Posted on 12/28/2004 7:37:01 PM PST by Former Military Chick
BAGHDAD, Iraq — When soldiers of Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment take to the streets in southern Baghdad, they’ve got a unique weapon in their arsenal.
In addition to machine guns and rifles, they’re armed with cans of spray paint.
That’s because the battles that the soldiers of the 3rd Platoon fight aren’t limited to bullets and tank rounds.
They’re also fighting a psychological war against anti-U.S. or anti-interim government graffiti.
The graffiti come from a variety of sources, Staff Sgt. Bryce Rigby said.
“Most of it is kids,” he said. “You can tell it’s kids because they misspell words [and] the kids write things like ‘down USA.’”
But other graffiti are more sinister.
“That graffiti … calls for jihad or some stuff says things like ‘don’t be a coward — don’t vote,’” said the 22-year-old Salt Lake City native.
“With … voting, it’ll say don’t participate in the elections or you’ll be killed,” he said. “In my opinion, that was insurgents.
“We’ve also had some about [terrorist leader Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi,” Rigby said. “All it is is scare tactics.”
The insurgents try to place their messages in areas where many people gather, such as near markets.
They also sometimes target areas of a particular religious denomination.
“You’ll also see it a lot in Christian neighborhoods,” he said. “They try to scare the Christians.”
Although they were in a Muslim neighborhood during Sunday’s patrol, there is a Christian neighborhood in the company’s sector.
The soldiers stopped at two graffiti-strewn walls during their patrol Sunday to spray paint out various messages. Both were near small mom-and-pop shops.
Soldiers persuaded the shopkeepers and a passer-by to help spray out the messages and tried to find out who was doing the graffiti.
None of the men admitted to knowing anything, Rigby said.
“We get a person from the house with the graffiti and make them take responsibility for [spray painting over] it,” he said. “We try to make them responsible for what happens in their neighborhoods.”
Some have admitted to seeing the graffiti being done, he said.
“They’ll always say it’s not [people] from their neighborhoods,” said Rigby, who was serving as the patrol sergeant. “That’s more than likely true.”
The soldiers then returned to their patrol, stopping to give a kerosene heater to a compound housing Palestinians, another to a family living in a mud hut, and a heater, stuffed animals and school supplies to a kindergarten.
They also visited Iraqi National Guard troops guarding a bridge.
Wiping out graffiti is just a small part of their mission.
“It depends on our manpower in the sector,” Rigby said, “and if we have time and spray paint.”
“But if you don’t have patrols in the sector all the time,” he said, “it will come back.”
good one!
We should offer large cash rewards for the reporting or killing of non-Iraqi arabs as well.
I know that it is not PC, but what about offering bounties for the heads of insurgents. It could be on a graduated scale depending upon the importance of the insurgent.
PC? Isn't that why we lost Vietnam? PC is for the gender challenged. I like your idea, would love to see it put into action.
I'm with you - ain't nobody got graffiti artists like we do. I'd see to it that the city was wall papered with slogans that rip the Islamofascists six ways from their holy sabbath day. Get the shrinks on the case and find out what really puts a knot in their panties and do a little Madison Avenue psy-op advertising from one end of the country to the other.
I recall SOG offering cash to those who helped us hunt/kill VC and they had some success in this area. A poor farmer is happy to have cash or fresh livestock in exchange for information. I would think that the same tactic would work with people who were ground into poverty whilst Saddam and his cronies grew fat.
I am a font of non-PC thought. ;-)
The OSS did this with the Nazis. The OSS developed a special Psy-Ops branch with specialists in German language and culture - they really got into the minds of the average German grunt. Many of the radio and print efforts were effective.
Truthfully, this is what I think should be done over the long term. (I cannot figure out why we have not done this).
A. Maintain a CIA that works like it did during the height of the Cold War.
B. Offer Full family citizenship, a scholarship, and 100K bonus cash at end of a 8 year stint for young Mexican Americans to learn Farsi and Islamic customs to work as inside men for the CIA in these despotic regimes.
Could you imagine the benefit and insight we would have if we had 30,000 such agents working in these countries with all the CIA toys etc.?
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