BBC Radio 4’s coverage yesterday of the Afghan soldier who shot some English soldiers was completely typical, exactly what one would expect to hear, but it wasn’t really coherent. The military spokesman said the Taliban should not be respected and William Hague (Foreign secretary) said the attack was ‘despicable and cowardly’. Yet, as anyone who has read The Heart of Darkness knows, the attack was clever and successful. The Taliban (assuming it was them) killed three soldiers and got away without dying. That is the point of fighting in wars. What’s more, the Taliban have far fewer resources than the allies so they have to use quite different tactics to make do with what they’ve got. This sort of attack breaks down morale and the trust between trainers and trainees, all of which helps the Taliban.
The deeper point is that all technologies of violence have a rationality by definition. It is interesting to compare the rationality of the Taliban’s violence with that of the allies. According to Foucault (Security, Territory, Population), raison d’État, as it emerged in the sixteenth century, was admitted as being artificial, not contiguous with any natural laws, but concerned with necessity, the necessity of the state itself. It is circular and self-justifying. It certainly uses laws but they are not fundamental. (We could add that this suggests democratic raison d’État has no hard line dividing it from totalitarianism or absolutism).
In this period the term coup d’État meant something different from its present sense. It meant ‘the state acting of itself on itself, swiftly, immediately, without rule, with urgency and necessity, and dramatically…It is the self-manifestation of the state itself. It is the assertion of raison d’État…’ Now, ‘the nature of coup d’État is to be violent.’ Indeed, ‘there is no antinomy between violence and reason, in things concerning the state at least.’ Hence, coup d’État ‘requires us to accept acts of violence as the purest form of reason, and of raison d’État.’ That is why, according to the military spokespeople and the politicians, ‘our’ task in Afghanistan is necessary, good, just, helpful, prevents violence in Afghanistan and abroad. (If the Taliban had a state, would their violence be treated as more respectable, as justified self defence?) Yet where is the news’ alleged attempt to include both sides of the argument? Obviously it’s difficult to talk directly to the Taliban, but why just air the statements of the military and politicians without question? (Except to ask families of dead soldiers if we should be in Afghanistan).
The other important fact about coup d’État is that it is by nature theatrical, an important way that sovereignty can show its power. So when a state suffers a defeat in a war or battle, it is a very public challenge to its power and all the more embarrassing.
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