I am not posting this in attempt to convert anyone to "flower-power" (as I still believed in armed action in certain circumstances), but I was reading an article from Radio Free Afghanistan about the burning of dead Taliban bodies, and I realized that war in the information age seems to be quite problematic.
The 10-cent version of the story is that U.S. soldiers killed two Taliban fighters, then burned the corpses after 24-48 hours for health reasons. In addition, while the corpses were burning the soldiers called out to the remaining Taliban (over a loudspeaker), taunting them with only slightly more inflammatory remarks than Governor Schwarzenegger. After reading the article, the only thing I can find that the soldiers did wrong is they did not follow the Muslim practice of cleaning and burying the bodies within 24 hours of death.
Was this act overblown? Poor judgment? Wrong? Reprehensible?
With the media (or video recording devices) seemingly everywhere, has war stopped becoming a viable option, due to the ability of opponents to manipulate even smaller transgressions?
Do we want to keep the "war" card on the table and somehow limit media access?
In future wars I believe there will be tighter control on media materials. You won't be seeing soldiers bloggin from battle fields or taking their digital cameras with them. Both of these instances, Abugrad being the digital cameras and I forget blogging problem, have caused serious issues to arise.
ReplyDeleteNow just because the military won't allow these items doesn't mean they won't happen or we won't see them. In fact in the future we may see worse things since military command believes it is safe from soliders reporting from the battlefield by restricting devices.
As for the burning bodies story here is what I got from NPR: Some soldiers were told to burn the bodies for health reasons. This order in fact came from the Psychologcial Warfare division, who knew it would be disgracing. Once the bodies had burnt the PsyOps set up loudspeakers taunting a nearby village about what they had done. It seems the PsyOps knowningly desecrated the bodies for the opportunity to taunt Taliban fighters. The soldiers who did the burning believed it was for health reasons.
So what does this all add up to? Things like Abugrad and the Afghan incident have been going on for a long time, we are just now finding out what occurs. The proliferation of quick, easily accessible recording devices and a means to transmit information home will greatly change how wars are fought in the future. This war just caught the people in power off guard.
I guess my main issue with the story was that this was newsworthy. Isn't war supposed to be a little unsightly? Isn't that why its the "last" and worst option? So now, U.S. soldiers cannot call their opponent "cowardly dogs" because if they do, they run the risk of getting in trouble. Who said war was supposed to have sensitivity training?
ReplyDeletejosh, great points, I am not sure I agree with you on one though: Would the Arab world have seen it as a political war (not a war in Islam) if we had gained international approval? I think you are right (this is how the Arab world views it), but with America harboring such strong Christian sentiments, I don't think international approval would have changed Muslim minds.
ReplyDeleteIf this is the case, does this force nations with strongly opposing cultures into strategies other than war, or is war still our most cost-effective option (analyze long and/or short term)?