RE: IRAQ: Predictable catastrophes of human stupidity

From: Keith Elis (hagbard@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 22:48:54 MDT

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    Damien Sullivan:

    > Training and habits. This is why people don't want the military
    > used for intra-US law enforcement.
    > The military is trained to kill enemies. That's their job.
    > The police are (hopefully) trained in apprehension with an
    > eye to civil liberties and due process. Asking soldiers
    > to behave with the (hoped for) sensitivity of police is
    > mixing domains and risking the wrong reflexes.

    True. And it's a common lament among troops tagged to do just that. We
    might break it down like this:

    1. Law and Order
    2. Peace-keeping
    3. Peace-enforcement
    4. Combat

    Your local police force is suited for number 1. Add some specialized
    units and they can be prepared for any number of localized threats
    involving a handful of miscreants, armed or otherwise. Number 4 is the
    domain of troops trained to sustain a long bloody conflict. But, it's 2
    and 3 that are the problem. Peace-enforcement, in this taxonomy, would
    be policing a population who wants to fight, kill, and otherwise
    pillage, while peace-keeping is a little less hostile; the rivals are at
    peace, but it's tenuous. It's not quite traffic cop duty, but it's not
    quite combat. So, you mention the mixing of domains, but when I look at
    it this way, the domains have to be mixed in some cases. I agree that a
    combat soldier is no more fit for patrolling the suburbs than is a
    suburban cop ready for combat. But these two extremes may not represent
    all or even most of the situations where police are desired for one
    reason or another. In such situations, it seems easier to teach a combat
    soldier to treat a population with respect than to train a cop to
    operate as a functioning member of a combat unit.

    Keith



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