Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
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I will respond to questions and comments as time permits, but if you want to take issuewith any position expressed here, you first have to answer this question:
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?
I simply will not reply to challenges that do not address this question. Refutabilityis one of the classic determinants of whether a theory can be called scientific. Moreover,I have found it to be a great general-purpose cut-through-the-crap question to determinewhether somebody is interested in serious intellectual inquiry or just playing mind games.Note, by the way, that I am assuming the burden of proof here - all youhave to do is commit to a criterion for testing.It's easy to criticize science for being "closed-minded". Are you open-mindedenough to consider whether your ideas might be wrong?
At this writing (May 2004) the U.S. war effort in Iraq and its internationalstanding are in complete disarray because of the abuse of prisoners at AbuGhraib prison.
There have been some people who have argued that the low ranking soldiersguilty of the abuse weren't culturally savvy enough or sophisticated enough tohave dreamed it up all by themselves. I'm not entirely ready to dismiss thenotion that someone gave them the idea. It's almost perversely brilliant in thatit hits Middle Eastern manhood in precisely its most vulnerable spot (apart fromthe minor detail that it totally derailed our military effort). It threatenspeople who are not afraid to die with the one thing they do fear - lossof their masculinity.
On the other hand, the U.S. military spends a lot of effort training soldiersin cultural awareness and nobody headed for the Middle East can be unaware ofhow sensitive personal honor is in that part of the world. So it doesn't exactlytake a degree in anthropology to figure out how horrifying that sort oftreatment would be to a Middle Eastern male. The occurrence of sexual abuse inmany prisons testifies to how readily the idea comes to mind. Add to this thefact that the abusers were military police, trained in the problems that canarise in prisons, and we really don't need to postulate a conspiracy theory.
One thing history teaches plainly is that atrocities never work unless you'reprepared to commit them on the scale of Genghis Khan. Armies typically startcommitting atrocities out of frustration at not being able to strike back at theenemy. The problem is that insurgents are likely to be tightly organized so thatrandom civilians have no useful information, and they won't back down in theface of atrocities. Meanwhile the non-involved civilian population becomessteadily more resentful and sympathetic to the insurgents. Eventually thingsreach the point where civilians realize that compliance doesn't guaranteesafety, and they're in no worse danger fighting than not.
Where's the empathy? After September 11, some commentators castigatedAmericans for not appreciating the depth of rage felt by many in the Arab world,and even hinted that the attacks might have been justified. So why aren't wehearing calls to appreciate the depth of rage felt by soldiers subject toconstant sneak attack? Why aren't any of these commentators suggesting thatmaybe their rage justifies retaliation?
Not that I'm suggesting for a moment that anything can justify the treatmentof the prisoners. But then, I never believed that anything could justify theactions of Hamas or al-Qaeda, either.
Where's the moral indignation over the murder of xxx Berg inretaliation? People who will demonstrate and write outraged letters at the dropof a hat over the execution of an unquestionably guilty criminal after ten yearsof exhaustive judicial review can't, for some reason, seem to work up anyoutrage over the murder of a completely innocent person.
A colleague of mine astutely pointed out that America is held to a doublestandard not applied to any other nation. We are held responsible not only forour own actions but also how others react to them. If President Reaganhad argued that the Soviet Union was guilty not only for atrocities committed byMarxist revolutionaries, but those of right-wing death squads as well, the howlsof rage and ridicule would still be echoing. Suggesting that the U.S. is somehowresponsible for the actions of al-Qaeda is equally preposterous.
There are some systemic problems in the U.S. military that this incidentreveals. First, the military police don't need to be kept on a short leash. Theyneed a choke chain. John Kelso of the xxx Statesman complained about the firstsoldier to be charged being only a Specialist, someone with no authority at all.But that overlooked a very important point. He was an MP, and MP's, even SP4's,have a lot of power and freedom of action. They can arrest even officers. Irecall a case where a colonel was stopped by a junior MP and tried to order theMP to let him go. Not only did it not work, but the colonel was disciplined fortrying it. In my military service I met some fine MP's. On the other hand, thereis nothing more obnoxious than a nobody with power, and far too many MP's fitthat mold. I can easily see a bunch of these guys tormenting prisoners.
Next, there is a subculture in the military that regards certain regulations,like humane treatment of prisoners, sexual harassment, or women in command, aswindow dressing designed to placate the media and civilians, but not reallyhaving any relevance to the real world. There's a military term for thisbehavior: willful disobedience to orders. The cure is to find these people,discharge them with the worst possible record (dishonorable if at all possible)and fix it so they never again for the rest of their lives have authority overanother person.
People like this aren't limited to the military. The guy who passes a longline of traffic and then expects to be allowed to merge at the last minute, theparent who thinks his kid should be exempt from school discipline, the guy whothinks all his female co-workers are fair game for conquest, and the guy whoberates the traffic cop for "not going after real lawbreakers" are allexamples. The common theme is "I'm not bound by the rules." And theremedy is simple; we never, ever allow these people to exercise authority.
Second, the military desperately needs linguists. Contract linguists areuseful up to a point, but most are recruited from the ethnic groups in thetheater of operations, and if the group is hostile, there's a potential forconflict of interest between the interpreter's ethnic loyalty and his loyalty tothe military. If the linguists are hired from the local populace, you can assumewith certainty that they are being debriefed by someone on a regular basis.
So the military needs linguists in the worst way. They need soldiers capableof interpreting and soldiers capable of monitoring other interpreters. Theproblem is that nobody needs a pure linguist. In Switzerland, almost everyone isbi- or tri-lingual, but they're not just linguists. They're clerks, bus drivers,and bankers who also happen to speak two or three languages. The military doesnot need pure linguists. They need soldiers who also happen to speak severallanguages. They need interpreters who can defend themselves, spot threats, andinteract intelligently with other soldiers. The problem is that anyone who ishighly fluent in a difficult language will probably command a lot higher salary,with a lot nicer working conditions, in a civilian job.
A lot of the time I spent in the Army Reserve was dedicated to languagetraining (mostly German when we were still expecting a war there). There is alot of money and material available in the military for language training, butthe results are mixed. For example, it's fairly easy to get money for tuitionreimbursement so a soldier can take college language courses. Then, of course,you have to find a college that offers, say, Introduction to Arabic in theevenings, or on weekends.
The biggest problem with creating military linguists is that the trainingneeds to be done on the military's time. I was discussing the problems oftraining Reservists with some yahoo from Fort Bragg, and he suggested "holdclasses after drill." My response was "Right. I'm going to reward mymost capable and motivated soldiers by keeping them after everyone else has gonehome." This character typifies the utter cluelessness of the military aboutlanguage training.
Language training is fairly available for maintaining and improving existinglinguists - if the linguist is in a unit that has linguist slots. There are alsocorrespondence courses. I've used both and they are great if you can get them.But they're like trying to stretch a rubber band across the Grand Canyon. Whatthe military really needs to fix the problem (ain't gonna happen, but I can atleast spell it out) is this:
Overall, the military will get and keep linguists when they get serious aboutit. Serious enough to put language training on a par with jump school or Rangerschool for prestige (it takes more work to become a linguist). Serious enough togive commanders authority to waive the physical fitness test or weight controlto keep a skilled linguist. Serious enough to send linguists to training whileeveryone else is cleaning weapons to fill the training schedule. Serious enough,for crying out loud, that trainees at the Defense Language Institute aren'tassigned to work details.
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Created 21 January, 2003, Last Update 24 May, 2020
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