Keys Corner

US Military Thinking

I never cease to be amazed at what the US military seems to think is rational behaviour:

1. This report describes how the Pentagon wanted to set up an internet-based “terror exchange” where traders would bet on the likelihood of terror attacks against specific targets - they had already spent $750 000 on the project before it came to light. The project was proposed by the national security advisor who resigned under Ronald Reagan because of being implicated in the Iran-Contra plan to sell arms to Iran to fund Nicaraguan rebels. (In fact, this project is doubly surprising as a subsidiary of the British weekly magazine The Economist was actively involved in the project.)
2. The supposed elite troops of Task Force 20 (responsible for hunting Saddam Hussein) shoot dead five innocent by-standers and generally behave like Rambo in a wealthy suburb of Baghdad. They appear to have suspected that Saddam was hiding in a sideboard…
3. I have already mentioned in a previous posting that, according to Amnesty International, they are seriously mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

There was also the chaos in the initial days of the US invasion of Iraq, which lead to the troops not preventing looting of museums and hospitals. Not to mention the PR fiasco about the “saving” of Jessia Lynch.

Does the US high command expect that this sort of behaviour is going to win the hearts and minds of the population in Iraq and the other Middle East countries? Or the hearts and minds of their western partners?