Is this really a good idea? Anonymous officer thinks so!
"The tanks bring awe, shock and firepower," the officer said. "It's pretty significant."
That doesn't sound like a way to win hearts and minds to some people, but anonymous officer knows better, as does his boss:
"Petraeus believes counterinsurgency does not mean just handing out sacks of wheat seed," said a senior officer in Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency "doesn't mean you don't blow up stuff or kill people who need to be killed."
Let's talk about blowing up stuff and killing people. The silly people who's stuff is getting blown up wonder why their stuff is getting blown up, and don't seem to like it.
"Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?" a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.
And we understand farmer's point. But farmer doesn't seem to understand the way anonymous officer does! See, when we blow up farmer's fields and homes, that is a good thing for farmer, because he gets the privilege of filing a complaint!
Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.
Maybe we should start blowing stuff up everywhere that the government isn't connected to the people! The people's stuff, of course. Not the government.
Although the officer acknowledged that the use of tanks this many years into the war could be seen as a sign of desperation by some Afghans and Americans, he said they will provide the Marines with an important new tool in missions to flush out pockets of insurgent fighters.
"Pockets of insurgent fighters" are who must be "flushed out." In other words, anyone who doesn't like foreign armies blowing up their fields and homes and slaughtering their family needs to be killed. Why?
...to protect Afghan civilians from insurgents.
Has anyone asked these Afghan civilians what they think? If they want more 68 ton tanks? If they want Petraeus or anonymous officer in their backyard? Of course not. Why ask them when we could just talk to anonymous officer?
Anyway, you might be wondering how Petraeus can get away with this, yet alone live with himself. Don't worry, he's doing just fine!
"Because Petraeus is the author of the COIN [counterinsurgency] manual, he can do whatever he wants. He can manage the optics better than McChrystal could," the adviser said. "If he wants to turn it up to 11, he feels he has the moral authority to do it."He can get away with anything and feels morally justified because he wrote a book about how to kill people, and because he can manage optics. I'm pretty sure that "optics" means The Washington Post.
Update: Arthur Silber comments on the same article, including a genuine compliment to its author for his fairly straightforward depiction of the evil under discussion. Arthur's entire essay, as always, is well worth reading.
Update 2: Yeah, the more I think about it, "optics" means US domestic media - TV networks, local papers - more than the Washington Post. This comment seems right to me.
2 comments:
“Maybe we should start blowing stuff up everywhere that the government isn't connected to the people! The people's stuff, of course. Not the government.”
And he means blowing up stuff other than stuff on our soil. If the sides were reversed, this idea would be preposterous. “Blowing stuff up” to create cohesion between the government and its people is an offensive disregard for the infrastructural and environmental damage that is incurred by this cohesion. Not to mention the delusion that filing paperwork for destroyed property is somehow going to "connect the government and it's people". It is borderline insulting that the officer believes this explanation could be published for public eyes. Are we, the public, really conceived as being that blind and ignorant?
I think what the officer meant to say is “We need to justify why we continue to attack and kill innocent civilians, and importantly, make people believe that our decisions are for the people, and not self serving. Even if this is not the case”
I actually did mean that, by the logic of anonymous officer, we ought to start blowing stuff up on US soil where people aren't connected to the government. But you're absolutely right that considering the reaction if the sides were reversed is revealing: consider 9-11. By anonymous officer's logic, 9-11 was a great thing because people rallied behind their government. And, in fact, that clearly is what the ruling faction thinks - see the neocons openly longing for a "new Pearl Harbor" not long before 9/11.
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