Refugee crisis: if only we helped as much to make peace as to make war...

Have you seen the film Charlie Wilson’s War? 

It may not be Aaron Sorkin’s best screenplay, but his work’s so good that even a minor piece is worth more than what most others produce.  

Based on historical events, by the end we see Charlie Wilson, a far from pure Democratic Congressman from Texas, managing to bargain up the minimal support the US was prepared to give the mujahideen fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan, into a billion-dollar subvention providing, among other things, the missiles they could use to bring down Russian assault helicopters. Wilson had, in effect, engineered a victory for the anti-Soviet forces.

Then, however, he goes in search of a mere million to help build a school and is unable to win a hearing anywhere. For war, he could find money. For help in peacetime, none.

That’s interesting, given that within the mujahideen the US backed, were the Taliban who eventually seized control of Afghanistan, with lamentable results for the West. As we all know. A million for a school? Chickenfeed. A billion for weapons? Impressive but hardly breathtaking. How about nearly a trillion dollars spent by the US fighting its erstwhile Afghan allies up to the end of last year?

We too, in Britain, share this Western love of astronomic expenditure on war. The war in Iraq cost Britain £8.4 billion. That’s trivial compared to the US Defense Department’s estimates of its own direct expenditure of $757 billion, and Brown University’s estimate of total costs at $1.1 trillion, but it’s still a massive expenditure for a smaller country less used to making that kind of military outlay.

Tony Blair, the chief figure responsible for Britain’s involvement in that war as the Prime Minister of the day, still maintains it was worth fighting. The world, he has always claimed, is better without Saddam Hussein. That’s true enough – as long as what replaced him was an improvement.

We live in perpetual fear of the next terror attack in the West. But in neither Britain nor the US has anyone died in a terror attack so far in 2015 (unless you count US gun crime). In contrast, in Iraq there have been 3500 deaths already.

Far more serious still, the election of a government representing the majority of the population – a good thing – has led to the arrival in power of Shiite leaders and the exclusion to the point of alienation of the former rulers, Sunnis – not such a good thing. That in turn has been a fertile breeding ground for ISIS, which now controls a large part of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Tony Blair may be right that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good thing, but his replacement by a failing state subject to constant terrorism, and above all the rise of ISIS, undo any good that came from it.

This is becoming increasingly critical today in Europe, as refugees driven from the region by ISIS atrocities begin to flood our borders. We’ve actually been fortunate not to have experienced the problem in its full intensity before: Lebanon, for example, with 4 million inhabitants has already taken a million refugees.

Refugees piling into trains in Hungary, aiming for Germany
What our £8.4bn – and the US trillion – bought us

Out £8.4 billion bought us a growing refugee problem. In an increasingly xenophobic country, that’s a terrible difficulty for a right wing government that isn’t particularly friendly towards immigration to start with, but likes to think of itself as Christian. In the face of a humanitarian catastrophe, clearly calling for a Good Samaritan response from anyone claiming to share the values of Jesus, David Cameron’s government is tearing around in panic trying to make it more difficult for migrants to reach the country.

This is in the face of a few thousand trying to reach Britain, compared to the 800,000, now expected to reach a million, forecast to be making for Germany.

The government claims to be doing more than one might think. It points to 5000 Syrians given asylum in this country, but fails to state that a great many of them were already here and were simply unable to return to their own country. In other words, they were students or tourists or businessmen – reasonably well off and probably able to cope with their exile. These were not the desperate individuals clinging to inflatables for the tricky crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands.

In one respect, though, the British government has adopted an intelligent policy: it feels the long-term solution lies in helping the home countries of the refugees to improve conditions, so that fewer leave in the first place. That’s certainly the best approach. However, when the government points to its investment of nearly £900 million over the next four years or Syria, one can’t help feeling it’s a little low compared to the £8.4 billion spent on war.

Equally, though the government is trying to make up for its passivity so far over the refugee flows by agreeing to take a few thousand from the camps inside Syria, that seems inadequate given that over 3 million have already left the country.

Isn’t that Charlie Wilson’s War again? So much to spend on war. So little on help.

Which reminds me of Aldous Huxley: ”that men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”

Syria: when the West sits on its hands

It’s harrowing to watch the news footage from Syria. A warplane turns gracefully in the sky, taking its time to choose a target before it glides in and bombs another house, killing some more children, a family, some old people, occasionally a rebel or two. On the ground men and women scream and cry and plead for help from the West. 

Syrian warplane gracefully killing women and children in Aleppo

Of course they call on us: in their position my anger at the wealthy and powerful nations who are sitting on their hands would be exactly the same.

‘Why don’t you intervene?’ I would scream, ‘Why don’t you help? Is it because we don’t have oil? After all what’s happening here is just what you set out to prevent in Libya.’

But that’s just the point at which natural sympathy for a people being massacred by a vile government has to pause a moment and take stock.

Because how well did that go in Libya? Did our military intervention there usher in a new era of peace and democracy? With the US Ambassador, Chris Stevens, killed there a week ago, is that even a question worth asking?

There are no doubt people in Libya keen to build a new nation conceived in liberty. But there seem to be many looking for something quite different. Perhaps a theocratic autocracy. Perhaps an opportunity to settle scores with another tribe. Perhaps just the perpetuation of a low-intensity conflict which serves them well.

The idea of perpetual conflict is hardly unrealistic. The fighting shows no sign of ending in Afghanistan. Today we learned that NATO has decided to suspend joint patrolling with Afghan forces in small units, since there have been so many occasions when Afghan soldiers have rounded on their supposed colleagues in NATO and killed them: 36 attacks this year costing 51 lives.

And what about the longest-standing of the Western attempts to force enlightenment on the Arab-speaking world? In a burst of optimism, Iraq brought in a power-sharing regime in 2005. Tareq al-Hashemi served as Vice President under a Shia President. Last December he fled for his life, a decision he presumably regards as one of his more judicious, since last week he was sentenced to death in his absence. Only on Monday, he accused his former colleagues in government of helping Iran pass weapons through to the Syrian government, rather confirming the widespread view that if there was a victor in the Iraq War, it was the Tehran regime which hugely extended its influence in the country.

Coincidentally, Monday was also the occasion of the latest in the unbroken series of bombings that have rocked Iraq ever since Dubya Bush declared his ‘mission accomplished’. The latest left at least seven dead in Baghdad and 24 injured.

The West has proved itself good at taking military action but lamentable at building a legacy behind it. At least, not the kind of legacy anybody would honour.

Meanwhile, back in Syria itself, a report issued on Monday by Human Rights Watch suggests that there are elements of the rebel army whose behaviour is no more commendable than the government’s: they have been torturing and killing their opponents just as the regime tortures and kills its own. Perhaps we are beginning to discover, in time on this occasion, what we discovered far too late in Libya: just opposing Basher al-Assad or Muammar Gaddafi doesn’t necessarily make you a nice guy.

Supporting disreputable characters wouldn’t be new in the history of Western intervention in the region. Let’s not forget that the West spent a long time supporting and arming the Taliban against the Soviets in Afghanistan before we decided these erstwhile friends were a pretty nasty bunch too. If you haven’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War make a point of watching it now (and not just for the lesson: the script’s by Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing fame).

That news footage from Syria is as harrowing as ever. But, though my heart goes out to them, when I hear the persecuted civilians on the ground calling out for Western help, my inclination now is to say ‘be careful what you wish for.’ We’re good at delivering poisoned chalices but they’re not good presents.

It sounds heartless to say it, but bad though things are, I firmly believe that the West should hold to its present attitude and stay sitting on its hands. The alternative could be a lot worse. And last a lot longer.