I heard that the US Military has finally released a "How To Fight An Insurgency" guide

[xiphias]

They were talking about it. And I had to turn it off.

See, the manual says that you have to do things like "Not Piss People Off", "Not Kill Innocent People", and shit like that.

And that you have to be careful about this stuff, because it's paradoxical and non-intuitive.

The manual says everything that liberal bloggers have been saying about how this war should be fought. We have been right all along.

And it BAFFLES me that it's possible to NOT know these things. They're totally obvious. If you kill someone, then their family will be mad at you. That's not really THAT difficult a concept, is it? If people have jobs and a decent life and stuff, they'll be less likely to kill you. THIS is a paradoxical concept?

And I started to feel sick to my stomach as I began to really realize that this war has been fought by people who don't understand this.

And I began to feel guilty. For a number of reasons. One is that I'm an American, and I live in a representative democracy, and my representative democracy sent people who don't understand people to occupy a country. And that's my fault. Oh, maybe it's only 1/3,000,000th my fault, but if you figure that 100,000 people have died because of the war, as the Lancet figures, I'm still responsible for 1/30th of a death. Which is worth some guilt.

And another reason.

This shit is obvious to me. Apparently, I have a mindset that would have made this whole occupation less nasty and bloody and horrifying if people in charge of the occupation shared it.

And that means that I should be THERE.

I should have joined the military. I should have joined ROTC in college (although Brandeis didn't have one), and I should have become an officer, and I should have been in a position to help shape these policies so that we would have gone into the situation with this knowledge.

Or SOMETHING. I don't know. Maybe I was right not to join the military, maybe I wouldn't have been able to change things like that.

But. . . there has to be SOMETHING I could have done. How is it possible that ANYONE can't simply intuit almost all of the information that's in the new guide? I mean, the historical perspective is neat, and the classification of insurgency types is useful, but the "how to do it" section is all totally obvious.

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I think you might be taking it a bit too literally. These manuals don't only contain information on obvious things like "if you kill someone, their family will be mad" -- though honestly there are some 18yos that could stand to have that information beaten into them. But the manuals, they contain official priorities. Priorities in war used to be something like "kill stuff; pacification and making friends is the problem of the second wave, the one that comes after occupation". As we keep fighting long engagements like this, the old lizard brain of the military is coming to understand that they *are* the second wave. Suddenly (as in, in the past decade or so), the USMil is realizing they need to train their soldiers for situations where there are not just Red (the enemey) and Blue (the allies), but Grey and Green and Purple and Grey Which Will Turn Red If You Kill A Purple and the like. The military changes slowly. The decision-makers, by the way it works, have 30+ years of experience of What Worked, and the system is geared toward conservatism. (They are working on this. It'll take another decade before they start implementing process change, because the process to change the process is itself slow.)

The other reality check I engage in is to realize that soldiers get about two hours of sleep per night, and are in a constant state of cortisol frenzy. Ever pulled two hour nights for a week in a row? Makes reiterating simple things like "don't shoot anyone you don't have to" seem like a good idea; the brain doesn't work as well. They're really *not* as stupid as everyone tries to make them out to be. Really. But damn, is it a hard job, and damn, is it easy to screw up, and *damn*. So having a manual that reinforces common sense is just, well, common sense.

I'm not saying don't say the things you're saying. Keep saying them, and loud, and maybe we won't be putting people in situations where, groggy and grumpy and in pain, they have to make the decision whether or not to shoot a six-year-old that is running to give them a suspicious-looking bundle. But there are a ton of mitigating circumstances for what the military does right now; and if you had joined up, you would be a voice shouting in the darkness...they don't take criticism from within very well, even from Generals.

[vonbeck.livejournal.com]

I don't think the people that are at issue here are not the poor grunts at the
sharp end of things. It is the the REMF's that are getting sleep and setting policies
that are putting our solders into the situations that cause these problems.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Rule 1: DON'T FUCKING DO IT if you can help it.

[redbird]

The problem isn't that there aren't a lot of ordinary American soldiers and even officers who understand these things. It's that the top brass, and in particular the White House, have been deliberately not listening to them, and firing them if they insisted on pointing these things out.

Even if they'd take you--even if you were willing to pass for a monogamous heterosexual--the odds are you wouldn't have wound up as an instructor at West Point, nor yet as an advisor that Dubya or Cheney would listen to.

to do list

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

pressure of the electoral bits. That's the beyond lj part.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

I was in Saudi and Kuwait for Desert Storm. We treated all POW's with respect, as long as they behaved. There were a couple of trouble makers who tried to attack the medics (I worked security for a med evac station), but we immobilized them, strapped them down and then that was it. Even though we had no Arabic speakers with us, we could usually tell when someone was upset/confused, as opposed to violent/aggressive. We worked with the upset people, trying to show them that we (the medical unit) was there to help. It worked. 'Course, as security folks, we had worked in stateside hospitals and mental wards. These were just patients.

This med-evac group was supporting a Marine unit that moved up into Kuwait and then Iraq. Even the Marines bringing in POW's did things by the book. I didn't see any evidence of hostility by the Marines towards the Iraqis. They were just an enemy to be dealt with.

Even though I disagreed with why we were there and with our stated aims (I believed it was engineered to give us a grab at Iraqi oil), I was very proud to see the way Air Force, Navy and Marine forces carried out their duties. Looked like the best of the late '40's/early 50's WWII movies.

When I heard about how small a force was going in this second time, I knew it was going to be a mess. The regular folk were already pissed at and not trusting the U.S., after we told them to revolt and then abandoned them to Saddam's reprisals. Thought the only way to work this would be to base ourselves in the north, with the Kurds, and then try to influence things at a distance. That may be the U.S.'s only way out now.

Contrast Iraq with Yugoslavia. We went in, with NATO support, did not lose a single U.S. soldier and created peace. Weird. Wonder what the difference was.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Found this:

an excerpt of the speech given by Colonel Tim Collins of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, prior to the start of the invasion of Iraq in 2003...

"There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory... If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves."

Dunno if you could have done anything

[rozasharn.livejournal.com]

Remember right after the initial invasion? When the national museum was looted? That happened because our military didn't do anything to secure the situation: didn't protect infrastructure or national treasures, didn't make sure it was safe for ordinary people to go out, didn't secure the supply chains of essential things like water and power and food imports.

Our high-ranking military officers knew all that needed to be done. They had a plan for it. Rumsfeld overruled them. He didn't think it was necessary to protect anything but the oil wells.

That's what I heard from a friend who worked in the Navy, and who got to listen to high-ranking officers in their off time.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

It's not the officers in the field who have control these days. The system isn't like that anymore, hasn't been in a very very long time (not since WWII and Patton, really).

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

there has to be SOMETHING I could have done

I feel that way almost every time I turn on the news. The depressing thing is that I don't really feel I'm getting much better at figuring out what the somethings are that I could be doing right now.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

But. . . there has to be SOMETHING I could have done.

There was.
You voted against Bush. Quite frankly, right there that is something you did. It didn't work (more's the pity) but you did it.

You have also been speaking out against Bush, and that is another something. Again, it has not had any measureable effect, but you did it. And do it. And keep doing it.

There is a difference between, "Have I done everything I can be reasonably expected to do?" and "Have I done everything that is even remotely within my power to do?" and an even bigger difference bwteeen those two and, "If I had the power of prophecy, what could I have done to either prevent this or mitigate the worst of it?"

I bring up the last one because that's what you're asking yourself in the last several paragraphs, and it is a completely unfair question. You are not expected to have superpowers, no matter how much you want to have them. k?

There are a lot of us who wish this entire boondoggle never started in the first place, but there really are limits on what we are able to do about it. Curse this lack of superpowers...

No single person can move the world alone, but a single person can lead many people to do it together. This is a great strength, and right now it is also a crucial weakness because it's what's keeping the mess going.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

What he said.

When I think of people who are changing the world for the better, you are right at the top of the list.