grow a pair. war is barbaric. except that. this is not new york city. The IA is not the NYCPD. You can not bring civilazation to a warfront. It is that kind of thinking that leads our soldiers to be fighting with an attorney in the foxhole with them. War is hell. Deal with it.
unseen on May 12, 2008 at 10:11 PM

On so many issues, the self-proclaimed “worldly” view liberals take mirrors that of a spoiled child. Newflash Just because this kind of behavior wouldn’t be appropriate in the mall you hang out in, that doesn’t mean it’s not appropriate in a terrorized country.

But I do agree with what a lot of the critics are saying, it’s inappropriate to do this kind of thing without wrapping the body in a pigskin. It sends entirely the wrong message.

Expect Teddy K to waive this picture around on the Senate floor.

Surely a staffer can provide Ted a bloody shirt to wave.

Your flaw in your argument is believing that treating them honorably influences people in that region. It doesn’t.

You’re wrong on three counts. First, is the message. The audience is not just Iraqis in a particular neighborhood. In fact it is part of a broader and larger concept of a global PSYOPS war. Not only do Iraqis see this sort of stuff but Muslims and non Muslims alike, including domestic consumption.

Second, who we are and our mission. Part of our success in counter insurgency has been our ability to move forces downstream into community level control. This means smaller units living and operating in close proximity with the population. This affords troops the ability to begin to interact with locals and develop relationships with local leadership and the broader population. It is critical for our forces to be seen as operating by a higher standard than the bastards we’re fighting and the SOBs we replaced. This builds trust and avenues of communication, which are essential.

Thirdly, who are we supporting and what are their values: This sort of display shows a lack of discipline among the Iraqi troops. This has a wild west feel to it. This suggests a general lack of discipline which increases the potential of Iraqi forces doing other things which could be much worse and create problems. Shooting prisoners, throwing someone off a building, torture, kick backs etc..

You want a professional military that is seen as adopting the sort of esprit de corp that differentiates a thugish military from one that follows rules and orders. If you want the general population to trust the military and support the institution then it needs to embrace high standards. Local support gives back a hundred fold and enables our forces and Iraqis the ability to identify and eliminate bad guys.

Iraqis recognize that the Iraqi military is subordinate to US forces. Whatever happens is viewed as happening with the tacit approval of the US military and is reflective of the US. We don’t need the black eye.

We’ve already seen the resulting maelstrom because we treated the known master minds behind 9/11 “harshly” and now you’re talking about pigs, firing squads and a pit burial?

I fully appreciate the idea of Pershing’s world view and methods, but you just can’t do that stuff in a vacuum anymore.

moxie_neanderthal on May 12, 2008 at 11:51 PM

Your flaw in your argument is believing that treating them honorably influences people in that region. It doesn’t.

The idea is not to do it in a vacuum; it take away the deterrent.

Johan Klaus on May 13, 2008 at 1:00 AM

Executing prisoners first of all is generally not acceptable except in extreme circumstances. As you suggest, imbuing the executions with religious prohibitions that are calculated to inflame Muslim sentiments is just not wise.

It is very doubtful that a Black Jack solution would have the desired effect of subduing the natives and would likely result in more attacks and more savagery. Do you really want to legitimize the sort of torture and savagery our enemies use? This sort of tactic would be a PR disaster and would cause serious repercussions. We don’t need to do that sort of thing to win. If you’re going to be the new sherrif in town it is best to demonstrate better discipline, higher principles and the rule of law. Taken together, these are the core elements of fighting a counter insurgency.

Read John Nagl’s book for more.

Excuse me, but I believe if I remember history correctly…America and other European countries used to display the severed heads of known pirates on the bows of their warships as a warning against high crimes at sea…so cut the outrage

I don’t think very many people are outraged but I think people are taking issue with the event for many of the reasons I mentioned above. Putting guys on the hoods of jeeps is not all that terrible but it does set a bad example and communicates something to the Iraqi troops and to the civilian population that is counter productive in the long run.

This kinda crap always comes back to haunt us. If I was a member of their MiTT team, I would ream them upside and back and make sure their superiors punished them for this.

They probably wouldn’t understand your anger, their superiors certainly wouldn’t punish them, and you might be burning some bridges. Best thing to do is explain what this looks like in film/TV/media, and why you should change SOP a bit to include covering the dead. If they hear you respectfullly (yet strongly) do that – best chance of getting a change. I’m going to try it, m’self.

This was some IA transporting the enemy dead (looked like near Basrah Gates to me). A tarp would have been proper, but that is for our sensibilities. I will be advising the IA I work with to consider doing just that.

right2bright,
It’s Bashra

bnelson44 on May 12, 2008 at 7:32 PM

Your the kind of guy that probably blurts out the punch line to a joke before it is finished…

consider it excused.

“If you strap your enemy to the hood of your truck, you might be an Iraqi redneck.” -Abdul Foxworthy

ThePrez on May 12, 2008 at 7:33 PM

…lauuhhginh so hhhared I cann harrdldy type.

I fully appreciate the idea of Pershing’s world view and methods, but you just can’t do that stuff in a vacuum anymore.

moxie_neanderthal on May 12, 2008 at 11:51 PM

The idea is not to do it in a vacuum; it take away the deterrent.

Darvin Dowdy on May 12, 2008 at 9:01 PM

Right on.

Somalis did far worse to OUR Forces in Mogadishu.

The same Troops that the Clinton Regime did not support!

That is the exact opposite of how we acted in the Philippines. We killed them, desecrated them and let everyone know we meant business. It worked well too.

That was back when we were still happy to win; now we are so overcome by guilt, I think we’re afraid of winning. I don’t know how I feel about this…on one hand, I think of the monsters we have here in America…sitting on death row, some of them getting fan mail, writing children’s books…and I think..I kinda miss the ‘bad’ old days when said thug criminal would have been hung by the neck with a crowd of people cheering him on to hell.
So, in the middle east, we have a thug terrorist cum hood ornament. Could he be one of those Al Quaeda guys that were cooking peoples children and serving them to the rest of the family as a way of getting compliance? Should I really care that someone decided to get some payback for something like that? Would I do any less to someone who killed one of my kids? I daresay if it had been one of my kids, the remains would be in a garbage bag instead of on the hood….perhaps given the brutalities the people there suffered from the terrorists, we should leave it up to them how they dispose of the thugs.

That is the exact opposite of how we acted in the Philippines. We killed them, desecrated them and let everyone know we meant business. It worked well too.

Tim Burton on May 12, 2008 at 11:25 PM

Well, if you want to resurrect the old Black Jack Pershing tale and use that as a guide book for a lively conversation,be my guest. But the realities of what you’re suggesting would be extremely counter productive.

We’ve already seen the resulting maelstrom because we treated the known master minds behind 9/11 “harshly” and now you’re talking about pigs, firing squads and a pit burial?

I fully appreciate the idea of Pershing’s world view and methods, but you just can’t do that stuff in a vacuum anymore.

As I look at this photo I’m thinking; This vehicle is powered by 72 virgins.