thedrifter
01-09-09, 08:15 AM
Stretched too thin: Tough questions for U.S. troops as they move forward in the Global War on Terror
January 8, 11:37 AM
by Elizabeth Kurtz, DC Military Community Examiner
A few tough questions that should be asked more often about war:
How do we kill dispassionately and retain the capacity to teach compassion to others?
How do we kill discriminately and remain humanitarians who don’t discriminate?
How do we start again, having acquired an unwanted wisdom – and be better for it? Can we be better for it? Or is our capacity for caring and empathy irreparably damaged?
I’ve met many combat veterans who appear to have dealt reasonably well with the stresses of war. (I say “appear” because I can’t presume to know exactly what’s on their minds, though I’d like to think I’m permitted to guess.) I’ve met veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, who have families, hold jobs, and do all the things we associate with the “average” healthy lifestyle. I usually balk at the word “average,” but I think you see my point: What I mean is that I’ve met plenty of combat veterans who still find meaning in stability, who are completely unlike the stereotype of combat veterans – the homeless drunkards; the tattooed junkies; the Harley anti-Hippies, chain-smoking with their t-shirts stretched thin over their stomachs, who cling to some kind of hard and eternal truth accessible only through drugs and drink.
The vets I’ve met are mostly clean-cut men and women who find more meaning in simple things that, before, they took for granted. They sympathize with the small and the inane, and the big picture doesn’t bother them (or it doesn’t bother them like it used to). They’re not unfeeling or out-of-touch (though they may have more difficulty with certain feelings than some of us).
In general, American soldiers are known for being the antithesis of the “standard” soldier. They smile for the camera, kick soccer balls around with street kids, and play practical jokes a lot (when they’re not conducting serious business). No doubt they’re effective because they’re tough, but they’re also effective because, on a very basic level, they care about people and want to do their best to help them. Which raises an interesting question, given the climate in which we’re currently fighting: When it’s hard to tell who’s a friend and who’s an enemy, how does the American soldier maintain his or her capacity for caring (which is essential to winning over civilian populations) and the modicum of suspicion needed to sniff out the bad guys (which – duh – is essential to beating them)?
Historically, American soldiers, however non-standard, have also been seen as liberators and standard-bearers, rather than aggressors and rule-breakers. One of their primary missions, in every conflict, has been to convince civilians that they’re there to help – not hurt – them. This, for example, was the case in World War II, when American forces invaded North Africa and encountered local Arab and Muslim populations whose loyalty wavered, depending on who they thought would win and control their future standard of living. It’s also the case today, only the “help, not hurt” model is more complicated than it seems.
Theoretically, we want to “help, not hurt” civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in reality, we do both. Let’s not rehash arguments about the morality of carrying out air strikes or ground assaults that result in civilian casualties. (That’s been done elsewhere.) What’s important here is that “civilian” is a concept unclearly defined in the war zones where U.S. troops currently operate. Combatants are members of home-grown militias – not nationally-organized armies with standardized uniforms – and they blend into civilian populations. In practice, civilians and combatants are often indistinguishable, and that’s where the “compassion” training troops receive gets tricky.
As in World War II, troops today are instructed to “try to see things from their [the civilians’] perspective,” as a patient at Walter Reed told me. (I volunteer at Walter Reed on weekends.) The armed forces now provide culture and language lessons to troops and tell them to try to understand events on the ground from the perspective of Arab, Muslim, and Afghani/Iraqi cultures. Aside from being a “nice” thing to do, this is essential to operational security and success, since cultural misunderstandings can create operational mishaps, which only antagonize local populations and make winning more difficult.
You might think that enhancing inter-cultural awareness in the military is relatively easy, since inter-cultural awareness is nothing new to Americans. We send our college students abroad to better understand their own and other cultures and to break down barriers to inter-cultural tolerance. Is it too much to ask the same of our (mostly college-age) soldiers?
More fundamentally – and I’ll ask this the not-easy or sugar-coated way – can soldiers be both ambassadors of our country and killers? Because, fundamentally, as many in the services will tell you, the job of a soldier is to defend the Constitution – by the use of deadly force, if necessary.
Can and should soldiers be expected to play both good and bad cop? A smart cop can play both, but war is less about being smart than about surviving, and survival, while it requires smarts, is much more about instinct. You won’t survive if you’re stupid, but you also won’t survive if you try to map out all the possible contingency plans with different-colored markers when you’re under attack and have to make split-second, life-or-death decisions.
What mix of smarts and instinct is appropriate when you’re not sure whether that bulge under a woman’s coat is a baby or a loaf of bread or a weapon concealed by a man disguised as a woman? Trying to make split-second, instinctive decisions and react rationally, applying lessons in empathy and compassion (i.e. enact some cultural awareness), is nerve-wracking beyond belief and, from what I’ve seen, often results in total indifference to the culture troops are supposed to try to understand.
"Dey try to tell ya, 'See it from theyah pahspective, try t' undahstand it theyah way,'" a 30-something soldier from Boston told me once, "but dat's just a bunch of bulls**t. I mean, the Ko-ran says, 'Kill all Christians.' Da whole thing, y' could use it for toy-let papah. I knew dis guy used to write ‘F**k Mohammed’ on the back of his helmet’ and weyah it ahround just to pi** off the Arabs. We did little things like that all the time.”
Another, 20-something soldier told me, “The people over there didn't have no sense of - it was like, you'd be driving down the street in a tank and they'd just, like, they'd run out in front of it like we wasn't gonna hit them or nothing. I mean, it's just crazy. Like, grown adults with their kids and all. Even though they have sidewalks, they'd just step into the street wherever, without no regard for traffic, you know? And man, I mean, like, me, I love kids, but those are some mean-a** kids. These kids are not cute." He kind of laughed at that point. "Not normal. If I were drivin' down the street at home and it was some American kid ran in front of me, I'd stop, sure, but these kids, no, I'd keep right on going. I don't give a s**t about some Iraqi kids."
I know: Not all soldiers are so dismissive or cynical, and many of those who are do their jobs just fine. So, where's the problem here?
Some measure of inter-cultural understanding is necessary to win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as has been pointed out many times already (by military commanders and other media outlets), our troops are stretched thin in more ways than one. It’s not only that there are too few forces for the fight and not enough time to train them. Troops also have too many tasks. To an extent that I believe is approaching unreasonable, troops are being asked to take on the jobs of diplomats. My own view is that soldiers must be peacekeepers and should be “ambassadors” of their country, insofar as they demonstrate the commitment to professionalism and fairness that Americans are known for. But a stronger civilian diplomatic presence is necessary on the ground. More people from the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development should be placed in Iraq and Afghanistan in a public capacity – the same as our troops. (Covert efforts conducted by intelligence agencies are necessary but aren’t enough.) These people should help build partnerships between troops and civilians, using their own knowledge of other cultures and languages. Because right now, we’re asking many of our troops to do the impossible – to be both compassionate and dispassionate toward the people they’re trying to make both war and peace with.
In another era, none of this might be as important as it is now. After World War II, Americans retired to their respective hemisphere for the next, roughly, 50 years. In recent decades, the internet, NAFTA, and September 11th, among other things, have introduced a new era – one in which we’re not only citizens of our own nations, but of the world. Our social consciousness now permanently includes people beyond our own borders. And while we might still make war, can we afford to seek peace and spread tolerance under conditions that may make us less tolerant?
Just a thought.
Ellie
January 8, 11:37 AM
by Elizabeth Kurtz, DC Military Community Examiner
A few tough questions that should be asked more often about war:
How do we kill dispassionately and retain the capacity to teach compassion to others?
How do we kill discriminately and remain humanitarians who don’t discriminate?
How do we start again, having acquired an unwanted wisdom – and be better for it? Can we be better for it? Or is our capacity for caring and empathy irreparably damaged?
I’ve met many combat veterans who appear to have dealt reasonably well with the stresses of war. (I say “appear” because I can’t presume to know exactly what’s on their minds, though I’d like to think I’m permitted to guess.) I’ve met veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, who have families, hold jobs, and do all the things we associate with the “average” healthy lifestyle. I usually balk at the word “average,” but I think you see my point: What I mean is that I’ve met plenty of combat veterans who still find meaning in stability, who are completely unlike the stereotype of combat veterans – the homeless drunkards; the tattooed junkies; the Harley anti-Hippies, chain-smoking with their t-shirts stretched thin over their stomachs, who cling to some kind of hard and eternal truth accessible only through drugs and drink.
The vets I’ve met are mostly clean-cut men and women who find more meaning in simple things that, before, they took for granted. They sympathize with the small and the inane, and the big picture doesn’t bother them (or it doesn’t bother them like it used to). They’re not unfeeling or out-of-touch (though they may have more difficulty with certain feelings than some of us).
In general, American soldiers are known for being the antithesis of the “standard” soldier. They smile for the camera, kick soccer balls around with street kids, and play practical jokes a lot (when they’re not conducting serious business). No doubt they’re effective because they’re tough, but they’re also effective because, on a very basic level, they care about people and want to do their best to help them. Which raises an interesting question, given the climate in which we’re currently fighting: When it’s hard to tell who’s a friend and who’s an enemy, how does the American soldier maintain his or her capacity for caring (which is essential to winning over civilian populations) and the modicum of suspicion needed to sniff out the bad guys (which – duh – is essential to beating them)?
Historically, American soldiers, however non-standard, have also been seen as liberators and standard-bearers, rather than aggressors and rule-breakers. One of their primary missions, in every conflict, has been to convince civilians that they’re there to help – not hurt – them. This, for example, was the case in World War II, when American forces invaded North Africa and encountered local Arab and Muslim populations whose loyalty wavered, depending on who they thought would win and control their future standard of living. It’s also the case today, only the “help, not hurt” model is more complicated than it seems.
Theoretically, we want to “help, not hurt” civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in reality, we do both. Let’s not rehash arguments about the morality of carrying out air strikes or ground assaults that result in civilian casualties. (That’s been done elsewhere.) What’s important here is that “civilian” is a concept unclearly defined in the war zones where U.S. troops currently operate. Combatants are members of home-grown militias – not nationally-organized armies with standardized uniforms – and they blend into civilian populations. In practice, civilians and combatants are often indistinguishable, and that’s where the “compassion” training troops receive gets tricky.
As in World War II, troops today are instructed to “try to see things from their [the civilians’] perspective,” as a patient at Walter Reed told me. (I volunteer at Walter Reed on weekends.) The armed forces now provide culture and language lessons to troops and tell them to try to understand events on the ground from the perspective of Arab, Muslim, and Afghani/Iraqi cultures. Aside from being a “nice” thing to do, this is essential to operational security and success, since cultural misunderstandings can create operational mishaps, which only antagonize local populations and make winning more difficult.
You might think that enhancing inter-cultural awareness in the military is relatively easy, since inter-cultural awareness is nothing new to Americans. We send our college students abroad to better understand their own and other cultures and to break down barriers to inter-cultural tolerance. Is it too much to ask the same of our (mostly college-age) soldiers?
More fundamentally – and I’ll ask this the not-easy or sugar-coated way – can soldiers be both ambassadors of our country and killers? Because, fundamentally, as many in the services will tell you, the job of a soldier is to defend the Constitution – by the use of deadly force, if necessary.
Can and should soldiers be expected to play both good and bad cop? A smart cop can play both, but war is less about being smart than about surviving, and survival, while it requires smarts, is much more about instinct. You won’t survive if you’re stupid, but you also won’t survive if you try to map out all the possible contingency plans with different-colored markers when you’re under attack and have to make split-second, life-or-death decisions.
What mix of smarts and instinct is appropriate when you’re not sure whether that bulge under a woman’s coat is a baby or a loaf of bread or a weapon concealed by a man disguised as a woman? Trying to make split-second, instinctive decisions and react rationally, applying lessons in empathy and compassion (i.e. enact some cultural awareness), is nerve-wracking beyond belief and, from what I’ve seen, often results in total indifference to the culture troops are supposed to try to understand.
"Dey try to tell ya, 'See it from theyah pahspective, try t' undahstand it theyah way,'" a 30-something soldier from Boston told me once, "but dat's just a bunch of bulls**t. I mean, the Ko-ran says, 'Kill all Christians.' Da whole thing, y' could use it for toy-let papah. I knew dis guy used to write ‘F**k Mohammed’ on the back of his helmet’ and weyah it ahround just to pi** off the Arabs. We did little things like that all the time.”
Another, 20-something soldier told me, “The people over there didn't have no sense of - it was like, you'd be driving down the street in a tank and they'd just, like, they'd run out in front of it like we wasn't gonna hit them or nothing. I mean, it's just crazy. Like, grown adults with their kids and all. Even though they have sidewalks, they'd just step into the street wherever, without no regard for traffic, you know? And man, I mean, like, me, I love kids, but those are some mean-a** kids. These kids are not cute." He kind of laughed at that point. "Not normal. If I were drivin' down the street at home and it was some American kid ran in front of me, I'd stop, sure, but these kids, no, I'd keep right on going. I don't give a s**t about some Iraqi kids."
I know: Not all soldiers are so dismissive or cynical, and many of those who are do their jobs just fine. So, where's the problem here?
Some measure of inter-cultural understanding is necessary to win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as has been pointed out many times already (by military commanders and other media outlets), our troops are stretched thin in more ways than one. It’s not only that there are too few forces for the fight and not enough time to train them. Troops also have too many tasks. To an extent that I believe is approaching unreasonable, troops are being asked to take on the jobs of diplomats. My own view is that soldiers must be peacekeepers and should be “ambassadors” of their country, insofar as they demonstrate the commitment to professionalism and fairness that Americans are known for. But a stronger civilian diplomatic presence is necessary on the ground. More people from the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development should be placed in Iraq and Afghanistan in a public capacity – the same as our troops. (Covert efforts conducted by intelligence agencies are necessary but aren’t enough.) These people should help build partnerships between troops and civilians, using their own knowledge of other cultures and languages. Because right now, we’re asking many of our troops to do the impossible – to be both compassionate and dispassionate toward the people they’re trying to make both war and peace with.
In another era, none of this might be as important as it is now. After World War II, Americans retired to their respective hemisphere for the next, roughly, 50 years. In recent decades, the internet, NAFTA, and September 11th, among other things, have introduced a new era – one in which we’re not only citizens of our own nations, but of the world. Our social consciousness now permanently includes people beyond our own borders. And while we might still make war, can we afford to seek peace and spread tolerance under conditions that may make us less tolerant?
Just a thought.
Ellie