More "population based counterinsurgency" at work

[Cain]

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2011/01/13/the-unforgivable-horror-of-village-razing/

Joshua Foust takes apart an account by a PhD student from King's College, London, where she enthusiastically describes how an Afghan village being menaced by the Taliban is utterly obliterated by massive aerial bombardment.  There were no civilian casualties, fortunately, but in order to "not lose momentum", they decided just to flatten the entire settlement once the Taliban had been driven off.

Oh, and it gets better.  Turns out the soldiers responsible allowed the local governor to vet candidates to "rebuild" the homes, ie; buy up all the land in the area and not even have to worry about evicting the former owners, since the USAF and SF had already so kindly done the work.  The grad student blows off the bitching by the villagers by pointing out that the ISAF has done tremendous amounts of work to stabilize Afghanistan and they should, in fact, be grateful for what happened.  Not even kidding about that part.

Gosh, I wonder why more and more Afghans are seeming to be joining the ranks of the Taliban?

[Adios]

What happened to winning their hearts and minds?

[LMNO]

It's amazing that we still have to destroy the villiage in order to save it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What happened to winning their hearts and minds?

Land is more profitable.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's amazing that we still have to destroy the villiage in order to save it.

"We are not 'napalming villages'.  We are delivering ordnance to a predetermined target location."
- Unnamed Air Force Colonel, 1969.  No shit.

[Adios]

It's amazing that we still have to destroy the villiage in order to save it.

It's for their own good. Trust me.

[Jenne]

...I think winning the hearts and minds became "too complicated."  Learning to navigate such a complex thing as a culture that's very much different from your own, let alone a government steeped in tyranny, depravity and corruption makes for a difficult study to execute.  The US got lazy and decided that firepower, 10 years later, is easier to use than compassion and negotiation.

On the flipside, having tried hard to win the hearts and minds of my own in-laws, part of me doesn't blame them for thinking it very much a lost cause, even if the US, in actuality, contributed heavily to the losing side of that cause.  Since the outset.  Goodwill was hard to come by after spending so many years at war with people that really don't like you, want you there or understand what you say and what you mean when you say it.

[Cain]

An Associate Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College adds:

The issue is the complete dishumanization of the Afghan people.  Broadwell demonstrats no sense of realization of the horror implicit in this story.  She seems to have no conception that these people's homes — even if we rebuilt them better than before — were not just shelter, but homes.  Buried in that rubble is the wooden box where an Afghan mother kept a lock of her children's hair.  Buried in that rubble is a man's only picture of his dead father. Buried in that rubble is a child's favorite toy.

The idea, implicit in Broadwell (and in much of the COIN literature) is that Afghans are nothing more than material goods maximizing automatons. If we destroy their homes and then rebuild one with, say, with more room and running water, then not only should be grateful (the imperialist mindset), but will be grateful (the COIN mindset). If we occupy their country and destroy their local institutions, but somehow marginally raise their standard of living, they will thank us for it. It is both a morally bankrupt approach and delusional.

The story itself is sad enough.  The attitudes demostrated by Broadwell are wholly appalling.  There is a "banality of evil" feel to this that is very, very unsettling.

[Phox]

 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Welcome to the Empire™, Phoxie.

[Phox]

Welcome to the Empire™, Phoxie.

Glad to be here, Roger. It's slightly better than being on the outside.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Welcome to the Empire™, Phoxie.

Glad to be here, Roger. It's slightly better than being on the outside.

Tetanus is slightly better than botulism.  At least at first.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

An Associate Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College adds:

The issue is the complete dishumanization of the Afghan people.  Broadwell demonstrats no sense of realization of the horror implicit in this story.  She seems to have no conception that these people's homes — even if we rebuilt them better than before — were not just shelter, but homes.  Buried in that rubble is the wooden box where an Afghan mother kept a lock of her children's hair.  Buried in that rubble is a man's only picture of his dead father. Buried in that rubble is a child's favorite toy.

The idea, implicit in Broadwell (and in much of the COIN literature) is that Afghans are nothing more than material goods maximizing automatons. If we destroy their homes and then rebuild one with, say, with more room and running water, then not only should be grateful (the imperialist mindset), but will be grateful (the COIN mindset). If we occupy their country and destroy their local institutions, but somehow marginally raise their standard of living, they will thank us for it. It is both a morally bankrupt approach and delusional.

The story itself is sad enough.  The attitudes demostrated by Broadwell are wholly appalling.  There is a "banality of evil" feel to this that is very, very unsettling.

It's like that time God gave Satan permission to kill all of Job's kids, but then totally made up for it by giving him a new set of even better kids, including uber hot daughters.

[Phox]

Welcome to the Empire™, Phoxie.

Glad to be here, Roger. It's slightly better than being on the outside.

Tetanus is slightly better than botulism.  At least at first.

Good point.

[Adios]

Welcome to the Empire™, Phoxie.

Since our Empire began this has been going on. Look up Wounded Knee.