It's just the Guardian. I don't expect that even Brits give that rag much more than a laugh at the nonsense they publish.
Posted on 01/12/2006 12:01:58 AM PST by wardaddy
A senior British officer has criticised the US army for its conduct in Iraq, accusing it of institutional racism, moral righteousness, misplaced optimism, and of being ill-suited to engage in counter-insurgency operations. The blistering critique, by Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, who was the second most senior officer responsible for training Iraqi security forces, reflects criticism and frustration voiced by British commanders of American military tactics.
What is startling is the severity of his comments - and the decision by Military Review, a US army magazine, to publish them.
American soldiers, says Brig Aylwin-Foster, were "almost unfailingly courteous and considerate". But he says "at times their cultural insensitivity, almost certainly inadvertent, arguably amounted to institutional racism".
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It's just the Guardian. I don't expect that even Brits give that rag much more than a laugh at the nonsense they publish.
Problem with most of the world is they want to "negotiate" instead of confront problems. When those bastards hung those contractors from a bridge, we had to respond with heavy force. Truth is, only thing those in the Middle East understand is force, not negotiations.
Awww poor baby is jealous of us... boo frickin' hooo
Oh, don't paint them all with the same brush. This is one person.
How gay.
I guess that little insurrection your lads lost in the 18th-Century is a selective memory loss, eh, Nigel?
psst
And the United States has been annoying them ever since.
And gay.
The Guardian of course sucks but they aren't making this up and this guy is not alone in his attitude.
The insurgency will not be defeated with an invitation to High Tea.
He exists and the Guardian is not the only media outlet reporting this.
That was my first thought. Sandhurst resenments at being second fiddle..
This thread will die young, as it should.
My brother was a Sgt. Major in the army and fought in Nam, first Iraq war and was in Korea DMZ. He watched our troops in this war and this is what he said: "I AM REALLY PROUD OF OUR TROOPS WATCHING HOW PROFESSIONAL THEY ARE. THEY ARE EVEN BETTER NOW THAN WHEN I WAS IN THE ARMY, THE WAY THEY ARE HANDLING THEMSELVES. I HAVE NEVER SEEN A MORE PROFESSIONAL ARMY THAN WHAT I SEE NOW."
That same "can do" approach is why Foster speaks English and not German.
But his central theme is that US military commanders have failed to train and educate their soldiers in the art of counter-insurgency operations and the need to cultivate the "hearts and minds" of the local population.
Why all those damn Iraqi kids keep flocking around our troops, and we now get regular reports from locals of where the insurgents are hiding.
While US officers in Iraq criticised their allies for being too reluctant to use force, their strategy was "to kill or capture all terrorists and insurgents: they saw military destruction of the enemy as a strategic goal in its own right". In short, the brigadier says, "the US army has developed over time a singular focus on conventional warfare, of a particularly swift and violent kind".
D'UH!
Such an unsophisticated approach, ingrained in American military doctrine, is counter-productive, exacerbating the task the US faced by alienating significant sections of the population, argues Brig Aylwin-Foster.
Yes, that unsophisticated "Colonial" approach of ours.
What he calls a sense of "moral righteousness" contributed to the US response to the killing of four American contractors in Falluja in the spring of 2004. As a "come-on" tactic by insurgents, designed to provoke a disproportionate response, it succeeded, says the brigadier, as US commanders were "set on the total destruction of the enemy".
London vs. Dresden?
[exacerbating the task the US faced by alienating significant sections of the population, argues Brig Aylwin-Foster.]
They "alienated" the kind of criminal who already had blood on their hands and who were going down no matter what, even if the Shiites had to come in to do the justice later on.
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