NationStates Jolt Archive

article (http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200552912142.asp)

The Next Big Atrocity Story
by James Dunnigan
May 29, 2005
The next big thing in news headlines denouncing the American military will be horror stories about how Iraqi soldiers and police treat terrorism suspects. While the Iraqi security forces have been given training, by Americans, on how to be kind and gentle with the suspects they pick up, old habits die hard. In the Middle East, actually, in most of the world, brutal treatment of prisoners is pretty routine. But because American troops are working with the Iraqis, the Americans will be blamed for any bad treatment (by Western standards) terrorist suspects get. Journalists love stories like this, because if the Americans did try and control the way Iraqi police dealt with suspects, the Americans could be accused of “interfering with Iraqi sovereignty.” In a practical sense, the American troops could not stop what the Iraqi cops and troops do to prisoners, because there are not enough American troops to be there for every arrest, and watch over the prisoners as long as they are in custody, and at risk.

Interesting.

(I'm almost sure there will be some interesting and thoughtful opinions among all the knee-jerk noise on both sides that this is sure to generate - almost.)

Heh. One thing about politics - self-righteous ill-conceived bullshit isn't exclusive to any one particular faction.

James Dunnigan...I KNEW he sounded familiar. I own one of his books. "How to make war"; a rather uninspired technical look at the various weapon systems and their uses in the late 20th early 21st century.

He's a by the numbers kinda guy. His writing is fairly dull, but gets the information across in a fairly crisp style.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, what I mean to say is that Dunnigan has a point. Just as the US has been accused of "Outsourcing" interrogations to less than savory allies, the idea of training new brutal allies is also a concern.

However, I doubt it will have THAT much impact. One needs only to look at the former School of Americas contraversy to notice that such concerns don't get much traction with the American public as a whole. I think it will come up, but likely be a small, rather unimportant story, not the next Abu Graib.

James Dunnigan...I KNEW he sounded familiar. I own one of his books. "How to make war"; a rather uninspired technical look at the various weapon systems and their uses in the late 20th early 21st century.

He's a by the numbers kinda guy. His writing is fairly dull, but gets the information across in a fairly crisp style.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, what I mean to say is that Dunnigan has a point. Just as the US has been accused of "Outsourcing" interrogations to less than savory allies, the idea of training new brutal allies is also a concern.

However, I doubt it will have THAT much impact. One needs only to look at the former School of Americas contraversy to notice that such concerns don't get much traction with the American public as a whole. I think it will come up, but likely be a small, rather unimportant story, not the next Abu Graib.

Yep, that's the guy. The story's off his web page, which does come up with some very interesting analysis and news on military-politico events.
http://strategypage.com/

(And that was one of two books I didn't have to buy for my sweet Intro IR class full of seniors and grad students, that the prof turned into a case study seminar of some little conflict in some place called Kuwait, back in 1991. The other book you might also be familiar with - Edward N. Luttwak's [i]Strategy: he Logic of War and Peace.)

James Dunnigan was one of the original founders of SPI, and a designer of wargames.

I have most of the SPI games, and all of his books (not to mention back issues of S&T).

James Dunnigan was one of the original founders of SPI, and a designer of wargames.

I have most of the SPI games, and all of his books (not to mention back issues of S&T).

Yep, that too. :)