Why are so many outraged at Prince Harry calling Taliban combatants ‘chess pieces’ when Russian soldiers are widely dehumanised?
Whilst everyone was expecting Prince Harry’s new book ‘Spare’ to cause intense discomfort for the British Royal family few were expecting it to upset the British Army and cause an international incident. The prodigal Prince’s revelation that he killed 25 Taliban members and viewed enemy combatants as ‘chess pieces’ has been widely condemned by senior military figures, veterans and indeed the wider public. There are concerns about Harry not only exacerbating the risk to his own but also creating a heightened risk to the royal family and the British military everywhere. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20966702/prince-harry-put-british-troops-danger-taliban-killing-boasts/ Clearly every budding jihadist looking for a way to vent their grievances with maximum symbolic impact can now use the royal ginger whinger as a warped excuse for unleashing terror. However beyond the security implications there widespread disapproval has been expressed, especially in military circles, at Harry’s dehumanising of the enemy he faced in battle. Colonel Bob Stewart, MP for Beckenham and former commander of troops in Bosnian, declared, 'Real soldiers tend to shy away... People I know don't boast about such things. They rather regret that they have had to do it.' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11606051/Furious-Taliban-taunts-big-mouth-loser-Prince-Harry-revealed-killed-25-enemies.html Major General Chip Chapman went public in the media to assert that Harry had broken four key elements of the ‘military code of conduct’, namely ‘respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment.’ https://uk.news.yahoo.com/prince-harry-has-broken-four-military-code-of-conduct-values-says-senior-army-officer-092710766.html
It was especially striking that Harry’s claimed ‘They trained me to 'other' them and they trained me well.’ Clearly there must be great sympathy for soldiers having to come to terms with taking human life. Given the traumatic circumstances of frontline combat a certain amount of emotional distancing from the person at the end of your gun or bomb is understandable. However Harry does seem to be describing an instructed dehumanisation of the enemy with the ‘they’ who trained him clearly being his military superiors. It is therefore little wonder so many have spoken against Harry’s statements, given the proud British military tradition of adhering to the Geneva convention whose raison de être is to prevent, as far as possible, inhumane military practices. Former Lieutenant Commander Stewart Crawford, who served in the Royal Tank regiment, said “I don't think you'll find many soldiers who would disrespect the dead enemy.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1717897/prince-harry-news-killed-25-taliban-spare-afghanistan-british-army
Yet all this outrage is in striking contrast to the current ‘accepted narrative’, amongst politicians, mainstream media and even some in the military, on Russia and Ukraine. Russian soldiers are often not even seen as chess pieces but as outright evil monsters. Every claim by the Ukrainian side of atrocities enacted by Russian troops is not just quite rightly taken seriously but immediately accepted as gospel truth. In contrast claims from the Russian side of war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces, such as torturing or shooting surrendering soldiers and defectors, are dismissed or ignored. Three months ago my friend Frederick Edwards wrote the following powerful words as part of a hard hitting insightful substack piece.
‘Each burnt-out vehicle and each disembowelled conscript – oh Slava Ukraina! - they're just Russians after all. Online, each opinion piece and every comment under the line positively ecstatic in this obliteration of human potential.’
Fred has a good knowledge of the ordinary Russian folk, who happen to be born or live in the land of Dostoevsky, who wrote that it is the ‘most civilised gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers.’ Dostoevsky also criticised what he saw as a modern civilisation that created men who gave moving speeches about patriotism and freedom but then showed themselves to be ‘more bloodthirsty’ than their ancestors. The Ukrainian Government, its spokespeople and many of its most ardent supporters celebrate each Russian death with the enthusiasm cheering of a World Cup goal. Their social media accounts overflow with delight when they can trumpet an increased body count. One of the recent offerings was the gleeful announcement on 22nd December that 100,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. Characteristically this was done in a tweet of an almost playful tone, also trolling the Russian Defence Minister.
In August Nicola Sturgeon had suffered a small, low key ripple of criticism for liking a similar tweet glorifying the deaths of 41,170 Russian troops. https://www.thenational.scot/news/20595341.nicola-sturgeon-deletes-tweet-accused-glorifying-ukraine-war/ This was barely noticed both by media outside Scotland and the general public, largely because in today’s world the Russian soldier isn’t thought of as a human life that is as valuable as any other. The fact that there were over 134,000 conscripts drafted into the Russian army in Spring 2022 with an autumn push towards 300,000, making up one quarter of their army, doesn’t appear to matter. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1334431/russia-number-of-conscripts/ Avoiding conscription in Russia is officially punishable by two years imprisonment but one imagines that now you’d be lucky to escape with all your limbs intact or even with your life. Indeed Frederick Edward’s substack article also mentions his friend cutting off his own finger to avoid conscription. He clearly saw that horrific act as preferable to facing either the battlefield or the consequences of outright refusal.
I had the great privilege of growing up learning from the life experiences and wisdom of my amazing German grandparents. I did not need to be taught that all Germans weren’t bad because, apart from my mother and sister, my Grandmother and Grandfather were the best human beings I knew. Grandad, (‘Opa’ in German), talked to me about the war right from my young childhood. Therefore I always understood that German young men, many really still children, didn’t have a choice about whether or not to fight. The majority loved their country increasingly despaired at what it was becoming. They just wanted to, in Opa’s words, ‘stay alive and go home to a life without bombs and death, when you could wake up without fearing that day could well be your last.’ My Great Uncle Ludwig was a cheeky, witty, smart and endlessly generous 19 year old when he was gunned down on an icy battlefield on the Russian Front. Opa never got over his death and indeed the only time I ever saw a tear in his eye was when he spoke of Ludwig. He also got emotional when he spoke of what befell the city he settled in at the end of the war. On 2nd January 1945 the beautiful, historic city of Nuremberg in southern Germany was nearly flattened by the Royal Airforce. 521 aircraft offloaded over one million bombs killing 1,850 civilians, making 100,000 homeless and destroying or damaging around 96% of the medieval city centre in a firestorm worthy of Armageddon. Of course there was great symbolic value in flattening Hitler’s favourite city, home of the Nazi Party rallies. However the aim was to target German heritage and also civilians in order to demoralise the German people. Such actions, including the infamous bombing of Dresden, have quite rightly been debated and called war crimes. Even at the time some senior British politicians voiced concerns about what was being unleashed by their own side. Lord Salisbury wrote in a private letter, ‘We do not take the devil as our example.’ https://www.history.co.uk/article/was-the-destruction-of-dresden-an-allied-war-crime On a micro level there will undoubtedly have also been war crimes committed by individual Allied soldiers. (That is despite the great admiration my Opa had for the British Army’s sense of ‘fair play’, I.e. decency). Admitting that uncomfortable fact does nothing to take away from the justness of their cause or the horror of what the Nazis did. Admitting that war always begets evil on both sides to some extent is essential in order that we do not become what we claim to hate. It is essential for maintaining our humanity.
Some might assume I would tend towards hating Russians. Surely I should think ill of a nation whose army killed my Great Uncle, made my Grandma’s family into refugees from the Sudetenland, (enacting horrific violence against her ethnic fellows), and committed the most vile atrocities against my fellow Germans as they marched across Germany in 1945. However it is my German blood, my German family who have always made me recognise that war always has victims on both sides, even amongst those carrying guns and dropping bombs. The 2013 BBC mini series Generation War gives a wonderful insight into this.
That drama shows that, in the words of my friend Frederick Edwards:
‘War is grim, and death its inevitable bedfellow. Do not imagine that because of your British passport you are more human than they.’
Harry's actions are indefensible. But so is the jingoistic cheering on of the Ukraine. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs but it sickens me.