Holte's corner

The only way to avoid trouble is to know when to pull out

A few years ago I read an editorial (I think) that talked about George Orwell and his experiences as a Government Official in Colonial India (Burma actually).
One day he was sent to a village where a rogue elephant had killed
someone. As naturalist know, once an elephant learns it can kill
humans it becomes a very different animal from what it is before it
learns this lesson. And this elephant was very dangerous, but George Orwell was in a quandary. The elephant was the livelyhood for a family
man who lived in the village, and for all his family. He earned money
by hiring it out to do jobs no human can do. The elephant was the
equivalent of a bulldozer or a forklift in India. If he killed the
elephant he'd be a hero to half the village, but a villain to this
family.

On the other hand if he didn't kill the elephant he'd be held responsible for all the deaths that the elephant might cause. He'd be a villain to all the village except this one family. So he killed the elephant and was seen as a villain by all the village anyway.

The point of telling the story is that the British learned the hard
way that a nation can only help another if it doesn't stick around
too long after helping the other country or "help" so much that
people start making that nation responsible for their lives. If the
villagers had been responsible for making their own decisions and
there'd been a functional democracy they'd have had to work out a
deal satisfactory to everyone, but with the British Raj involved, no
deal could satisfy anybody. They'd all be blaming the Raj.

We got into this boat in Vietnam, and now we've done it again in
Iraq. This report in the post details the terrible human rights,
moral and emotional mess we are in. And all of it is our own fault.
We just haven't known when to pull out and now we've left Iraq
pregnant with a monster of our own making.

http://tinyurl.com/j6gsk

The author recounts the allegations about Haditha and other places,
but then says: "...recall a more recent incident, in Samarra . On May
30, U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint there opened fire on a
speeding vehicle that either did not see or failed to heed their
command to stop. Two women in the vehicle were shot dead. One of
them, Nahiba Husayif Jassim, 35, was pregnant. The baby was also
killed. The driver, Jassim's brother, had been rushing her to a
hospital to give birth. No one tried to cover up the incident: U.S.
military representatives issued expressions of regret."

Accidents happen, war is ugly, people get killed. But we've been
singularly callous in this occupation. An expression of regret isn't
culturally sensitive. Even the most culturally sensitive regrets
can't bring back the dead, or repair the damage to the living. These
checkpoints have been killing innocents in the name of protecting
American Soldiers for a while now. We almost killed an Italian
Journalist because these checkpoints are designed to be virtually
invisible until people are right up on them. Heaven help a pregnant
woman or an unwary motorist. And we are in the Elephant dillemma:

evidence "suggests that in Iraq such mistakes have occurred
routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too
long ignored. Indeed, conscious motivation is beside the point: Any
action resulting in Iraqi civilian deaths, however inadvertent,
undermines the Bush administration's narrative of liberation, and
swells the ranks of those resisting the U.S. presence."

Our Commanders chose to draw their lessons not from the lessons of
the British Raj, but from its worst mistakes: "In the early days of
the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the
possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They
counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good
behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad"
Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation."

And this was done on the mistaken notion that "effects" can be
generated through brute force. Somehow the psychology of operant
conditioning can be applied to human beings, either in Abu Gharaib
style prisons or by shooting at anyone who comes too near a convoy.
The result is a human disaster, and a time-bomb at home. This
attitude attracts skin-heads and neo-nazis:

http://tinyurl.com/fryxe

It is only a matter of degree between an attitude that states things
like ""You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander
told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas
MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they
understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from
representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated
into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra
II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly
comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers
understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."

But this displays a huge ignorance and sheer stupidity and we are
paying the price. What is the point of "removing" white supremicists
from the military when company commanders are allowed to express such
opinions openly without their own bosses at least making them take
lessons on Arabic culture and language? How can we "build schools"
and rebuild Iraq with that kind of attitude on the part of even a
minority of our soldiers. But we aren't doing any of those things.
That stuff was only for real for those troops who came to the country
in the first wave of the operation. Since then it has only been cruel
propaganda:

http://tinyurl.com/f2g7h

"There are no official statistics about the number of children who
have died in Basra since January," said Hassan Abdullah, a senior
official in the Basra governorate. "But local health department
employees and volunteers from some NGOs have collected information
suggesting that about 90 children have died as result of the lack of
medicine." According to Abdullah, this is worse than the same period
last year, when some 40 children died for similar reasons."

"Marie Fernandez, a spokeswoman for Vienna-based aid agency Saving
Children from War, said that the agency – which has been working with
local doctors – has noted a lack of essential supplies, especially
intravenous infusions and blood bags. "There's a lack of everything.
Children are dying because of bleeding because there are no blood
bags available," said Fernandez. "Antibiotics, Pentostam [an antimony
compound used in the treatment of parasite infection], special milk
for dehydrated children, and almost all medical material for
emergency conditions aren't available."

I know for a fact that many of our troops would want to help these
people. That they aren't comes from the top. It is disgusting.

Even if we weren't killing the people of Iraq through massive neglect
and conversion, we'd be having problems, compound the fact that we
aren't doing any of the things we said we'd do with the massive
brutality and ineptness with which we are doing what we are doing --
and we are in real trouble.

It is a disgrace that; "The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense
Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing
neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and
commanders don't remove them from the military even after we
positively identify them as extremists or gang members." And this makes the job of fighting "terrorism" abroad nearly impossible. I read an email from some Arab today, in the context of these stories it sounded plausible, until he recounted his experience being interrogated. He claimed his interrogators spoke to him with Israeli accents. That is possible but not likely. But how can I know when the reality keeps proving more lurid and bizaare than the propaganda? Why should these fools be giving such a propaganda advantage to our enemies?

It is insane what they are doing, were doing, and intended to do.

http://tinyurl.com/fryxe

But then they are almost to the point where they'll take a guy my
age. Meanwhile these Nazi guys are training for the next war they see
coming -- the one at home with us "liberals" and "patriots."

On a side note, The good news is that today, bowing to the UN, the United States Supreme Court, and World Opinion, the US has finally decided to treat detainees in Guantanamo under the Geneva Conventions -- which specify that if a person is fighting as a soldier he is a soldier and should be treated as one, if he is a civilian or an enemy combattant he should be either turned over to law enforcement or charged with some crime.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/11/AR2006071100094.html

"Are you a loyalist to King George or a Patriot?" How long until they
burn the declaration of Independence? And who will cheer?

Chris

Posted by cholte at July 11, 2006 09:58 PM