Extreme Othering
I was watching a show on TV a couple days ago and it was all about wounded American soldiers coming back from Iraq. They all talked about how it was so important to take care of each other in the midst of life threatening danger. They said a lot about being there for each other and doing whatever was necessary to make sure they all came home together, and safe. These are things one would expect soldiers to say about dangerous times with close friends. They said something else too, which one would also expect soldiers to say, but it stuck in my mind for some reason.
They said that soldiers do not think about politics when it comes time to fight. They are assigned a task and they must complete it. This is absolutely true. The U.S. has the world’s largest, most professional standing army made up of all volunteers. It is the greatest army in the world and it and its individual soldiers have my utmost respect and gratitude for the job that they do.
What makes their job harder, though, is what the politicians do. They send the army in to do a job without thinking it all the way through. The soldiers on that show were from small towns in rural America, including upstate New York and Maine. Officers who have commanded combat units in Iraq have characterized their rank and file to me, off the record, as “know-nothing teenagers from Podunk America,” who have to deal with fighting Arab extremists in Iraq and also must be the experts at maintaining civil order and meting out justice. These men and women are doing the very best they can, but they were not trained for those tasks. Fighting, yes. Nation and society building? No.
I don’t get frustrated so much anymore, but I can remember when I was in my late teens and early twenties. Young men get frustrated. Being the target of a guerilla insurgency is frustrating. They kick down doors. They see Arab women without their hijabs, without their abayas. They create more guerillas every single time they do.
Certainly they don’t create more guerillas every time they act outside of the norms of Arab society and Islamic culture….
I have personally met Jordanians who are second generation refugees from Palestine who have told me in clear voices and with bright eyes that they would have no problem going to their grave if they knew they were exacting revenge against the enemies of Palestine, and in the next sentence telling me that they personally held the U.S. responsible for what happened to Palestine.
They were wrong, but that didn’t matter to them. I told them they were wrong, and they were nice enough to pretend to listen, and then they went right on hating the U.S., but they didn’t hate me. They had a long list of grievances with my country, but they thought I was a pretty good guy. Eventually, if you know enough good guys from a place you can separate the people from the policies and maybe eventually lend a real ear and engage in dialogue.
But…
As long as we have a critical mass of fighting men occupying holy sites and behaving like Westerners in and among the Arab population the animosity will not abate among those who decide not to look at the individuals as people. Granted, that is hard to do when they are all wearing the same uniform and keeping holed up behind blast-proof walls.
posted by Traveler at 3:01 PM
3 Comments:
This is an interesting post. I agree that the young soldiers are not trained for the mission they are carrying out, and poor planning is perhaps the biggest factor. Another is the basic opposition of a soldier's primary identity, which is that of a weapon, and the task at hand. To put it quite crudely, it is largely a case of the wrong tool for the job.
I will add these two points, however. The first, and less significant, is the fact that this army possesses a much higher average mean age than recent ones. The large quantity of reservists and guardsmen have transformed the staff into an older, more experienced and hopefully wiser group of individuals. Perhaps less frustrated, and more in tune with the role of parent and provider than conqueror.
Second, I have a case in point. A friend of mine has worked at a Boston homeless shelter for 15 years or so. He has been in the guard for 18 years. Last year he was called up and sent to Iraq, leaving his wife and four children at home. During his time there he was the only American stationed with a group of Iraqis handling the logistics of a large ammo dump. When I and my company shipped him boxes of holiday supplies, he shared them with the Iraqis and their families. He respected these men who were trying to stabilize and rebuild their country. When 20 of the men were killed by terrorists as they came to work one day, he organized an effort back in the US to collect stuffed animals for their orphaned children.
Whatever the chaos over there, and however little his efforts may have actually done to relieve tension between our cultures, I like to think that people like him exist and have a positive effect. As long as there are good men and women who act according to their convictions, I think there is hope for progress. However slim it may be.
Your feedback is important, and valid. I agree that there is always hope as long as good men follow their consciences and act according to their inner voices. A case in point from the same show was about a sniper in Fallujah who was harassing a marine unit throughout a firefight and felled a young marine in the fray. When the muezzin called the faithful to prayer he stopped shooting and allowed the fallen marine's commander to remove him from the field, holding his fire long past the traditional five minute interlude. The commander recounting this incident was visibly moved during the telling, and may have felt more than contempt for the opposing fighter. It did not stop him from ordering the building to be destroyed in order to neutralize the threat.
The American military has a great challenge in winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis. A few pieces of candy thrown from armored vehicles cannot undo generations of anti-American propaganda which I, as a patriot, must admit is not all unfounded.
I think the handover to a civilian government must necessarily occur before the entire country is completely pacified, and that an international UN force is needed to provide security support for the new government. As long as we're there in strength tehy'll keep picking fights with us.
Well said!
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