Why They Hate Us (I): on military occupation »

One of the many barriers to developing a saner U.S. foreign policy is our collective failure to appreciate why military occupations generate so much hatred, resentment, and resistance, and why we should therefore go to enormous lengths to avoid getting mired in them. Costly occupations are an activity you hope your adversaries undertake, especially in areas of little intrinsic strategic value. We blundered into Somalia in the early 1990s without realizing that we weren't welcome; we invaded Iraq thinking we would be greeted as liberators, and we still don't fully understand why many Afghans resent our presence and why some are driven to take up arms against us.

The American experience is hardly unique: Britain's occupation of Iraq after World War I triggered fierce opposition, and British forces in Mandate Palestine eventually faced armed resistance from both Arab and Zionist groups. French rule in Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, and Indochina spawned several violent resistance movements, and Russia has fought Chechen insurgents in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The Shiite population of southern Lebanon initially welcomed Israel's invasion in 1982, but the IDF behaved badly and stayed too long, which led directly to the formation of Hezbollah. Israelis were also surprised by the first intifida in 1987, having mistakenly assumed that their occupation of the West Bank was benevolent and that the Palestinians there would be content to be governed by the IDF forever.

....It is sometimes said that Americans don't understand this phenomenon because the United States has never been conquered and occupied. But this simply isn't true. After the Civil War, a "foreign army" occupied the former Confederacy and imposed a new political order that most white southerners found abhorrent. The first Reconstruction Act of 1867 put most southern states under formal military control, supervised the writing of new state constitutions, and sought to enfranchise and empower former slaves. It also attempted to rebuild the south economically, but the reconstruction effort was undermined by corruption and poor administration. Sound familiar? However laudable the aims may have been, the results were precisely what one would expect. Northern occupation eventually triggered violent resistance by the Ku Klux Klan, White League, Red Shirts, and other insurgent groups, which helped thwart Reconstruction and paved the way for the Jim Crow system that lasted until the second half of the 20th century....

...The bottom line is that you don't need to be a sociologist, political scientist, or a student of colonialism or foreign cultures to understand why military occupation is such a poisonous activity and why it usually fails. If you're an American, you just need to read a bit about Reconstruction and reflect on how its effects -- along with the effects of slavery itself -- have persisted across generations. If that's not enough, visit a society that is currently experiencing occupation, and take the time to go through a checkpoint or two. Then you might understand why the local population doesn't view the occupying forces as benevolent and isn't as grateful as occupiers often think they ought to be.

Read Full Story at walt.foreignpolicy.com »

44 Views Share Story 1 Comment Report