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Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 9:30 AM
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By Doyle Quiggle
Best Defense department of classical studies
A few minutes before the beginning of a Greek mythology class at FOB Fenty, Jalalabad, for which I'd prepared to lecture on Alexander the Great's swift invasion but treacherous occupation of Afghanistan, my best student stomped into the classroom, slammed his M4 down on the table, and announced, "I can't take their shit anymore!"
After his classmates and I had calmed him down, he explained that the walls, stall door, and floor of the toilet he'd just used were smeared with feces. They were always smeared with feces, he complained. He was furious about being forced daily to use facilities that were, as he put it, "Inhumanely, barbarically unhygienic and filthy." He and his unit shared their toilet with the ANA, as they had been ordered to do by their commanding officers-"hearts and minds." And it was the custom of the ANA to wipe themselves with their hands, smear their excrement on the walls of the toilette, and rinse their hands in the sink, which left the sinks reeking, a reek made especially acrid and pungent by the Afghans' high intake of goat meat and goat milk. While brushing his teeth, my student often had to struggle to keep down his gorge.
The outraged student, who, despite TSIRT, knew dangerously little about the cultural habits of any of the many Afghan tribes, had begun to take the ANA's toilette habits personally. I wanted to get my student to explore the source of his outrage. But I did not want to relativize or dismiss his outrage because I have learned that outrage always points toward a perception of injustice. It, therefore, also implies a healthy and intact sense of justice, which is something I encourage in students. So, I suggested to him that he was being faced (in the toilet customs of the ANA) with what Alexander's Macedonian Greeks would have called "borborygmus," a word that Plato and Aristophanes and Homer used to describe the filthy, excremental sewage of the underworld of Hades. For was he not in a kind of underworld (Hades or hell) on deployment in an Afghanistan he barely understood? Borborygmus not only means "shit." It also connotes "shit fearing." Borborophoba was known as the Goddess of the realm of death. She had the power to keep shit from flowing, but she also possessed the power to make it flow in the face of mortal fear and threat of death. Every combat soldier has been struck by her bowel- and bladder-releasing powers at least once in his life.
We then recalled what we'd read of David Grossman in On Killing, "the physiology of the fight: the body's role in combat and the skill to kill," where he explains in the modern language of physiology what the Greeks described in the metaphorical language of myth:
"Homeostasis is the balance struck between SNS and PNS during normal routine behavior, and can be thrown completely out of synchronicity when confrontation occurs, with PNS systems largely shutting down. One result of this can be the body ‘blowing the ballast', that is the dumping of unnecessary bodily substances which are of no benefit in combat - urine and feces, a rather unseemly but wholly natural bodily response to confrontation. This loosening of muscles which would be potentially drawing energy without contributing to the immediate task of survival is associated with the recession of PNS systems as the SNS is in the ascendancy."
Now, the smeared feces that my student had been dealing with daily in his ANA-USA shared toilet was not the result of a loss of homeostasis due to threat, but it did point to the realm of Borborophoba, and it pointed most directly to the underlying cultural void between soldiers like my student and the Afghan Army. As every anthropologist or mythographer knows, shit is the great leveler. It marks a psychic and cultural border. How a culture treats excrement, waste (all of that which it discards) speaks volumes about that culture. And when we are confronted with another culture's treatment of excrement, we are often pushed to the threshold and outer border of our own most deeply held, highly cherished values.
On the day of my student's enraged expression of borborophoba, I asked him and his classmates to link his I-can't-take-their-shit-anymore outrage to that of Alexander and his men when they arrived in Bactra where they discovered dogs roaming the otherwise highly civilized city, dogs feeding upon human bodies. According to the religious practices of the Bactrians, they threw not only their dead to the dogs but also their sick, lame, and invalid elderly-anyone considered social excrement or waste. Alexander and his men observed that the normal, healthy citizens of Bactria went about their daily business even as dogs devoured human bodies in the streets. An upstanding Bactrian merchant might walk past a pack of dogs feasting on a corpse as nonchalantly as a Greek merchant would walk past a fish stand.
Although Alexander and his men had been exceptionally tolerant of the strange cultural and religious practices of the many tribes they'd conquered since defeating Darius at the Battle of Granicus, the use of devouring dogs was one cultural bridge too far for the Macedonian Greeks. They simply could not imagine disposing of the dead in any form other than a tomb or a funeral pyre. Their invention of a Goddess like Borborophoba itself speaks to how ornately and vividly they'd imagined the world after life. Alexander and his men could not imagine anything more barbaric than encouraging dogs to devour the dead. Contrariwise, the Bactrians could not imagine anyone being barbaric enough not to do so with their dead.
The devouring dogs brought Alexander to a classic cultural impasse. And here Alexander drew a strict line. He would no longer tolerate what he viewed as a barbaric practice. He'd arrived at an I-can't-take-their-shit-anymore point of outrage, and he banned the use of devouring dogs from Bactria. At this historic moment, Alexander's real epic struggle began, the struggle to civilize Afghanistan. And by civilize we mean simply that he enacted policies that sought to force Afghanistan's tribes out of the bronze age and into the iron age.
We spent the rest of the class drawing analogies from Alexander's occupation of Bactra to the current ISAF mission in Afghanistan. That discussion involved our detailing as many incompatible differences between the primary cultural habits of US soldiers and those of the ANA, as well as the cultural habits of Afghans that US soldiers had observed on off-base patrols. We discussed everything from the treatment of excrement to the treatment of women. Many of my female soldier-students could not see any difference between the two as far as Afghan men were concerned. In order for our anthropological discussion to make any difference whatsoever to my students, we had to "keep it real," as they would say. To bite into the marrow, our discussion had to begin with harsh differences, like the handling of shit in latrines, that had evoked an acute emotional response from the soldiers. Only thereafter could we move on to the academic observations made of Afghanis by such notable authors as Thomas Barfield or Maratine van Bijlert or Antonio Giustozzi.
In other words, the professor treated his own students as if they were an alien culture, working from within their value system and emotional matrix, oscillating between their perceptions of an alien culture (Afghans) and that culture's perceptions of them. I'd assiduously gathered the latter perceptions from many chai-tea conservations with my tent mates, who were Afghan interpreters, Pashtun, Nuristanis, and Pashais.
My pedagogical aim for my students was to encourage cultural intelligence toward Afghans without encouraging any kind of soft-minded, limp-wristed relativism of values (cultural relativity) in which their own commitment to classical military core values such as loyalty, courage, selfless service, integrity, moderation, and justice might be diluted or weakened. On the contrary, my goal was to help them strengthen their commitment to those core values by showing them that they can withstand the outside challenge of culture to which they are wholly alien; they can, so to speak, "take their shit."
Doyle Quiggle taught oratory, rhetoric, and the classics to U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in two different war zones, at Camp Lemonnier (Djibouti, Africa) and at Forward Operating Base Fenty (Jalalabad, Afghanistan). The honor of contributing to the education of war fighters on the battlefield was granted to Quiggle by the U.S. Army through a contract with the University of Maryland, University College. Quiggle received his PhD from Washington University.
The author's point is well taken
But one can't ignore the reappearance of the Alexander meme. While one can argue for strong cultural continuities, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since Alexander. The recurrence of that name, along with the phrase "graveyard of empires," is indicative of how little the US, in the aggregate, knew about this region going into the invasion and occupation. Whether willful (after all, 10 minutes with Wikipedia will give one enough of a perspective on Afghan history to realize the Macedonian invasion isn't a particularly helpful point to begin with) or not, such ignorance was unforgivable. As ignorance is often a prelude to failure, can we be surprised at how things are going? Iraq is another perfect example.
Can you imagine discussing British politics whilst skipping from Claudius' invasion to David Cameron?
"Graveyard of Empires" is such a simplistic and meaningless phrase that it is best to leave it to those who are incapable of making a cogent argument without resorting to stock simplistic and meaningless phrases.
Graveyard of Empires? Landlocked central Asia?
As to whether this is or is not a relevant term and concept, arguments and historical erudition are less informative that what will occur. The facts on the ground paradigm.
Let us just wait and see if it has bearing on what I see as a totally misconceived and futile conflict. Maybe I am wrong. Or, maybe not.
You have to draw a line somewhere
Having had similar experiences as a soldier in Iraq, I say that however high-minded this dissection of cultural values is, there has to be a standard of conduct that we set. Not for the Afghans, but for ourselves.
There are many readers who personnally experienced all sorts of corrupt, vulgar, or just plain disgusting actions that were passed off as "cultural differences." For example, if ANA commanders skim off 10-15% of the money and resources in their budgets at every level and distribute promotions based on tribal affiliations rather than merit because of their cultural precedent, so be it. But, we have the ability to determine whether we want to fund or support that conduct.
I appreciate that in understanding the differences between the host culture and ours, we are forced to examine our own ways and validate them. But, it doesn't take a PhD in sociology or a strong grounding in Greek mythology to know that dirt is dirt. One of the reasons our government, public service, and culture is better (yes, that's a huge conceit, but it's true) is because of values that don't exist in other cultures.
To put it simply, if the Afghan way of doing things was worth knowing, they'd be over here teaching it to us.
"To put it simply, if the Afghan way of doing things was worth knowing, they'd be over here teaching it to us."
A hundred years from now, the Chinese (or the Indians or the Brazilians) might be saying the same thing about us.
Don't mistake a current global superiority for something preordained or permanent. Empires fall.
who's never faced down a turd in his sink :)
Our superiority is based on competition.
"Our superiority is based on competition."
The Romans' superiority was based on competition; they fell all the same.
Why the preoccupation with the end?
We didn't switch back from light bulbs to oil lamps with Edison's death, we didn't burn Rhapsody in Blue with Gershwin's death, and we didn't all contract polio with Salk's death. Of course empires end, everything does. The end of something does not invalidate everything that happened with it.
Maybe your eulogy will be something like: Total raised a loving family, prospered in a successful career, traveled the world, and served his country. Now he's dead; too bad it didn't work out.
Anyway, my point is: If I find myself in a position where Chinese or Brazilian advisors have to come to my town to update me into the next age, shame on me. I may not readily accept their help, but it's my fault for allowing it to happen. And if it will be my grandchildren in that position, still shame on me.
My point is that assuming that our values and ways of doing things are superior and eternal is dangerous and leads to us forcing people to do things our way instead of understanding their approaches.
Eternal? No
Superior? Yes
I didn't say the U.S. culture is never going to change or cease. I did say that U.S. culture is better. If you don't think so, I suggest you try to live in Afghanistan. You may find it a challenge because of their broken, backwards culture.
Using the "hey, why don't you go live there" strategy is a pretty good sign that you're losing the argument.
235 years ago, British officers were writing snotty letters back home about the disgusting habits of the natives they were fighting. Oops.
The mission overseas or my attempt to say that not everything the Afghans do as part of their culture is the right way?
The point about the British snottiness is lost on me- and funny enough, presented in a snotty way. Are you trying to say that the contraction of the British empire invalidates everything British? Can you elaborate on that? Keep in mind we are having this exchange in English.
And 235 years later, Afghans are still worthless savages. Oops.
Claiming moral superiority without first hand experience is a pretty good sign you have no idea what you're talking about.
Go live there. Then we'll talk.
Yes, we are having this argument in English. Why are you failing to understand it?
My point about the British is that 235 years ago they were equally contemptuous of American habits. That contemptuousness harmed their efforts in the American colonies. And those values they took to be superior were eternal for only about a century. Your argument in your initial comment was, that "our government, public service, and culture is better" not "that not everything the Afghans do as part of their culture is the right way?" You were making a general statement, and I was pointing out that such a blanket assumption ain't going to help us in Afghanistan and is dumb besides. But, then, par for the course, I suppose.
(Oh, and two markers for losing an argument: using the "well, if you don't like it, go live there," and gradually shifting your original position to something somewhat defensible.)
Wow. Too stupid to get the allusion. Excellent.
Hint: I wasn't talking about the British writing snotty comments about the Afghans, I was talking about them writing snotty comments about the Americans.
Sorry, answer one was to Tom Kennedy, answer two was to Iman Azol (and yes, yes you are).
The problem with moral equivalence
The author demonstrates the problem with moral equivalence; the instinct common amongst many modern, highly-educated Westerners to boil everything down to "whatever I do, it's no better than what the Afghans/Japanese/Canadians do."
The problem with this entire line of thinking is that it goes beyond the metaphysical level where it might have some appeal to the concrete level where the concept is absurd.
Witness the author: Greek Polytheism is just as noble a religion as Eastern local religions. Ergo, Muslim Afghan soldiers disposing of feces by smearing it around the restroom is no better than Christian American soldiers sending down into a sewer.
Sometimes, oftentimes, one way is right and the other way is wrong. The common Middle Eastern habit or forcing a woman to marry a man who has raped her is wrong, the common Western habit of punishing the rapist is right. Of course, that's the kind of moral value judgment many otherwise highly-intelligent people aren't willing to declare.
We could fill books with similar examples. But in general, we ARE better than they are. Perfect no. Better yes.
Have at it, you paragons of self-doubt, graduate education, and cosmopolitanism: start condeming this comment as proof of the existence of narrow-minded bigotry. I know that like poor Pavlov's dogs, conditioned by a couple generations' worth of university-sponsored moral equivalence doctrination, some of you just won't be able to resist.
Leftist, relativist Academic strawmen aren't the problem
they didn't plan this war, they are not the architects of this hearts and minds, remaking the world, spreading democracy sort of war that results in ongoing hypocritical posturing, where you don't dare admit openly our allies are a bunch of thugs and the recipients of our largess, in the aggregate, are not capable of maintaining liberal democratic values.
This strategy was not hatched in an ethnic studies department, by a crew of planners with dog-eared copies of Franz Fanon.
It is thanks to neoconservative, liberal-interventionist, centrist ideologies that American spokesmen, civilian and military, have to say with a straight face that we've "given them their future" to run their societies as they see fit.
the people most likely to make excuses for the locals' behavior in Afghanistan or Iraq are far from positions of power, so their opinions aren't particularly important. They play no role in public policy.
Until such time as we see Noam Chomsky, flanked by Robert Fisk and Judith Butler and backed by a horde of scowling anthropologists, giving public statements at a press conference from the Pentagon or the White House press room, I'll refrain from worrying too much about endemic relativism amongst Unitarians, humanities majors, and fans of Democracy Now!
Most awesome reply ever.
Er, nobody is equating teaching western pooping practices to spreading Christianity. Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky are merely asking why it's the job of the U.S. military to go to Afghanistan in the first place; the fecal smear discussed in this article is just icing on the cake. P.S. can you imagine if China invaded the U.S. and told us to halt all circumcisions at birth because the practice is backward and barbaric? I'm sure you'd be quite upset.
In the 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi was rape at the age of 17 by her teacher. She and her father demand that the rapist marry her to save her honor. He promised to, then didn't.
I'm not saying it is right, only that it has not only been a "common Middle Eastern habit"
Not at all. Circumcision is not only barbaric, it is ridiculous, and I favor jailing anyone who does so (to male or female children), tagging them as sex offenders, removing their children, and I really don't give a crap what retarded invisible sky-friend they say told them to do it (or vegetarian nutjob, for Americans doing it because Kellogg said it would stop masturbation).
So, yes, America does have some progress to make.
FYI, Islam does not require circumcision, it's only a pre-semitic cultural practice.
What a bunch of shit.
This is the root of our failure in a nutshell-our advisors can't even influence their advisees to defecate properly, let alone [insert essential task here.]
Afghanistan is a country with precious little water. Do you really want to use much of it to poop into? Which city is likely to be more sustainable, Phoenix, Arizona, or Kandahar, Afghanistan?
As for _B_'s word "properly," why don't our advisors poop Asian style, on those little footprint toilets? It has less contact than a sit down toilet, and so is likely to be more sanitary. You're in their country, man.
I remember someone telling me that Afghan soldiers hate wearing western-style pants because they have been raised to believe that urinating standing up is unmanly. They probably are talking behind our backs about how "improper" our pissing style is.
Best,
Tom
Tom,
I've shit every which way including using the squatter toilets prevalent in Muslim countries.
I've also been in plenty of Afghan's houses and lived with them, and never seen the kind of shit-smearing barbarity described in the article (though I've seen plenty in Iraq.)
The issue is not the specifics of defecation. The issue is compliance. If you can't gain compliance in the little things, you won't get it in the big things.
So what sense does it make to use that water to wash shit off the fingers, when paper does so more cleanly?
Stop apologizing for worthless savages. It is in fact true that if they had anything to offer, we'd be paying for it, as we do with China, Russia and even Vietnam.
A worthless shithole remains a worthless shithole, regardless of its antiquity.
What, no discussion on the moral relativism of ANA recruiting practices? Or more specifically, are we supposed to tolerate the cultural right of passage that is sometimes called gang rape in the West?
Kilgore, you beat me to it. I mean, Afghans love using their hand as toilet paper but lets talk about the elephant in the room; it's common for Afghans and the Taliban f*ck little boys. I mean, people in the US and abroad get worked up about the women's rights but where's the outrage for the little boys.
These issues go back to our discussion on the Marines pissing on the dead Taliban; the incident was wrong and showed poor judgement, but how did the Marines get to the point where they could piss on the TB?
I think that, whether we want to admit it or not, the our cultures are so far apart from one another that there's very little common ground and we don't relate well together(generalization; some relate better than others but on the whole). And raping little boys on the reg, treating women like slaves, and using their hands as toilet paper are prime examples of our cultural gaps. We're not in Vietnam or Europe where GIs are impregnating and marrying the locals. I think Newsweek ran an cover story that throughout the whole OIF and AF OEF only a hand full of US service members have married locals and most were Terps.
Also, a delayed congrats to ESIII for winning the Medic of the Year award.
But every country is the same, all we need is the same basic
template and not to lose our nerve.
What the ME needs is a Marshall plan, because if there is anything our leaders teach us it's that every place just needs a lot of American elbow grease to fix it up, Japan and Germany are pretty typical countries, not culturally or historically distinctive at all, and every enemy is Hitler and every time the US refrains from an intervention it's 1939 or Rwanda all over again.
We just haven't done enough, with some more money Afghans will quit behaving like Afghans, we need to continue doing the same thing over and over, it isn't the definition of insanity; no, it's the definition of wisdom. We aren't committed enough, America needs to sacrifice more for greatness. The US could raise the cash somehow, selling off a few odds and ends. There are parts of Idaho I'm certain we aren't using.
read this as an article which compares cultures as equal; rather, I read it as a piece which states that if occupiers want the occupation to go their way (in our case, to (help) build a stable nation state), one must not impose the occupying mores on the occupied. He's absolutely right. Of course, we're assuming that the occupation will turn out the way we want it to. No amount of brushing one's teeth in soiled water is going to help the United States obtain the unobtainable.
Here we go again. We're all going to sit down and pontificate about the details behind Afghan behavior. Really!? Seriously!?
We are not their damn parents. Who cares what they do. It's no sweat off my back. No effort on my part would have mattered.
A good friend of mine had to establish, with his BN, a unit footprint on a FOB in RC-East in 2010. He went in with bare ground and no buildings, and built a tent-based living area, to include the modular Force Provider showers and latrines. After he invited Local Nationals to use the facilities, they proceeded to defacate in the showers, not even stopping with fouling the latrines. Believe me, I'm all for cultural understanding, but for the love of God, come on.
This isn't about habits of dumptaking
There are enough examples throughout the post and comments of this sort of animal behavior that it begs the question: When we invite the natives to come to our shithouses and when they do, they fling their feces like goddam monkeys, isn't it as likely as not (if not more so) that they're showing their contempt/disrespect for us by shitting in the showers, smearing the walls, etc? It's almost certain that these people don't carry on that way inside their own homes, so why on earth would US college-educated military folks not look at this and put it together with the type of behavior they get when they're trying to give obedience training to a common house pet?
If this is how stupid and politically correct / morally-relativistic everyone in the mil and civilian leadership have become and are conducting this adventure, it should be obvious we're well past the sell-by date...
There is a long list of ridicioulous things Afghan peasents and even urban city dwellars do that make no sense from our point of view. Wiping ass with rocks, rampant Pashtun Homo-ness, Stacking 40 ft containers on top of passenger buses.
I think they will never get their act together to function as a modern state because of their ass backwardness not in spite of it. It would be nice to get the ANA or ANP to get to the level of some of their modern day military equivalents in neighboring countries.
Very common story, interestingly it is the same problem in the asian style bathrooms or crappers in US built district buildings.
Bringing it down from Alexander to Grunt level
I have worked as an advisor to both Iraqi and Afghan forces. It was actually quite an emotional issue for the Iraqi brigade commander to get "Eastern shitters" for his troops (no seat, a hole in the floor and bidet type hoses for cleaning afterwards).
Later I was a commander for an Infantry training unit and would always give the new soldiers one of their early classes on Army Values. When I got to the value of Respect, I talked about respect for fellow soldiers and then respect for other cultures. This was conviently at the halfway point where I would give the soldiers a latrine break, so in good Infantry terms I would discuss the difference between Eastern and Western style latrine habits and pointed out that 1) Afghans and Iraqi's don' sit, they squat, and 2) that they did not use toilet paper, just water and their left hand. This got a predictable "eeewwww!" from the trainees. Then I would put it to them from the Afghan/Iraqi point of view looking at Westerners: " You Americans put your naked ass on a chair with a hole in it, that a hundred other peoples' naked ass has been on during they day, and then when you clean yourself, you don't use any water, just a piece of dry paper!?!? That's disgusting!"
Not quite as sophisticated as contemplating Alexander, but I think I got the point across: Different culture, different customs ... and oh by the way, get the Afghans their own latrine, and keep a lock on the Advisor latrine door.
right here at FOB Fenty I went to relieve myself in one of our shared latrines. The only available toilet I found had just been desecrated by some Non-Western defecator who left an empty Cristal bottle, water all over the floor and toilet seat, and two muddy boot prints right on the seat for my enjoyment. Im sure my neighbors in the adjoining stalls appreciated the obscenities I shared while cleaning up that mess prior to taking care of business.
Is it sad that the only thing I want is to have a toilet that I dont share with hundreds of other men? I guess it's better than a burn out latrine, which is a special experience in itself...
...for making the US personnel use shared facilities. "How's that cultural exchange and respect working out. sir?" How to include this item on the OER....
Toilet paper is a Western invention of the past 150 years or so. Before that, everyone squatted, used their fingers, and crapped wherever. When camping, I recall that my number 2 squats leave less butt smearage....
One of the long-term ills of the American South was that people crapped everywhere, thereby picking up hookworm and other nasties because they walked around in bare feet. Widespread use of the outhouse did more for Southern economic efficiency and public health than just about anything else.
Though the Arabs use their left hands to wipe and are unsanitary by our standards, they also are very poo-phobic when it comes to house plumbing. All Iraqi houses are supposed to have two outgoing waste-water lines: one for kitchen water, and the other for toilet water. There's probably practical reasons for two lines, since it seems likely for sewage lines in Iraq to back up. One of the many reported headaches of the Fallujah Waste Water Treatment plant was that the Western-trained planners did not anticipate or understand the need for two outgoing lines from each residence.
Likewise, the jobs related to sewage and human waste are not well regarded, so few people would take a paycheck for cleaning up other peoples' crap. I read that Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has no sewage system to speak of; all the all the waste is carted away and dumped in a giant sewage pond that's located above the elevation of the city. Doubtful that Saudis are working on those sewage crews.
Also, I read about the occupied peoples of WW2 making "111" when they did number 2. We'll all be using our digits when civilization collapses in the wake of the Zombie Apocalypse.
Toilet paper is Chinese and dates back a thousand years or more.
It's interesting that it's assumed to be a Western invention.
Muslims didn't like it back then, either.
Paper uses less water than their method, therefore it is superior for the desert.
Arguments can be made for squatting.
But as far as cultural arguments go--they're using our shitters, they will use them our way. None of this crap about "their country." Do we require our female troops to be subservient and put out per their cultural rules? No, and nor should we allow them to shit like savages. They're welcome to do so in their own huts.
This has been a problem for the US military for decades--for a while, US female officers in Saudi Arabia were required to wear hijabs. Not because the Saudis said so, but because we didn't want to "offend" them. Likewise, pork was prohibited even on our own bases.
If they want our help, they can shut the @#$ up and take it our way. If we're occupying, they can shut the @#!$ up and do it our way. If they're on our base, they can shut the !@#$ up and do it our way.
Every recruit is taught this when they stand on the line. It's time our inferiors (And regardless of how long their "culture" has lasted, it is inferior) learned this, too.
In medicine, the word "borborygmi" refers to the rumble of the intestines. Typically the rumble is audible before a bout of diarrhea, but can be heard even normally using a stethoscope.
Borborygmus probably does not mean shit fearing. It could well be an ancient expression that says "shit scared" for the very reasons mentioned in the article - the release of stool and urine at a time of intense stress.
If you give Afghans western style commodes, they will squat on it and defecate rather than sit on the seat. They will also wash themselves rather than wipe with paper and that washing is likely to splash feces stained water all over because such washing was never designed for a "sitting" commode.
First, thanks so much for sharing. I lost interest in this esoteric article at the smearing phase. There is zero benefit to the joint effort or to Americans in using facilities. I'm surprised that this hasn't led to cases of "fragging." We enter Third World countries as immunological virgins nand we do not need to add to our woes with unsanitary habits. Do the same COs have us share sleeping bags and fuck one another? The ANA does it so I guess we should. Oh, and pass the marijuana please.
We don't gain shit by sharing their mores. You just don't violate their mores which would insult or offend them. So, you are careful what you do with the soles of your shoes and how you behave toward "their" women, and you look forward to the next Shura. The trouble with conventional force leaders is they have no clue where to draw the line. Everything is black and white to them.
I believe much of what I read here and this is the stupidest and perhaps most revealing information to date. If this is how some/most commanders run their units, then there is no hope for these "leaders." That soldiers put up with this "crap" is astonishing. And we have been talking about reflective belts? What we should be lamenting is the dearth of deployed psychiatrists.
Since Afghanistan isn't going to work out and we are going to get out under some bogus peace agreement; there is not a reason in hell to make one single compromise in how we conduct ourselves. One of the things SF teams always did was attempt to improve the sanitation in the villages where we worked. Both our engineer and medical NCOs were fanatics on this subject. To be perfectly clear, anyone who disagrees with this viewpoint has their head right where it belongs.
Although I enjoyed Quiggle's story and it associated allegory, and respect Quiggle's commitment, I have to ask whether a Greek mythology class at FOB Fenty is the best use of training time. . .just asking
Anyway, I tend to agree with CYBERSURG on the terminology of the word borborygmus, because the Greek playwright, Aeschylus, himself a participant at the Battle of Marathon, would later describe men standing in the phalanx prior to the violent clash to come, "letting water run down their leg", and/or "voiding themselves uncontrollably," but didn’t use the term borborygmus in describing this phenonmena. . .However, I readily admit, Doctor Quiggle may know more about this shit than I do?
www dot nytimes dot com/2012/01/20/world/asia/afghan-soldiers-step-up-killings-of-allied-forces.html?_r=1&hp&gwh=28EC5F5D9B28D3AC41FB4CF67A9C3D98"
“The sense of hatred is growing rapidly,” said an Afghan Army colonel. He described his troops as “thieves, liars and drug addicts,” but also said that the Americans were “rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language.”
“The sense of hatred is growing rapidly,” said an Afghan Army colonel. He described his troops as “thieves, liars and drug addicts,” but also said that the Americans were “rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language.”
Until recently, we in Germany used to import authentic ANA/ANP to take part in OMLT training exercises. An incident similar to the one mentioned in this guest post caused a (literal) shit storm when pictures wound up circulating.
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