Afghanistan and dehumanisation

In the wake of another massacre of civilians by a soldier in Afghanistan, it is salutary to read Giles Fraser's account of how the shooting of our enemies has become increasingly accurate (Men without a safety catch, 13 March). letters illustration gillian blease Illustration: Gillian Blease The work of the psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion adds illumination to this helpful but frightening news. Bion contributed to both world wars – tanks in the first, and treating shellshocked soldiers in the second. From his experience he hypothesised that all groups of people function in two ways: emotionally and psychologically in what he called basic assumption groups (ba), and rationally and productively in work groups (w). Within societies ba groups contain the emotional and psychological burdens of the group about its survival, and free w groups to fulfil their tasks. In whole nations this pattern is repeated. One of the ba groups he christened fight and flight, as it contains the emotions of fear for the nation's survival. Whether or not our soldiers aim correctly at our enemies matters not so much as that they are there, containing our fears evoked by warfare and provoked by news of weapons of mass destruction. As a nation in the fight and flight mode, we need our troops to remain in Afghanistan protecting us from attack at home, however irrational that is. At some point we may accept that Afghan troops can contain our fears for us, but until then we rely upon our soldiers to bear that burden and make that sacrifice, for us to feel safe to get on with our lives. They have my intense gratitude and hope that they survive too and, firing less accurately, they kill fewer people in the meantime. Canon John Foskett Dorchester, Dorset • Giles Fraser, in his incisive comment on dehumanisation in war, misses out on the crucial dimension of race. It is easy to see other races as "savages" to whom normal rules do not apply. Hence American troops in the second world war committed more atrocities in the Asian theatre than in Europe, and British troops in colonial conflicts ripped up Geneva conventions in a way that never happened when war was on our own continent. Even American Quakers in the runup to the civil war in the 1850s justified violence against southerners on the grounds that slave-holding made them subhuman. What has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq has its antecedents in Vietnam and the Philippines, and in Kenya, Bosnia, Sri Lanka and countless other places where racial differentiation leads to wartime atrocities that never happen in more ethnically similar internecine conflicts. Simon Sedgwick-Jell Cambridge • The massacres of Afghan civilians have left huge numbers of widows and orphans, as well as uncounted wounded and traumatised people (Massacres are the inevitable result of foreign occupation, 14 March). A catalogue of strategic, political and military mistakes is likely to fuel further support for the Taliban, and thus increase the fears of Afghan women who dread a return to their oppressed situation before 2001. Irrespective of when the troops are withdrawn, the international community has a duty not to abandon its commitment to Afghan women, remembering that their "liberation" was one of the grounds for the invasion of 2001. Responding to the pleas of Afghan women's NGOs, UK women's NGOs who attended the UN Commission on the Status of Women this month have petitioned the UN to endorse a resolution on Afghan women and girls. This can be found on the website of the National Alliance of Women's Organisations. A UN resolution requires the backing of governments, but so far no government has been prepared to pick this up and run with it. A UN resolution would at least ensure that the international community remains aware of the status of women in Afghanistan, and does all it can to support them once the troops have withdrawn.