Hi Mike,

Quote Originally Posted by MikeF View Post
My example was harsh, but that is the environment that the military must work in. As much as we wish to allow the society to work issues out own their own, the military must make jugement calls as to what is acceptable. The following example may show a striking contrast in the roles of the military and the anthropologists. Back in Diyala circa 2006, AQI was cutting locals hands off for mixing male and female vegetables. Here is what the boys on the ground are dealing with today.
I agree that it is a nasty situation. Going back to how I was parsing things out for a moment, I would argue that AQI was using the first model - destroying the "traditional structures" via selective assassination and forced grafting by marriage into their remnants. There's a definite tipping point in that type of tactic, as the Anbar Awakening showed, where those groups will revolt against the "insurgent" activities (the principle is called hysteresis). In biological terms (sorry, my head is wrapped up in them right now... ), they are doing a forced mutation by applying stringent selection pressure.

What I find fascinating about the Taliban threat to cut off fingers is that they are only talking about fingers. I know that probably sounds callous, but in their view, voting is an act of treason and I am surprised that they aren't harsher in their threats.