Comments by Gareth1

Comment #202138 by Gareth1 on June 30, 2008 at 11:57 pm

Chris Davis at #35

The idea is to put an "Afghan face" on everything we do. So when we hand out "Humanitarian Aid" (a misnomer, because there is no humanitarian crisis here) we have the Afghan National Security Forces hand it out.

Substitute "Iraqi" for "Afghan" here and we have essentially the same situation in my neck of the woods. I would generally attribute this to our acceptance of cultural relativism, the idea that we cannot insult "their" culture by calling them on their stupid ideas. I see the west's reaction, or lack thereof, to Mr. Kambakhsh's situation as part and parcel of this whole mindset.

As for what should be done? Pull the State Dept out of these places. DoS has a very important role, when they can deal with an extant effective local government. Until one exists however, all DoS does is pander to local customs and conventions.

Here in Iraq we, the US military, often wait for actions or decisions from the Government of Iraq. We tie our own hands by saying that actions are "GoI led." And we continually believe that the GoI will actually make decisions when they're just as mired in political processes as the US congress. Works in the US because there is sufficient time and space to allow (often stupid) arguement. Here? Amazingly ineffective.

2. Evangelical grunts

Comment #201154 by Gareth1 on June 29, 2008 at 7:56 am

Having been in the US Army for a good number of years, I find much in this article semi-true and/or hyperbolic. J.C Samuelson said it very well with his stats regarding the USAF. Assumptions concerning the demographics of the US military are all too often incorrect, and yet those making the assumptions feel absolutely no need to check their perceived "facts." Often, these same people will check, re-check, double-check, and then ask a neighbor when looking up some other substantive issue. The military? Obviously we all know more than we need to about the US military, we've been watching movies.

Apologies for the rant, this tends to be a pet peeve of mine. People are more than welcome to not like the military. When your dislike stems from false or unchecked assumptions, then you verge on the same behavior that people on this site accuse the religous of: willful ignorance of fact.

For the record, I am very much an atheist. To my knowledge I have never been subjected to any discriminatory practices due to my lack of religon. This might be because of the amazingly fair and impartial system that we in the Army have, or I might just not notice when it happens. I would go with the second part of that statement. Generally, I have found that religon is not a common topic of conversation. It might very well be in chapels, but as I am rarely in one...

Semi-true: insinuations that because there are hard-core religious zealots in the military that we are all out to indoctrinate our newbies in our favorite flavor of christianity.

Hyperbolic: People join the military because they are stupid. Granted, the article did not explicitly state this, however the author took a turn in this general direction and I am (admitedly) extrapolating. Look at the statistics before making assertions like this. As posted above, the stats do not bear out this assumption, throughout all services. Believing, just because that is what you want to believe, that people in the military are not too smart is, itself, not too smart.

Apparently what the military really teaches people, based solely on the evidence here, is to be long-winded.

The qur'an incident is a good discussion topic in that it shows both a stupid action and a worse response. I would bet, and I have absolutely zero evidence to back this, that the Soldier that shot the qur'an knew exactly what he was shooting at. So? Stupid? Yes and for two reasons: what the hell good does it do to shoot a book; and why would you pick that particular one when there are all too many people in the area willing to exploit your stupidity? The response though is worse. We kissed ass, plain and simple. As an organization, we went and begged for forgiveness. More appropriate would have been to tell those up in arms about this action that we do not like it and will try and ensure it does not happen again. But shit happens. Time to grow up and play with the rest of the rational world where it is recognized that shooting a book is not worthy of killing people. Rather than forcing our Iraqi buddies to recognize that sometimes things happen that others do not like, and that you work within your system to fix those, we decided to kiss ass and beg them to forgive us when there is no forgiveness required. Bad idea.

I am with Christopher Davis: when the Islamic community decides to beg forgiveness for their minority of people that love to blow themselves up around us, then maybe we can talk about shooting their happy book.