Culture

And I don't mean Sarah Palin. Judith "WMD" Miller has an opinion piece in today's Los Angeles Times. No, I ain't linking to it.

I guess the leper colonies of Africa refused her application to volunteer.

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This new movie is about the good old days of Iraq, about seven years ago, when the Americans were too busy fighting each other there to acknowledge the rise of the insurgency. I'd love to see a movie break the "Iraq jinx," and maybe this will be the one.

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Starbuck, who derives his name from fiction, has a good piece in Small Wars Journal along with Adam Elkus about "speculative fiction" (such a tender euphemism) and national security. Their bottom line: I think this is right -- sci fi is really always about the present, which is one of its limiting factors as literature.

I liked their review of the issue, but came away wanting to read more about the related issue of fiction that doesn't appear to be about a given war, or perhaps any war at all, because it is disguised. One obvious example is one they mention, Starship Troopers, which I think is not really about outer space but really about World War II in the Pacific, with the inhuman enemy crawling out of holes in the ground. Even more distant from the war it is about, I think, is Doctor Dolittle, which I think is about World War I. If I recall correctly, it began as letters written home then by Hugh Lofting, who served with the Irish Guards. In a world of trench warfare where men lived like animals, in holes in the ground, Lofting effectively lived in a world of talking animals.  

I'd be interested in other examples of books that really are about war, or about a certain war, that don't appear to be so. I think these are in some ways the most profound books about humans hunting and killing each other.

Photo via Flickr user otisarchives2

I've just read Refresh, Refresh, a graphic novel by Danica Novgorodoff about three teenaged boys in rural Oregon whose fathers are serving with the Marine reserves in Iraq, and about the decision these boys make during a fatherless year.

It is striking to me that these wars have been underway so long that we now have adults writing about growing up under their shadow.

If anyone thinks that living in today's Iran is fun, check out the film Iron Island, which my wife and I watched last weekend as part of our continuing Iran After 2001 Festival.  (It is available from Netflix.) Most striking was the scene where a teenager is waterboarded by the central authority.

For an odd double bill, I also watched the 1955 war film Dambusters. Very British. The needless (but historically accurate) use of the N-word was striking, but made the time feel as distant as the American Civil War. I mean, the British couldn't come up with a better code word for a target? 

Paula Broadwell, a reserve Army officer who is doing a PhD at Harvard, made the point that the military needs to think more about using female soldiers and Marines in counterinsurgency operations. If the point of COIN is to reach out to the population, then female soldiers are likely to be able to better deal with the half of the population that also is female, she noted. I think this is especially true in Muslim societies, and also in other tradition-oriented cultures. Broadwell noted that some 200,000 U.S. military women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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David Wood (no, he is not paying me for these shoutouts) has a good column today about how well-intended handouts from American soldiers can alienate Afghans. 

I remembered accompanying a Marine officer through villages in Iraq's Anbar Province. He'd pull out a handful of candy as kids crowded and jumped. Then he'd ask, "Who'd like a soccer ball?'' and he'd summon an aide and hand out a few balls. In the distance, I noticed men who'd just brought their kids to school standing in the shadows, glowering at this scene. Their resentment seemed palpable, that their kids were crowding around an American handing out presents that they couldn't afford for their own children.

Here in Afghanistan, a different war but the same American impulse of generosity. And to what end? I put this question to an American officer, a man who works closely and professionally with Afghans and whose opinion I respect. "The feedback we get from Afghans,'' he said, "is that this kind of give-away makes them feel like dogs."

That's not a good effect.

There is an easy answer here: Empower local authorities-police, teachers, tribal leaders, and parents by giving them the soccer balls, books, pencils and pens, and letting them distribute them equitably. And by their own lights. It might not make the troops feel as good in the short term, but it sure makes a difference in the long run.   

Meanwhile, Jonathan Landy brings back good but disheartening coverage of the Taliban ambush in Kunar Province that killed four Marines.  

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Do I want to know what this is all about? I mean, I know it's a video game -- but why does Leeroy need some eggs? I don't think I really want someone to explain to me, bitte, what are "devout shoulders?"

That said, I like this because at least at the beginning it feels like every platoon leader I have ever heard in a serious situation. It all reminds me of something that the young British counterinsurgency expert (and Megan Fox-lookalike) Clare Holdenbild once said to me ...