR the Taliban and harvesting opium poppies today) turned them over to the Americans, probably for cash. They were then held in a POW camp for quite a while at Bagram air base then shipped out to Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As a method of losing friends worldwide it has to rank pretty high (Vikki, who normally has no time for anti-Americanism or political correctness said, "It's unbelievably appalling if the Americans did even half the things on this programme."

According to President Bush and Prime Minister Blair "these [were] dangerous men!" It appears, after exhaustive research by many involved in documenting events for the press, NGOs, and even the intelligence services and the police that, at least for the "Tipton Three", this was stretching the truth by several parsecs further than necessary. They were on a trip to Pakistan in order to arrange a marriage for one of the men when they decided to cross into Afghanistan for a week to help with humanitarian assistance; something every Muslim is required to do when necessary and able.

In the event, when trying to leave and return to Pakistan they were, rather, dumped in Kunduz where they were later detained by an off-shoot of the Northern Alliance; one of the militias run by the local warlord who switched sides when presented with enough cash to be able to come to a decision. Hmmmm.... that's not just plausible but borders on probable.

These men were then turned over to the American Army, who, when presented with foreigners, naturally assumed what everyone else did-- these were Taliban mercenaries. years later we know better: they were turned over by the same pond-life that, for vastly greater sums of the same currency , let Osama bin Laden walk free into Pakistan. Nice. And like the monoglot bullet-catchers I served with in the US Army they believed it. Hey, they're allies, weren't they? They're on our side aren't they? They may be sons-of-bitches but they're our sons-of-bitches aren't they?

See, the thing is, 4 years later several million people in the last bastion of the pro-American part of the world watched this take place and thought, "You stupid fools!" OK, they didn't say that, I euphemised. Sue me. Point is they've watched three naive, inexperienced young lads go abroad for the first time, get caught up in what most would consider to be the enthusiasm of youth and pay the ultimate price for it-- no they weren't killed. Worse, they've had their life taken from them and they can't ever get it back. They will never have an end to it, they will always be suspects but they have to live with it. Nice. And how did this further the War on Terror? Well, it didn't. It actually set it back a bit.

You see, the thing is, the USA mostly does the right thing and mostly does good things out there but mostly doesn't get credit for it. Usually it gets respect in the right places so things continue on and remain stable or gradually get better. Suddenly that's changed and it's bad for business. All business. you see, people everywhere do business and they actually do it quite competitively or they wouldn't continue to but when something comes along to challenge all their presuppositions about something as iconic as the land of the free and home of the brave then it attacks something fundamental to the way things should work. When something else comes along and supports this with devastating evidence that actually the detractors were right all along, then a friend and supporter becomes scarce.

There are important things to be taken care of in the world that aren't discretionary; they have to be done, they have to be done correctly and successfully and they have to be done with multi-lateral help. If anything Iraq has taught the Rumsfelds and Buchanans of the world that the USA can't do anything really big without help and there are some things that need multilateral help in spades. N. Korea needs sorting out, Iran needs controlling, Africa needs not to send us a human pandemic of bird flu, The Balkans need to settle down, etc. It's much easier to ask for help on these things from ostensible friends when doing things well. When doing them with an utterly psychotic bent on political suicide as demonstrated by Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and friends then Americans can't question the loyalty of friends without a couple of oceans worth of shame.

And don't even think of asking for help with that windbag Chavez or with Castro whilst Camps X-ray/Delta stay open. The welcome mat ain't out at the moment.