Understanding the Enemy

[MikeF]

Concur with all. Exactly right in my experience. No evidence you ever produce will convince most (not all) anti-western Arabs that the Israeli's didn't commit 911, and that the British SIS didn't murder Princess Diana.

Try and tell folks who believe in UFOs that they don't exist.

...and I don't think it is the job of any Army to alter beliefs. It's to make the cost of acting on those beliefs too high, for most people to risk.

With Wilf's valid insight and Goesh's suggestion, where do we go?

Here's how I describe it...

If everything is interconnected and intertwined, all we have to do is connect the dots to comprehend.

Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism expresses the crux of American Intervention mirrored in the self-denial conflicted with an internal desire to evangelize. Democracy works for us. Freedom isn’t free. Thus, we must free others with democracy. As good Christians, it is our duty to fix everyone else. One plus one equals three. The ghost of scarlet letters resounds in the western version of Wahabists Shar’iah law, yet we pretend it is not religious. Parables of Pharisees provoked thou screamest loudest as if you know truth. Jesus wept. John joins in joint justification.

In Vietnam, we propped up an artificial government in the hopes that they
would conform. Unfortunately, they only conformed to the corruption. Corrosion of conformity, our opportunity to assist a Vietnam in transition failed when we discarded Ho Chi Minh to salvage our relationship with France.

In Iraq, we tried Maliki.

Today, we strive to save Afghanistan. What are we attempting to save it from? Itself? To what effect? Is Hamid Karzai our friend? We assume that because he dresses well in tailored suits and speaks the Queen’s English that he shares our values, beliefs, and norms. In truth, he may be using us as a comparative advantage to unbalance the balanced opposition much as the Taliban uses al Qaeda.

Twenty years ago, we allied with the Taliban to defeat the Soviets in a marriage of convenience. After the Bear fell, we left. The Taliban did not forget. Kipling echoed for naught, yet we rationalize in the hopes of a natural gas pipeline emerging from the ashes. Phoenix is in Arizona not Kabul. A tendency of good war is oxymoron.

No doubt I weep for the deprived women of Afghanistan, but I must accept that I did not cause their suffering. It existed long before my birth. All I can control is the parameters of my family and closest friends. All I can help are those that first inquire to help themselves. I am neither an isolationist nor anti-war. That reasoning is as foolish as pretending that I am not man. I am simply taking a moment to consider our passion in some form of analysis lest we continue along the foreboding path that shadows and conforms.

Maybe it is time to leave well enough alone.

I am by no means trying to make policy statements. In all actuality, as Schmedlap voices in other threads, I'm sorting through my own personal decision matrix....I would be the first to volunteer for Goesh's expedition....

Ok, with that said, and all the politics aside, what do you think?

There is much validity in Wilf's crushing the enemy as there is in Mortenson's building schools. Where is the intersection point?

All I submit that it is better to discuss the issue rather than remaining stuck. Or rather, as Ken suggest, I'm skeptical of any translation.

Let me know if I've simplified matters too far.

In true detail to other cultures, I'd submit that we must add music...this seems appropriate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhtcaRRngcw

v/r

Mike

[Ken White]

Or even try to do so.

Viet Nam wasn't that simple. Of course Karzai is using us -- anyone in the west who thinks he is our -- Generic western collective our -- friend is a fool. Afghanistan 20 years ago was also not that simple.

I can't say you've simplified it too far though I do believe that in trying to understand things, many use the technique of trying to identify component bits, an effort that IMO generally leads to excessive fragmentation. Micro views do not solve or lead to solutions for macro problems. I offer the US Army's Tasks, condition and standards approach as an excellent example of how not to do it.

Is the task at issue your definition of that task, the other guys definition or that of a third (or greater) party? Or are there three or more different tasks being worked by many people, some known and some unknown with respect to the same time, location and issue?

Are the conditions you unilaterally impose universal or context dependent; if the latter, who or what determines the context -- you, the enemy, the weather, the terrain all of the preceding. Or does someone or something else determine the condition...

I won't even discuss the vagaries of a standard -- suffice to say that Hamid Karzai in his role does not operate with the understanding that I would were I in that role, thus his standard -- and that of most Afghan males -- of treatment of females differs considerably from mine. Since he is nominally a leader of Afghans, his standard is probably more pragmatically correct than mine would be. That means, whether I like it or not, that in that regard, on that topic, he's a better man for that job than I would be.

That's okay with me. He does not have to like or agree with me nor I with him for us to work together for mutual benefit. Either or both of us should back off if it's determined that the benefits are skewed or not mutual. We do not have to be friends. Probably could not be for many reasons. That's okay as well. It's okay because it has to be, that's reality.

I have spent a fair amount of time trying to export US missionary zeal in various climes and terrains on three continents -- most of those times, the entire operation was fouled up partly due to said zeal overriding common sense, partly because we did not understand the major defining facets of the culture we were operating in, partly as a generic result of inadequate training and education precipitating strategic, operational and really dumb tactical errors -- and once we were there partly because people expended a lot of angst over the minutia of cultural differences that they were never going to really understand -- and did not need to...

Occasionally, though it all worked -- and every time that was the case, it did so because of the right Commander, sheer professional competence of most involved and adequate as opposed to excessive and unnecessary cultural knowledge. Those successful efforts, by the way ran the full spectrum of combat from simple SFA to COIN to HIC.

Adequate cultural knowledge is not simple but it is easy, just recall everything learned in Kindergarten and apply common sense, read a bit, ask sensible questions and learn and heed the big issues -- realizing that one cannot ever answer some questions and does not need to do so.

Long way of answering your question; "With Wilf's valid insight and Goesh's suggestion, where do we go?"

Can't say. People are too different to provide an answer to that question, though it can certainly be asked. There are probably almost as many answers as there are people and that should be acceptable. Ideally, anyway -- because that degree of complexity of the human condition is unlikely to change.

To get to the root of this Thread --I believe it is futile to try to understand an enemy from a different culture; the more different, the more futile. You can learn his operating modes and define his TTP -- and you must do that. If it's assistance to another nation, you must learn the major cultural factors and must heed the local rules with local people. There is absolutely no need to try to get inside their heads and I believe that attempting to do so will only lead to great frustration and due to excessive simplification and / or inability to completely understand all the nuances of very complex human emotions and imperatives can actually cause harm.

[MikeF]

I'm no expert; I'm just trying to provoke conversation...

Direction and azimuth as I look on the map I suppose....

We've discussed this in private- people are people and you cannot control hearts and minds...

As always, I'll take it to an extreme so everyone else can realize that the sky is not falling down...Lest we presume that our straights are more dire than our parents...


If I had the answers, then we wouldn't have to run around in circles

And BTW Ken, well said...Bottom line is that we will employ the policy that our civilian's master.

v/r

Mike

[Ken White]

As always, I'll take it to an extreme so everyone else can realize that the sky is not falling down...Lest we presume that our straights are more dire than our parents...

I'm not sure that everyone else thinks that. In fact, I don't think they do. Nor am I at all sure what that has to do with Understanding the Enemy -- but then I'm old and slow...

If I had the answers, then we wouldn't have to run around in circles

I'm not running around in circles, nor do I think many are -- but then, I could've missed something. I do that a lot.

[MikeF]

And that's why I had to turn off my TV.

Eight years after 9/11, I simply started questioning...I don't have any answers...I'll lead point- just tell me where you want to go.

v/r

Mike

[Ken White]

that we all do things in our own way and that I'm pretty sure that there's no way to gain the depth of understanding you appear to be seeking, though I certainly hope you succeed. I don't think I've done that very well -- proving yet again that one mans answers may miss another question...

All I can tell you is that 68 years after 07/12/41 I have far more questions than answers. My defining moment precedes yours by a bit, my wife's younger than I am and hers was the Kennedy assassination. To both of us 9/11 was a minor incident but we understand it was defining for many -- including our daughter who missed earlier traumas. Each generation -- in each nation -- gets its own defining issues. Consider there are people who do not even today know what 9/11 even refers to. Life is complicated that way.

Having acknowledged I have questions and few answers, I obviously am not one to tell anyone where to go -- but that does remind me of the old saw; "My get up and go has got up and went but I sure can grin when I recall where my get up got up and went."

On that note, I can tell I have nothing worthwhile to contribute here. But then you probably already knew that.

[MikeF]

I just jest with you b/c it's fun and you have a lot of knowledge to share...with that said, others read what we say...

I think Emerson sums it up best

In truth, undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth. In like manner, nature is already, in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design. Let us interrogate the great apparition that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?