‘Outside the wire’: Brereton and the dehumanization of Afghan civilians

ABSTRACT This article investigates two registers of dehumanization in the Brereton Report. It begins with the dehumanization of Afghan civilians that is reflected in the Brereton Report, which alleges that SOTG personnel adopted a liberal interpretation of the rules of engagement to justify using lethal force against Afghan civilians. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed, we draw attention to the gendered and racialized assumptions that constituted the Afghan people as a potential threat, which worked to enable and excuse the violence inflicted upon them. At the same time, we argue that the Brereton Report reproduces and reinforces these dehumanizing assumptions in its decision not to investigate split second decisions made in the ‘heat of battle’. We argue that the language used to justify this omission reinforces orientalist tropes about Afghanistan as an dangerous, perilous and ungovernable space, which helped to normalize the violence inflicted upon the Afghan people.