The new US Army handbook for our soldiers operating in Afghanistan literally blames America first, for the 63 US troops who have been murdered by Afghan soldiers and police they were attempting to train.
A draft of the handbook, which has not be published yet, was leaked to the Wall Street Journal.According to the manual:
“Better situational awareness/understanding of Afghan culture will help better prepare [troops] to more effectively partner and to avoid cultural conflict that can lead toward green-on-blue violence.”
Fine, that doesn’t sound out of line at first read. It’s bad manners to go out of your way to offend your hosts.
It’s in the details that things go awry. The manual instructs US troops working with Afghan counterparts not to criticize the Taliban, which was the unelected radical government that not too long ago was chopping off hands and heads while nurturing al Qaeda and its terrorist training camps. The Taliban is ostensibly the reason we’re still in that country fighting a war. But don’t say bad things about the Taliban around the local troops we’re training to fight the Taliban. The manual also instructs soldiers not to speak out in favor of women’s rights, or say anything about several other taboo topics including saying anything negative about Islam or criticizing pedophilia.
Yes, seriously. Pedophilia. Criticizing buggering children might get you killed, so the Army brass says don’t go there.
And don’t even talk about teh ghey.
If we’re not in Afghanistan to export the tolerance inherent to our Western culture, why are we still there? If we can’t even train Afghan soldiers and police to be civilized and fight the Taliban enemy instead of fighting us, what’s the point of training them at all?
h/t Mark Steyn
The policies laid out in this “manual” serve as a great illustration of a manifestation of moral relativism at its worst. Pedophiles should be castrated. Period.
Of course, the unofficial handbook General Dempsey is trying to make civilians obey is an issue to. At least he won’t have you arrested in the middle of the night if you offend Muslim sensibilities. But he will make the phone call.
Sometimes you can sacrifice too much for a victory. I say we permanently keep an out-post to stage retaliatory raids if needs be (as a warning that we are coming knocking the next 9/11 type strike with Afghan connections) and let the Afghani’s fight over the rest, as they wish.
Why in the name of Elvis dead on the can in Graceland are we throwing away our best youths’ lives and limbs, and our nation’s treasure, on a $%*&ing CONTRADICTION IN TERMS?! GET. OUT. NOW. And if the Mighty Jihad comes after our interests again, we ANNIHILATE THE COUNTRY.
What’s funny is that telling your troops not to criticize pedophilia is the same as saying that you think Afghans ARE all pedophiles. This the manual itself is insulting.
This isn’t the first time the Army has suffered from such stupidity. Around the 1960′s it was decided that the US position in Western Europe was too aggressive and threatening. Certainly the vastly larger Soviet juggernaut might feel intimidated and go to war out of fear.
So they came up with a new defensive plan called “Garden Gate.” Nice and touchy feely that. Certainly it wouldn’t frighten the giant Russian Bear into attacking.
Good thing the Russians didn’t because the plan acted just like its namesake in wargames. The “Soviet” forces again and again blew right through barely slowing down. Garden Gate would have seen them in Paris before the first ships of reinforcements from the US mainland could arrive.
Then there’s Vietnam, Lebanon, etc.
Don’t fart or spit in front of people who molest sheep or wipe with their left hand because they’ll be offended into a killing frenzy at how unclean we are.
Since joining the U.N. we have failed to fight a war to win. We’ve actually won a couple in spit of our leadership (Granada, and umm, well umm, did I mention Grenada?) We almost one the first war with Iraq, but we quit when we got to the border, kind of like we did in Korea.
In WWII when we fought to win the war and hearts and minds of the defeated be damned, and in doing that we created two strong and loyal democracies. Since then, not so much.
Every time we get attacked, a village should be leveled. Be it from Afghanistan or Pakistan. Eventually the populace will get tired of fighting (and losing) and get leadership that wants to live in peace.
That’s how you obtain peace in the world, when some nutball dictator decides to attack his neighbor, level one of his cities, he’ll think twice before repeating it.
The Brits used to do that. Afghan tribesmen would act up, Brits would fly over in their DH-9s and drop a few bombs on some village. It didn’t help much. I don’t think modern weaponry would make the tactic more effective. Using $20 million airplanes to drop $25,000 JDAMs on $2 mud huts is not cost effective in the long run.
Pretty sad that more american citizens who claim such intellect don’t research and understand the history of U.S. Nation Building and its strategies. Its the new world order of ‘colonialism’ without permenent military occupation by members of the Western European indocrinations. The CFR is an underground organization of sorts who control western civilizations economic and foreign relations strategies. A very twisted bunch of self proclaimed intellectual elites.
Sadly, the GOP is full of such nation building subscribers and strategists within and outside the CFR.
At some time in the future, legitimate historians will reveal that the nation building strategy was a repeated failure in the end and that some levels and areas of isolationism is a good and appropriate thing for the cause of relatively overall global peace.
Nation building has perpetuated regional geoploitical resistance between such powers as Russia, China, the U.S. and various religious regions such as tne Middle East. It attempts manipulates global economies and perpetuate military arms races and and social and political conflict.
Its all about global control and supremacy by a select few nations intellects –a new world continuation of Western colonialism.
Dear All:Does the term “Perverted Onus” ring true here,and nearly everywhere else? If so,please start using it.If it gets into widespread useage,perhaps it will help.
I think this sums up the basic problem we have working with primitive Muslims. We can build all the schools and pass out all the candy we like, but no amount of goodwill can bridge the gap of blood and religion that separates us from the Afghans. The Taliban are family, fellow tribe members, and fellow Muslims. Americans are foreigners and unbelievers. We are the bad guys.
If we stay in Afghanistan for another five hundred years, building bridges and passing out candy, we *might* change their minds. But I think they’d need to kill a LOT more American infidels before they ever got to that point. I’m not sure they’re worth it.
Part of the problem IS cultural ignorance: We are dealing with a culture that accepts violence as a natural recourse for almost any trivial slight.
For example, 17th-century Pashto poet Khushal Khan Khattak:
“Pull out your sword and slay any one, that says Pashtun and Afghan are not one! Arabs know this and so do Romans: Afghans are Pashtuns, Pashtuns are Afghans!”
Alrighty then, kill anyone who disagrees over the ethnic identification of Afghans with Pashtuns. This alone is enough to justify endless warfare with Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun minorities.
But the point is, they set a very, very low bar for “Pull out your sword and slay any one…”
Really low.
Just think how many Afghans would be dead today if we had the same warped ideas of when violence is appropriate.
I’ve seen wild animals with higher culture
“One of the serious problems in planning against American doctrine that the Americans do not read their manuals nor do they feel any obligations to follow their doctrine.” — From a Russian military document
We must think alike.
Nobody in the sandbox is going to give that particular FM much attention.
There is a law on unintended consequences associated with PC BS in the field, whether it’s this crap, the perceived mistreatment of murderous jihadi goat-f*king prisoners or rules of engagement designed to advantage the bad guy and get you killed.
As far as mistreating prisoners goes, have you noticed that they just don’t take that many any more?
There is no point.
“The problem isn’t that we are engaged in nation-building. The problem is that we do it so poorly. The U.S military hasn’t fully embraced it as a part of its mission, and neither has the State Department. The job often falls to the U.S. Agency for International Development, but it is so under-resourced that it has become little more than a contract-oversight office.” -CFR
Nation buildings sounds more like a UN mandate than something the US should be doing, particularly the military. The US military could stay on hand as real peacekeepers (unlike the UN Blue Helmets who become part of the problem, but that’s another story), but the UN should handle setting up governments and all that. If the UN cuts and runs, like it did from Afghanistan a long time ago because it got a little boo boo, then the US should have left as well making the UN own whatever came afterwards.
Thane – Actually the UN charter designates the countries to carry out policing the world. Those designated nations were Russia, France, UK, China and the U.S. Do you note anything peculiar about these countries? All allies during WWII. Doesn’t say much for the intellectual elite of the time — or today does it? The brilliant nation building strategy is a product of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Neither intellectual concept has proven to be successful inspite of those who make great claims to the contrary. They all make their claims of vistory in the moment and refuse to yeild to longer term history as the judge.