thedrifter
03-25-08, 08:07 AM
In the War of Ideas: Arrest Me, Please [Steve Schippert]
Some prisoners don't want to be released from detention in Iraq until their vocational training is complete. What's more, parents of juvenile detainees want their other young sons apprehended as well.
An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.
"In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies," Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.
The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees — adults and juveniles — being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad's international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.
Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.
This is what we call an exploitable seam in the War of Ideas - not to mention simply being the right thing to do. The proof is in the decreased recidivism rate. Yet prison is not the answer for the training; it can't be. Still, for the parents of juveniles who would prefer to have them hauled into prison, it seems to be the only avenue in their eyes.
The US military, he added, was not encouraging the trend.
"We don't want them to remain in detention," he said. "When they are no longer considered a threat we want them to go home."
Unfortunately, the AFP journalist presumably failed to dig a level deeper and ask about vocational training programs that are available (or not) outside the prisons.
If the incarcerated do not want to leave prison - and parents want their sons 'detained' in one - free-market American entrepreneurs should be economically swift enough to recognize a very clear demand that is not being fully met. The US military has delineated the security benefits; the Iraqis are demonstrating the demand.
While I strongly reject the notion that economic plight is at the root of terrorism (fanatical religious beliefs held by powerful, influental and violent men are), it can be a component. To address this component is important, especially when people like the Iraqis are asking us to do so in such compelling ways.
Consider my (abbreviated) house-fan analogy for al-Qaeda:
Today, al-Qaeda resembles a fan. The senior leadership - bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, Abu Hafs (Atef), et al - are the motor in the center. They drive the speed and direction of activity. Their aligned movements (AQAM) such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are the blades of the fan, most directly attached to the AQSL motor and most immediately reactive to its drive. The AQAM blades' mission is to push the wind. And that air around the blades represents the broader and less connected "movement" of al-Qaeda. The closer each individual molecule is to one of the blades - physically and ideologically - the more likely they too will become influenced and driven, once removed from the AQSL motor. The farther outlying air away from the blades sees some movement, but is more scattered and moves with decidedly less velocity. Yet it is still capable of blowing nonetheless.
The Iraqis in the story above are the air that the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) blade seeks to contact and direct, ultimately directed by the driving motor of al-Qaeda Senior Leadership (AQSL). If we can anchor a significant amount of the "molecules" with training and productivity, they are far more likely to be able to reject or resist the influence of the AQI fan blade (among others).
Recruiting is a key entrepreneurial component of the jihadist operation, but there are no better entrepreneurs on the planet than Americans. We are well equipped to fight fire with fire here. And that's what we're doing; there are training programs throughout Iraq. Clearly, however, there are not enough of them.
The question, then, is this: Have the Provincial Reconstruction Teams throughout Iraq been equipped to analyze vocational needs by region (province) and go about the process of implementing the appropriate programs?
The PRT's have evolved into incredibly effective coordinated operations, staffed with a cross-section of civilian diplomats, military personel and various other specialists. Perhaps they would benefit from adding a Vocational/Training Specialist billet to the teams if they do not already have such.
We don't require months of Pentagon or State Department anthropological study to figure this out. Just listen to the Iraqi prisoners and their parents.
Ellie
Some prisoners don't want to be released from detention in Iraq until their vocational training is complete. What's more, parents of juvenile detainees want their other young sons apprehended as well.
An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.
"In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies," Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.
The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees — adults and juveniles — being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad's international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.
Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.
This is what we call an exploitable seam in the War of Ideas - not to mention simply being the right thing to do. The proof is in the decreased recidivism rate. Yet prison is not the answer for the training; it can't be. Still, for the parents of juveniles who would prefer to have them hauled into prison, it seems to be the only avenue in their eyes.
The US military, he added, was not encouraging the trend.
"We don't want them to remain in detention," he said. "When they are no longer considered a threat we want them to go home."
Unfortunately, the AFP journalist presumably failed to dig a level deeper and ask about vocational training programs that are available (or not) outside the prisons.
If the incarcerated do not want to leave prison - and parents want their sons 'detained' in one - free-market American entrepreneurs should be economically swift enough to recognize a very clear demand that is not being fully met. The US military has delineated the security benefits; the Iraqis are demonstrating the demand.
While I strongly reject the notion that economic plight is at the root of terrorism (fanatical religious beliefs held by powerful, influental and violent men are), it can be a component. To address this component is important, especially when people like the Iraqis are asking us to do so in such compelling ways.
Consider my (abbreviated) house-fan analogy for al-Qaeda:
Today, al-Qaeda resembles a fan. The senior leadership - bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, Abu Hafs (Atef), et al - are the motor in the center. They drive the speed and direction of activity. Their aligned movements (AQAM) such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are the blades of the fan, most directly attached to the AQSL motor and most immediately reactive to its drive. The AQAM blades' mission is to push the wind. And that air around the blades represents the broader and less connected "movement" of al-Qaeda. The closer each individual molecule is to one of the blades - physically and ideologically - the more likely they too will become influenced and driven, once removed from the AQSL motor. The farther outlying air away from the blades sees some movement, but is more scattered and moves with decidedly less velocity. Yet it is still capable of blowing nonetheless.
The Iraqis in the story above are the air that the al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) blade seeks to contact and direct, ultimately directed by the driving motor of al-Qaeda Senior Leadership (AQSL). If we can anchor a significant amount of the "molecules" with training and productivity, they are far more likely to be able to reject or resist the influence of the AQI fan blade (among others).
Recruiting is a key entrepreneurial component of the jihadist operation, but there are no better entrepreneurs on the planet than Americans. We are well equipped to fight fire with fire here. And that's what we're doing; there are training programs throughout Iraq. Clearly, however, there are not enough of them.
The question, then, is this: Have the Provincial Reconstruction Teams throughout Iraq been equipped to analyze vocational needs by region (province) and go about the process of implementing the appropriate programs?
The PRT's have evolved into incredibly effective coordinated operations, staffed with a cross-section of civilian diplomats, military personel and various other specialists. Perhaps they would benefit from adding a Vocational/Training Specialist billet to the teams if they do not already have such.
We don't require months of Pentagon or State Department anthropological study to figure this out. Just listen to the Iraqi prisoners and their parents.
Ellie