By placing Iraqi and US Military Police, Military Intel and Contractors in an area where they can study, learn, conduct surveillance and communicate with the locals of a specific area in Iraq, they can slowly counter an insurgency and change people’s mindsets. The basics are that, this would help us in finding the bad people…the “hard-liners” and who can then be arrested, removed or eliminated. Finding the straw the breaks the camel’s back is what they are ultimately trying to do.

Much of this is a joint effort that would include distribution of reading materials, controlling news and other biometric / psych-ops programs. By having small community meetings with local politicians, business owners, and people of that community that are looking for a “positive change” is what makes the wheels spin on this style of operation. This “change” that would be the topic and discussion of meetings, would be for violence to end and for people to not live in fear. They have to re-educate and slowly change the Iraqi’s and also empower them to defeat their insurgency. Working with the local population and gaining their trust is what primarily needs to take place.

Sure there are going to be numerous ways of learning more about these people by tapping into local phone lines, seeing what they are doing on their computers, find out who they are communicating with and by putting troop / contractors out there who are going to learn their education levels / finding out what their beliefs and systems are in their native tongue. Are they friend or foe? How can we gain their trust? This is very much a surgical style of operation, compared to what has been used in the past during a War. Will it take time? Yes. Can we do this with a reduced presence of military forces on the ground in Iraq? Yes, but it will increase the amount of analysts and linguists in the rear who are going to crunch information. SPSS and Research Methods will definitely have to be used and key foreign national figures will have to be found or invented, in each region, to help guide the rest of those individuals in the local community to a positive change and outcome.

It was interesting that Montgomery McFate discussed her dissertation about Counter Insurgency Operations in Northern Ireland by the British. She said that this was where she learned most of her knowledge and information on COIN. The thing I don’t get is, Montgomery said her idea of Counter Insurgency was more hands off, when the facts are that the Brits treated Ireland very much like a Police State and Martial Law was imposed on Ireland by the UK. If one has read up on the Special Branch’s informers and their handlers, particularly since security sources have, in recent years, played up the role of a “double agent” within the IRA known as “steaknife” (or stakeknife – spellings vary), he was the key individual who was responsible for finding and eliminating three of the top leaders in the IRA. Raids on houses in Ireland occurred on a regular basis, for those who were suspected of being involved with the IRA or even being a sympathizer to the IRA. Raids purposes included the planting or removing of listening devices. A Sunday Times article (14 April, 2002) claimed the removal of covert bugs was the motive behind the raids.

So can we expect that a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus will likely occur in Iraq for the next decade or more? Who knows, but I think Montgomery McFate needs to stop jerking me off from behind and not try so hard to paint a pretty picture of how COIN Operations work. It is War, isn’t it? Hopefully things will get better in Iraq and we‘ve learned from the mistakes that have been made in the past.

Timing is of the essence and your help in this regard will be highly appreciated.

Ray Arco
Foreign Correspondent

Subject: Good and Evil – make a decision

Let me see if I understand you correctly.

We face a barbaric enemy who’s militant and intolerant ideology commands it to execute (preferably by beheading as prescribed in the Koran) all those who violate its draconian lifestyle and Sharia laws. Such capital offense violations would include being a homosexual, a woman having relations with a man without being married, listening to foreign music, flying a kite, wearing a short skirt, educating girls, etc., etc. This militant ideology doesn’t ask permission to impose its will upon its citizens, but, rather uses extreme force to subjugate the population.

This militant ideology considers America, all Western nations, India and Asians as mortal enemies. It believes it has a duty to execute all Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and, especially, Atheists, as well as communists and socialists.

This militant ideology unilaterally declared war on the United States in 1996 during the Clinton Administration and has violently attacked Americans on a dozen of occasions prior to 9-11-01, on which date it murdered almost 3,000 innocent civilians that it deliberately targeted – there was no collateral damage, they were the targets.

Now, the DoD wants to better understand this enemy so that our soldiers can track them, find and kill them. DoD has asked the anthropological community to lend its skills to “Map the Human Terrain” so that our fighting men and women may be more effective in neutralizing (and, yes, I do mean killing) these enemy combatants while at the same time minimizing collateral damage to innocent civilians (unlike our enemy which deliberately seeks to kill innocent civilians).

Given the evil enemy we face, isn’t it the duty of every American to lend his or her skills in enabling our fighting men and women to be as effective as possible in defeating this evil (again, I do mean killing the hard core members of this movement)? In fact, isn’t this the duty not only of every American but of every person who considers himself a decent and humane individual.

Are you so committed to your belief that America is the root of all evil that you can not recognize true evil when you see it? Will you at least condemn the evil actions of our enemy and their ideology?

I meet more and more young people today who realize that when their professors tell them to “question authority” that the “authority” they most need to question is that of their very own professors.

You have lost your way and are on the wrong side of good and evil. This is especially ironic since the enemy we face hates you even more than it hates me.

Good and evil – make a decision. There is no room on the sidelines. There is only the choice between Western civilization with all of its faults and an evil and intolerant ideology that wants to impose itself upon the world and slaughter all those who disagree with it. One would think the choice would be clear and simple, because it is.

Good and evil – make up your mind which side you are on. Unfortunately, there are no sidelines, my friend. I wish I was wrong, but I am not.

In any case, when it is over no one is going to hang this on the shoulders of anthropologists (except for people in elite anthropology departments, who will at least have something to beat themselves up about for the *next* thirty years — otherwise, what, exactly, would they do?).

My point is this: in exactly the same way that Bush was foolhardy to test his theory of unilateralism on Iraq, so McFate is being foolhardy by testing her theory of collaborative anthropology in Iraq — where the chances that her intervention can rescue a fatally damned situation are vanishingly remote.