Future Iraqi Advisers Face Hard Lessons

LTC John Nagl's latest at the SWJ Blog - Future Iraqi Advisers Face Hard Lessons.

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I've gotten lots of feedback on this National Public Radio (Future Iraqi Advisers Face Hard Lessons) piece that ran this week in which Steve Inskeep and I discussed the moral dilemmas that often confront counterinsurgents. Situations like the one described below are why one of the paradoxes of counterinsurgency is that "Sometimes the best action is to do nothing" and why we put a chapter on ethics and leadership in COIN into Field Manual 3-24...

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"Ham says it's more realistic to build personal relationships with Iraqis, and encourage them to change later."

Savvy commanders in the Pacific theatre in WW2 allowed new Dineh (Navajo) code talkers time to adjust to seeing dead bodies before performing their code talking. Seeing dead bodies and knowing so many spirits hadn't been prepped for their journey was very traumatic and distracting for them. It was a matter of trust in being able to communicate this need for adjustment to field commanders. Simple needs can cause big problems that's for sure. I would imagine fear of failure and looking stupid is a signifcant dynamic at play with Iraqis when being trained.