Mike:
In the Foust opinion piece Tequila referenced, it is reported that the villagers didn't resist the thing because they thought it was a night raid. Foust finds that a little dark and so do I. I am still mulling this over in my head but it seems that in a way we are training Afghans to be passive in the face of aggression, almost the way it seems sometimes American police expect Americans to be passive in the face of no-knock raids.
I remember in the past giving traffic tickets to people from the L.A. area. I would walk up to the car and often they would be staring straight ahead with their hands held stiffly on the wheel or in some odd position where they were visible. Their apprehension was clearly evident. They were afraid of me and were doing what they thought it took not to set me off. I only remember people from L.A. doing this and it really bothered me. I wondered what was going over there in Southern California that had turned average motorists into fearful sheep. It disturbed me because I had signed up to do a police job amongst free people, not to be a jailer in a vast open air facility. If that phenomena is carrying over into our conduct of affairs overseas, it is a very bad thing.
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