Torture Continued

The recent posts on torture have had me thinking about the subject lately. In particular, this sentence, in the historical context of 20th century wars has been on my mind:

The use of racial and ethnic epithets--to include the most common term, hadji--must be banned by junior leaders and that ban must be enforced and its rationale explained. Furthermore, junior leaders must emphasize the common humanity between soldiers and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan

Racism can be a lens through which Soldiers view the war they are facing. Their level of racism - or lack thereof - is a huge factor is the likelihood of abuse, torture and war crimes. At its most "innocuous" level, racism is little more than calling Iraqis or Afghans "hadjis." This is extremely common among all the Soldiers I have encountered, no one thinks anything about it. Yet is it also the insidious underpinning upon which a My Lai or Abu Graib can be built. This sounds like an overly harsh statement, and I do not mean that anyone who uses the pejorative "hadji" likely to commit a war crime. But a racism dehumanizes the enemy, and in its most extreme cases, provides the transformation that can allow a Soldier to commit abuses.

A cursory overview of wars in the 20th century supports the racism - abuse link. What allowed Soldiers fighting in Europe to converse, even play football with the enemy, during lulls in combat? This would have been unthinkable on the Pacific front, or in Vietnam. While the nature of these wars were different (especially with regards to the guerrilla aspect of Viet Nam) and the brutality of the enemy was certainly a factor, race, ethnicity and the resulting lack of a common humanity were a significant factor. Enemy combatants in Europe looked like Americans, there were cultural similarities due to America's immigrant population. It is hard to dehumanize the enemy when he looks a lot like you. There were no such limitations in Asia/the Pacific. When the enemy has a different skin color, when he is rice farmer in Vietman, or a Pashto herdsman, when the common humanity is not as obvious, racism comes easier. And racism, if encouraged or unchecked can ultimately contribute to the war crimes that stain the military's history.

What the Army is Doing Right Now ...

As a spin of on the post below, I want to talk about what the Army, or at least my Soldiers, have been doing of late.

First there was the post cleanup week. Now keep in mind that there are constantly details fielded from a rotation of units cleaning up the post. But some high ranking person somewhere probably saw one piece of litter and a number of Soldiers from every unit were pulled to wander around post and devote their time to cigarette butts.

The following week. Fort Campbell makes the national news for leading all Army posts in number of suicides. We've had 11-14 this year, depending on the source. The entire post is smacked with a mandatory suicide safety stand down day. Units are pulled in from the field. Training is canned. My Soldiers are pulled out of a civilian taught class they are required to attend before deployment. Suicide is indeed a tragedy, and I can understand that the number of deaths here at Fort Campbell warranted a response, but I don't know that sidelining valuable training for a day of standing on a parade field, waiting for the commanding General to arrive and tell us that "Screaming Eagles don't quit" is the appropriate response.

Let's not forget that the "Week of the Eagle" is fast approaching. I can't plan any training during this time, and despite the fact that it takes place a mere 2 weeks before we are to leave for JRTC, my Soldiers and I will probably spend the week contributing to a clean post, standing on parade fields, "enjoying" the mandatory fun, and going on BDE or DIV runs.

This article that I linked to below, contains a segment towards the end about distractors and enablers. I find myself thinking of it often as I seek to work around the numerous distractors there are in the Army

What is the Taliban doing right now...

This is something I've spent some time pondering over the last three weeks I spent in the field. While sitting on my ruck awaiting my turn on the range, or when a day is spent waiting for something to happen that never materializes, I wonder, are my peers and I wasting time lost in the bureaucracy while somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan/Pakistan Taliban fighters are becoming more lethal? What is the Taliban doing right now at this very moment? I suspect this sort of down time (wasted time?) is universal among all military forces, but somewhere in the back of my mind I fear I am wrong.
And more philosophically, does my air conditioned house, comfortable mattress, hot food, clean clothes, etc., make me soft? Or does it make me smarter because I go to the fight more rested and with better morale? Or does the harshness of sleeping in the mountains, at the mercy of the elements, with only the supplies that can scrounged make the Taliban even harder and more lethal? Hmm... Thoughts?

The case against torture

I wanted to build off Johnson’s great post. Torture is something that still needs to be addressed despite the scandal at Abu Ghraib and the subsequent fall out.

In my view, torture is both unethical and impractical in almost every instance. Many people have this notion of torture being used in Jack Bauer type 24 situations where you know someone knows where a WMD is that could kill many people, you know by torturing him you will find it and thus avert many deaths. In this case, it would be an ethical imperative to torture him because the psychological damage to you and him and the potential media fallout is worth saving all the lives you would save. However, this kind of situation never happens in real life. There is simply never that kind of certainty.

One of the lessons of history, especially from the French experience in Algeria I read about in the excellent Alastair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace, is that torture is always counterproductive. It may create some gains in the short term intelligence. It’s clear that the French were able to win the battle of Algiers and deal a devastating tactical defeat to the FLN through the use of torture despite the fact they got some bad intelligence from people lying to end the torture. However, in the long run it had several important strategic effects that made its use counterproductive.

The first long term strategic effect is that the local population turned against the French. The perception of the French continued to shift towards that of occupiers oppressing the Arabs. People will tend to not view a government as legitimate if it torture’s its people in order to maintain security. Even in cultures where there is little notion of human rights the impact is significant. In those cultures, kinship tends to be very important so people will loose confidence in their government if a member of their family, tribe or even ethnic group is tortured.

The second long term important effect was that it undermined domestic political support for the war. Guerillas use politics to shift the balance of forces. That means building up their forces while weakening the enemies through political means. In this case, the French helped them because the resulting domestic political fallout seriously hampered the French state’s ability to cope with the crisis. Thanks to torture and other factors, the political fight became so terrible it tore the 4th republic apart in a military coup, leading to a new constitution and a new leader. Even after deGaulle restored order with the 5th republic, there was another military coup and a French terrorist group formed called the OAS. The OAS was made up largely of ex-French soldiers dedicated to keeping Algeria French. They ended up killing more people than FLN.

A third important consideration that is relevant to our “global contingency operations” (David Kilcullen has some excellent discussion on what its true name should be) is that our use of torture further undermines our allies as documented in Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos. When countries like Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics see use using torture it encourages them to step up their own human rights violations, not just against takfiris (Al-Qaeda and their associates) but also against domestic political opponents. As a result, it further undermines legitimacy in those already unstable countries. The use of torture was one thing that led to Musharraf’s downfall because it led to further erosion of support for him among the upper classes as Pakistani society.

The Armed Forces and the US government as a whole should ensure all soldiers and operatives understand this.

Read Cosmo, not Kilcullen

Today I learned that the Army would prefer that I read Cosmo magazine that a book on counterinsurgency or the culture in Afghanistan.

On my lunch break I ambled over to the COL Sink (think Band of Brothers) Memorial Library to see what they had to offer. I searched the library catalog for a couple specific books, to include "The Accidental Guerrilla." Nothing. After multiple unsuccessful searches for books that are not obscure and are featured on many a commanders reading list, I gave up. I decided to search using the keyword "Afghanistan," assuming I would just have to sort through all the returns.

Apparently the Fort Campbell Library has 2 books on Afghanistan, both published before I was born.

I then searched for "counterinsurgency." 5 results, none related to the insurgencies a Soldier at Fort Campbell will encounter.

Frustrated, I wondered over to the periodicals shelves, where I discovered a variety of magazines essential to every squared-away infantryman: Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Oprah, Marie Claire ... the list could go on.

Take away message: the Army will spend money on frivolous magazines, but not books that will better Soldiers, help them understand the conflict and the culture in which they will be fighting. The proclivity to undervalue the intellectual side of war will undermine the Army as it forges its way ahead and faces increasingly complex - and intellectual - challenges.

Understanding Afghanistan

Check out this excellent article on winning in Afghanistan that my roommate emailed me today. It long, but worth the time. The final section regarding enables and distracters, is especially good.

Global Insurgency?

Admiral Olson, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote this piece in the Journal of International Security this week. I'm not going to write a long criticism here, simply because I'm lazy and just wanted to link to it, because I thought y'all might find it interesting.

But I am going to throw one comment out there: Admiral Olson, in his intro, lumps all the terrorism and insurgencies the United States is facing under the broad term of a "global insurgency." This is a mischaracterization of the nature of the threat. There is no global conspiracy between terrorist and insurgents everywhere to bring down the United States, as Admiral Olson would have it sound. The insurgencies we are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan are the consequences of the counter-terrorism course we chose to pursue in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Torture and Ethics

A couple recent incidents at the Infantry School have caused me to think more about torture in particular, and ethics among Army officers in general. Ethical vignettes are a (small) part of the curriculum at Infantry BOLC. These include the now familiar "Fall of the Warrior King," and the less familiar decision by a SEAL team in Afghanistan to not kill some goatherds that stumbled upon their position in the mountains during Operation Redwing.
The first incident was the discussion of "Fall of the Warrior King." What troubled me was that COL Sassaman's decision to lie to his superiors was the only action that was universally regarded as immoral. I don't see much value in rehashing this very well documented and much discussed event, but the lack of recognition by many of my classmates of the moral issues of throwing detainees off a bridge was disturbing, as were the, 'Fadhil probably faked his death for propaganda reasons,' and 'had the soldiers simply shot the cousins no one would have said anything' excuses.
Then there was the story that one of our NCOs told us while sitting around the proverbial campfire of what could cheritibly be described as questionable treatment of an Iraqi detainee. Again, the only thing worse than the story itself was the reaction of my peers, which could generally be characterized as 'Haha, got that (insert racial epithet here) good.'
I don't think there's much new or original I can add to the does-torture-work debate. The Atlantic has a number of pieces that are very good and accessible summaries of much of the debate. But the moral question surrounding torture is not nearly so ambiguous. Torture is wrong and it ought to have no place in American policy. Defining torture is not nearly so simple, but at a most basic level, inflicting physical pain to compel someone to reveal something undoubtably counts.
But torture is not what this post is about. What can we do to better instill good ethical judgement in American soldiers and officers? The stories of Colonel Sassaman and Abu Gharib were repulsive and damaging to America's reputation and interests, and it is frankly disturbing to imagine how many similar incidents have gone undiscovered or unreported.
As a firm believer in the 'it starts with me' approach, I think there is much that can be done at the company and platoon level. The use of racial and ethnic epithets--to include the most common term, hadji--must be banned by junior leaders and that ban must be enforced and its rationale explained. Furthermore, junior leaders must emphasize the common humanity between soldiers and the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and live and represent that value at all times themselves.
What can be done at an Army-wide level? I think incorporating ethical vignettes into professional development courses starting with initial entry training is a start. But I think that weaving ethical dilemmas into all facets of training would make the lessons more effective. Put soldiers and leaders into situations where they are faced with an ethical dilemma, preferably without overtly presenting it as such. This would likely create far more poignent teachable moments than a discussion in a lecture hall ever could.
Ultimately though, can the Army reprogram in days, weeks, or even months, the values and moral compass that a person has already developed over years? That is what I find most unsettling.

Criticism of the Officer Corps

A former professor of mine, Dr. Richard Kohn, published this piece in the World Affairs Journal this week. Already I've noticed that it has spawned a lot of debate across the Army-oriented blogosphere, particularly on Small Wars Journal's forum. I can understand, to a certain extent, why people are upset, after all, it is a criticism of military officers (although aimed at people that far outrank lowly peons like myself).

However, I think Dr. Kohn raises some valid points. He breaks his criticism down into three arguments: the lack of an coherent strategy, and overly political Officer Corp and an Officer Corps lacking in moral fiber

Lack of Strategy: this is probably Kohn's strongest argument, but it needs to be remembered that while some criticism is warranted, strategy is also greatly affected by the military's civilian masters. Overall, though, there are some solid points in this section.

Politicized Officer Corps: I agree with Kohn's criticism of General Officers taking sides in elections, however, as unacceptable as this traditionally is, a have fewer issues with Officers speaking out when they believe the US is pursuing a strategy that is destined for failure. If the strategy is already in effect, then yes, Officers should not be criticizing what those on the ground are implementing. But I have fewer issues with Officers criticizing that which is only being proposed, for example, a military engagement with Iran.

Lack or moral integrity among Officers: Maybe this is the least warranted criticism, or maybe I'm just defending the institution of which I am a part. Yes, there have been any number of moral errors over the past few years, but to a certain extent, this in unavoidable in any organization, it is simply human nature. I am not trying to defend the tragedies of Abu Graib or Gitmo, but these issues are far more complex than simply a lack of moral courage among the officer corps. Kohn is very critical off the lack of punishment directed towards General Officers over some of these mistakes, but is that fair? How far up the Chain of Command must you go, meting out punishment, to people who reasonably could have no knowledge of the situation on the ground?

The article concludes with recommendations, several of which are stale at best. "Cadets should learn a foreign language, become familiar with other cultures." This is less than a novel idea and Cadet Command is already encouraging this through incentive pay. One idea was fresh, or at least to me: "Fitness for promotion—and particularly the characteristics recommended here—requires assessment by peers and subordinates as well as supervisors and commanders." I strongly agree with this. It is much easier to pull the wool over your superiors eyes than your subordinates and I believe that a more inclusive officer evaluation will improve the quality of officers that are being promoted.

Changing the army structure for the hybrid warfare fight

Two ideas have come to me recently on how to change some the Army's organizational structure for fighting hybrid wars. The first is to train civil affairs personnel to embed in units down to the company level as political officers and the second is to embed MI personnel into companies as well. Neither is particularly original, but the discussion on the is important. Both were discussed some in David Kilcullen's 27 articles.

The first idea came about after reading an article in Small Wars journal about how civil affairs guys have become contract management officers for conventional units because of encroachment of the rest of the army into what they do and conventional guys not knowing what to do with them.

The solution in my mind is to make civil affairs guys political officers, preferably at the company level. Train them in cultural anthropology, some information operations and some counterinsurgency theory. Then, they could be a huge asset for a company commander running his AO (Area of Operations). As a political officer there job would be to develop, maintain, and push a narrative for their AO. A narrative is a story that explains why we are doing what we are doing and why the enemy is doing what he is doing. A narrative is very important because it sets the stage for the political battle and thus determines whose side the population supports. Insurgents develop a narrative and then carry out attacks and non-kinetic methods to support it. A political officer would be in charge of determining what narrative has the most appeal in his AO first and foremost. This should ideally be done at the company level since AOs vary so much. Next, he should assist the commander in developing full spectrum operations to further it, and develop and information operations campaign to set the basis for it.

The second idea, to embed MI personnel at the company level, is important because in hybrid war, intel comes from the lowest level generally and drives operations at the company level. A company commander is not told nowadays to simply "attack in that direction" but must develop his own picture of his AO. They way we are currently set up is that battalion S-2s get intel from people they don't know or trust like company patrols or technical assets, guess what these tell them, and then feed that information down to people that don't trust them. Having intel guys at the company level will ensure that the companies intel is synthesized and tracked by someone who the leadership knows, trusts, and is right there with them.

The biggest problem with both of these ideas is that many of us combat arms types think like baboons and just want to be told which direction to attack in. I tend to think like that way on Mondays and Thursdays but otherwise no. However, the current debate about COIN and experiences when deployed should have changed most of our attitudes. I get the sense that many people come back from in theater thinking it would have been nice to have dedicated intel and political guys and might have set aside some of their own guys for the job.