The 25 murders of Prince Harry speak volumes about Western airstrikes against Muslim-majority countries

Sending Harry, a Prince of the Realm, to help bring democracy to Afghanistan was always a crude idea. The son of the King of the United Kingdom owes everything in his life to hereditary privilege and not merit, not to mention equality or justice. In his ghostwritten memoirs riddled with inaccuracies and unproven accusations, it is apparent that he ignores or disregards all complex ethical principles.

So much so, that Harry boasts about the shootings in which he slaughtered more than two dozen unidentified Afghans in his own country from the extremely safe position of a $52 million Apache attack helicopter. It’s the kind of missile-carrying aircraft that can mow down human beings from more than five miles away, or tear their bodies to pieces with a chain gun.

Harry spares us the concrete operational details of why these executions from above were necessary, except to say that he didn’t see his victims as “people” but as “chess pieces” to be eliminated.

“So, my number: Twenty-five,” he states unequivocally in his book, adding, “It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But it wasn’t a number that embarrassed me either.”

Military veterans were among the many who decried Harry’s callousness: it’s very rare for professional soldiers to stop at the kill count, let alone dehumanize their victims like chess pieces.

Despite this, the self-satisfied celebrity later cynically claimed that his humble bragging – “sharing that detail” – was somehow intended to prevent other soldiers from committing suicide. As usual, nothing was his fault, and she blamed the press for no one thinking badly of him.

Prince Harry told 60 Minutes that joining the British Army and serving in Afghanistan “saved me in many regards.” Harry said his struggle de él began when his mother de él died and serving helped him heal. “It felt like I was turning pain into a purpose.” https://t.co/eclCB6rz4m pic.twitter.com/T2z6Faol17

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 9, 2023

Such deceit is typical of Harry’s communication strategy: he pours out choice statements about his hateful escapades, then tries to mitigate them with more catchphrases. What is much more important than Harry’s botched PR image, however, is what this garrulous braggart tells us about the West’s asymmetric conflicts in Muslim-majority countries.

Without mentioning them all – and there are many, from Iraq to Libya – we can say that the disaster in Afghanistan is equal to Harry-style barbarism. According to the US Department of Defense, nearly a trillion dollars was spent on the two-decade war that ultimately ended in defeat in August 2021. More pertinently, at least 114,000 Afghans were killed – including tens of thousands of civilians. versus the 3,587 servicemen who fought for the Americans and their allies.

The vast majority of Afghan deaths, along with many more injuries, were caused by air weapons. Sandaled insurgents brandishing Soviet or even Victorian-era rifles didn’t stand a chance, and neither did the women and children who stood near them.

Giving the impression of a Hollywood geek brought up on childish black-and-white morality and video games, Harry claims that the Afghans he massacred were “‘baddies’ who took their lives before they could kill the ‘good'”, but there is no proof of this.

He says they were members of the Taliban, but the extremist Islamist group is well known for mixing its fighters with innocent civilians, and indeed forcing the uncommitted to take up arms in its name on pain of death.

READ: OIC will send delegation to Afghanistan for talks on women’s rights

The truth is that the tribes that dominate the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, have repelled invasions for centuries, and – whether British, American or Russian – foreign armies are naturally seen as enemies, especially when his ultimate mission is so vague.

While serving in his grandmother’s army – the UK sovereign is commander of all British forces – Harry infamously referred to these fighters as “ragheads”, a racist slur referring to the type of headdress worn by many Muslims. His intolerance towards Muslims extended to calling Pakistanis “Pakis”. The pathetic justification he offers in his book is that he didn’t know the word was pejorative.

In fact, Harry’s racist tropes are comparable to those of fans who delight in spreading collective guilt, and who see pouring fire on Muslim countries as morally justified. Harry himself confirms that at one point he was led to believe that he was part of a “Christian army, fighting against a Muslim-friendly militia.”

It also implies that he was in Afghanistan to take revenge in some way for the 9/11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, even though not a single Afghan was involved in the 9/11 atrocities.

Harry even refers to his Afghan victims as “Others,” language that, at its worst, evokes the subhuman category espoused by the Nazis. (Harry once wore an Afrika Korps uniform with a swastika at a costume party.) Despite Harry’s claims, this is not how he trains the professional soldiers of the modern British Army. On the contrary, the Geneva Convention orders soldiers to respect their enemies.

Huge efforts went into the “Hearts and Minds” campaign in Afghanistan, which was intended to portray Western soldiers as peacekeepers tasked with rebuilding a shattered nation, not fanatical crusaders focused on death and destruction.

The purple prose deployed by Harry’s ghostwriter makes the young prince (just look at how young and quiet he looked in all his PR pictures of Afghanistan) sound like the lugubrious narrator of military classics like All Quiet on the Western Front. . In fact, there were no trenches, no hand-to-hand combat, and no last stand in isolated burrows during Harry’s military career.

He even said that his time in the Army was personal therapy. “I was able to focus on a purpose bigger than myself,” and he added, seemingly without irony, “I felt like I was turning the pain into a purpose.”

READ: The Taliban have to change their ways, because the clock of equality is ticking

Harry began bragging about killing Afghans in 2013, when he told reporters: “Taking one life to save another,” without hinting that he was on his way to 25 deaths.

A ridiculously elaborate stunt video from the time shows Harry smiling while manning a machine gun from what looks like a firing position on the battlefield, but it’s so obvious there are no enemies in front of him. No, only during brief stays in an armored chopper fortress did Harry really go in for the kill.

Shortly before, Harry had mysteriously skipped a drug check at his Air Force base in Britain, and has since admitted to being a habitual user of all kinds of illegal substances, including cocaine, and to being a heavy drinker with psychological problems. .

Outlining how many Afghans a junior officer with so many serious personal problems was allowed to bludgeon to death with impunity does not reflect well on the UK armed forces.

Harry’s revelations have undoubtedly threatened the safety of military personnel past and present, including veterans competing in the Invictus Games, the sporting event for soldiers without limbs or otherwise injured that he is a sponsor of.

The ultimate goal of Harry’s verbiage is, of course, to increase book sales, and thus make as much money as possible. This precludes any sympathy for the 25 anonymous Afghans he massacred. Like him, they’ve likely once been part of loving families, but such facts are clearly irrelevant to Harry’s wretchedly destructive selfishness.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of East Monitor.