The Nation brings us a long, detailed investigation of the other war - the effect of the US military’s occupation on the people of Iraq.
It’s not a pretty picture - a combination of jumpy GIs, a fair sprinkling of racists and sadists in the military’s ranks, and the attitude of command that Iraqi deaths were of little concern, it’s impossible not to draw analogies with Apocalypse Now.
Given the anecdotal basis of the report, the self-selection bias of the interviewees, and the presumed motivation of the authors (it’s hard to imagine Laila Al-Irian is keen to give the Bush administration an even break) it’s hard to know how reflective of the overall situation it is. Nevertheless, it’s both disturbing and plausible.
“Nevertheless, it’s both disturbing and plausible.”
As plausible as, well… me?
Just read this account of a dog being shot
Which is small beer in the larger scheme of things but the pattern repeats itself again and again in the story - the sociopaths enabled, the sociopaths created, and the the decent people dragged along for the ride.
But … but … there’s this blogger who’s like right there in Iraq and he reckons things are gonna get better real soon now …. I mean you guys are always so negative.
How about reporting all the dogs in Iraq that are running around just fine with intact jaws? Eh? I bet there are hundreds but does the liberal media publish stories about them? No way!!!!
Right on “Scott Thomas Lookalike”
We American soldiers are notorious liars.
It’s awful. always awful. The same patterns repeat themselves every time the liberators of the free world go out to win hearts and minds.
It was the same in Vietnam and I remember the stories of indisciminate killings and desecration. It’s such a pity that the US administration can never learn the lessons of the past and refuse to listen to those who can.
Mark[not B]:
No. Not always.
Winning-Hearts-And-Minds campaigns can work very well indeed as, for instance, Hamas and alQaeda have shown the whole world, but such campaigns do require good training, careful selection of personnel involved, a widespread understanding of the most basic terms in the local language by ALL your troops, thorough planning, commanders and staff who are not merely unscornful of WHAM but fully committed to its implementation, involvement by respected locals, appropriate resourcing, excellent local intelligence [as feedback for quality assurance], etc.
Way back in ancient history, my unit’s WHAM campaign was fairly successful and annoyed the enemy but that was only because we put a lot of time, effort, patience and respect into it.
That is why, by Day 3 of the invasion of Iraq, I was horrified at the almost total lack of any useful civil affairs effort — and things have got worse since. It is not as though the Americans themselves don’t have the expertise but what else can you expect when their King tries to run his war like an arcade shoot-’em game where the scores are made on the number of people killed and not on the number of people won over to supporting your side.
In stark contrast, reporters in Baghdad’s Red Zone like Michael Totten say that the surge is having a positive effect in certain places, and while the occupation is tough, it can be successful with commitment.
How many “reporters” are there in the Red Zone “llike Micheal Totten” who said the following before the invasion of Iraq?
Such a person is, of course, welcome to his enthusiasms.
However, a cautious reader would note that Totten has long been invested in his hopes. How much do these hopes colour his perceptions?
As Totten says in his blog, the surge hasn’t gone anywhere near Sadr City.
Totten observes the surge in a Sunni area. The Sunni in Baghdad are an oppressed and dwindling minority. Of course, the US appear to be protectors to this group. In terms of the power relations in Iraq, the US find themselves to be protecting the losing side in a civil war, just like they did in Vietnam.
Oh hey it’s Scott Thomas. Swiftboats ahoy.
Anthony:
Don’t get too smug about the Yanks and their swiftboating …. look at what happened to Australian sevicemen who took part in the British atom bomb tests in Australia and wondered why they were sick and wondered why so many of their mates had died of cancer - they were all malingerers and secret agents for Moscow, weren’t they??….or that was the impression the public was given.
Who r u trying to convince, Robert? Nobody’s going to argue with you.
Robert and WBB:
During an operation in the Viet-Nam War, we were supposed to have burnt a village to the ground; the only things that went up in smoke were our cigarettes!!!
Leaving aside vicious propaganda dressed up as plausible “truth” for the gullible …. the sad thing is that incidents such as those reported here are preventable - by good training and by firm disciplined competent leadership by NCOs. Soldiers need to be trained on how to cope usefully with boredom ; what can they do while nothing exciting is happening?
So many stories of purposeless killing, vandalism and the like have boredom underlying them - sometimes numbing boredom that lasts for weeks and weeks at a time; doing something, anything at all, breaks that boredom. Combine that boredom with oversimplistic meathead training that all Enemy are evil and must be killed no matter what and you have a recipe for atrocities and defeat [as Mr Hitler found out the hard way].