In this week's
dispatch from Iraq, NYT military correspondent Michael R. Gordon shows that the commanders of the Marines, unlike the Army, are actually trying to
avoid making the Iraq occupation worse.
No force has a tougher reputation than the United States Marines. But the marines who are headed to Iraq this spring say they intend to avoid the get-tough tactics that have been used in recent weeks by Army units.
Marine commanders say they not plan to surround villages with barbed wire, demolish buildings used by insurgents or detain relatives of suspected guerrillas. The Marines do not plan to fire artillery at suspected guerrilla mortar positions, an Army tactic that risks harming civilians. Nor do the Marines want to risk civilian casualties by calling in bombing strikes on the insurgents, as has happened most recently in Afghanistan.
The Marines actually understand what has somehow eluded the Army commanders (it's something that's eluded militaries from time immemorial, but really, you'd have thought we might have learned by now): when you treat the populace of occupied territories like the enemy in order to eliminate violent resistance, when you use "hard-nosed" tactics (i.e. use excessive force, indiscriminately destroy property, and kill non-combatants) all you do is ensure more hatred, and violence, and support for violent resistance.
The lesson of how to do it wrong was Vietnam and Korea; the most recent of how to do it right was Central America (and Yugoslavia).
Marine commanders have stressed the need to be sensitive to local traditions. Marines here have been told to remove their sunglasses and look Iraqis in the eye when they speak with them. A select group of marines also been selected for intensive Arabic language training. The marines will use Iraqi, not American names, to delineate the zones assigned to specific Marine units and will try to align them with Iraqi administrative districts. To limit the disruption to the local populations, the Marines also plan to set up their bases outside of Iraqi cities.
The sad thing, of course, is that this shouldn't be news.
"We carry an embedded offensive capability in every convoy," said Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, the commander of the First Marine Division. "To us you don't drive on through, you stop, you hunt them down and you nail them."
"We will try to go and restore a degree of civility," said General Mattis. "If they choose to fight they are going to regret it, but we also believe that part of the physicians' oath that says first do no harm. If to kill a terrorist we have got to kill eight innocent people you don't kill them."
To repeat Atrios's mantra, why does General Mattis hate America so?
