This essay was written in May, 2004 by Maj. Ben Connable, serving as a foreign-area officer and intelligence officer with the 1st Marine Division. Pardon me if this has been discussed here before, this is a bit dated -- but it's still appropriate reading, given the current circumstances in Iraq.
This article came to me via email from a family member serving in Iraq.
Marines Are From Mars, Iraqis Are From Venus
Major Ben Connable
First Marine Division G-2
30 May 2004
Introduction: Marines find themselves regularly frustrated by the behavior and reactions of the Iraqi people. There are very fundamental cultural differences between Americans and Arabs, but for a variety of reasons these differences are exaggerated between the Marine tribe and the Iraqi tribe. Our fundamental differences lead to fundamental misunderstandings. As we enter a period of ambiguity leading up to the transition, it may be helpful to look at how we deal with our Iraqi counterparts from a fresh perspective. American Marines and Iraqis are hardwired at far ends of a cultural void not by genetics, but by social conditioning.
These descriptions are necessarily simplified, skewed and hyperbolic toward the ideal to make a point. No two people are the same, not everyone lives up (or down) to the ideal.
AMERICAN MARINES:
People in general are hardwired to see obstacles or problems, find solutions for those problems, and execute those solutions. The American culture reinforces this natural instinct in what most other cultures consider an extreme manner. Americans focus on winning, achieving, succeeding, and producing. Our children learn and play aggressive, competitive sports from a very early age.
For example, football, arguably the most popular and widely played American sport is a linear, aggressive, goal-oriented endeavor that usually ends with concrete results. This is a simple construct that satisfies our basic needs. We see a problem (the other team, the goal line), we see a solution, (drive forward, score more points), and we can easily envision an end state -- unambiguous victory. Ties are a disappointment, not a means to an end. In professional football we have done away with ties entirely because they don’t satisfy our Manichean need for a concrete solution.
As children, most of us are taught that lying and cheating are wrong, and that “honesty is always the best policy.” You might say that “honor” to an American means never quitting, never betraying your word, living up to a high standard of performance and behavior. “Honor” on the athletic field means playing by the rules and giving your best performance no matter what the conditions. People who give excuses for poor performance are deemed weak and are shunned.
When we are presented with challenges, we are expected to overcome them with personal initiative. People who overcome personal disaster are held up as examples to the rest of us. The worse the disaster faced, the greater the comeback, the better the story. The skier who breaks both legs in a fall and drags himself five miles for help is a hero, but it’s even better if he crawls all the way back to save his dog from an avalanche. Most Americans are generous to a fault, but we tend to lack respect for those who don’t help themselves. Most of us can (still) relate to statements like, “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” “Self-made man,” “I don’t take handouts.”
We see ourselves as separate and distinct individuals. Choosing our own relationships, memberships, associations, and path in life, we see it as standard practice to move 3000 miles across the country, away from family and friends, to “start over.” If we don’t like our families, we simply dissociate ourselves from them and seek other relationships. We marry and divorce with impunity, and often without input from friends or family. We decide what is best for ourselves. If we fail, we’re generally expected to view it as our own fault. We have responsibility to take care of our parents in their old age, but we often pay someone else to take this burden off our hands.
Most Americans are lucky enough to have a fairly high standard of living compared to the rest of the world. More than ninety percent of families can afford three full meals a day for their children and nearly everyone has an opportunity to go to school. Our safety is buffered by regulatory agencies that protect us from dirty water, dirty air, and even noise pollution. Although we have many bad neighborhoods, there is little threat from brutal torture, state-sponsored mass murder, oppressive martial law, or enemy invasion across our borders. Our health care isn’t perfect, but our life expectancy is high and most of us feel good about our futures.
In fact, our ability to envision our future is one of our greatest strengths. Because most of our basic survival needs are met, we have the luxury of a long-term view. Retirement planning is a normal part of life. Most Americans envision their children going on to college, and have no reason to expect they won’t be able to fulfill this expectation even if they have to take out student loans. We save money and plan our careers.
Our system of government gives us the perception that we also have a greater role in our collective future. Although many Americans say they feel disenfranchised, our ability to vote elected officials in and out of office gives us an avenue of participation. Our anger and frustration can be vented with the pull of a lever or a letter to our congressman. The fact that the congressman writes back and will probably look into each individual case would shock most people from the developing world.
The respect for the rule of law is the foundation of our way of life. We modify our daily behavior based on the belief that it’s our responsibility to follow laws, we will be punished if we don’t follow laws, and that most other people will follow laws. Law gives order, protects us from each other and from the government, and oftentimes from ourselves. Our faith in this system of laws is reflected in the amount of time we dedicate to following the creation of law in congress and the adjudication of law in the courts. Publicly, corruption is unacceptable, and when discovered it is usually rooted out.
We take great pride in being a free people. Our unquestioning belief in our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness make us uniquely American. Unencumbered by the shackles of tyranny, our hearts host the seeds of generosity and altruism. Most of us have an unfailing belief that we make the most of our freedom, living good lives, helping others and trying to live up to our personal standards.
Our altruism and earnestness often make us somewhat naïve. We expect that everyone else can see that our hearts are pure, and we expect them to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules that we try to live by ourselves. When we find out that people in the rest of the world necessarily live by a more survival-oriented set of rules, we’re often overly disappointed. We have trouble adjusting to other people’s way of life because we think our way of life is the ideal. We have trouble seeing things from other people’s eyes because we think they should always see things from our perspective.
Our sense of moral superiority comes from a real desire to help others and do the right thing, but it also gets in our way when we have to deal with those that live by more nebulous rules. Our earnest overtures are seen as false and naïve instead of moral and brave. Europeans cannot believe that we would sacrifice so much in Iraq just to prevent a WMD attack and to help the Iraqi people, because they would never do it themselves. If they have a hidden angle, we must have one too. Sometimes our lack of street smarts catches up to us. When we don’t live up to our own expectations on the national stage, we are our own worst enemies. The shame-fest over Abu Ghraib is a case study in American guilt.
Our national character is built on high moral concepts that not many of us live up to, but most of us aspire to. Our nature is to be strong, moral, and productive. We set the bar high.
American Marines take these characteristics and drive them to a new level. With notable exceptions, we tend to be exceptionally aggressive, mission focused, and strong believers in the American ideal. We do not accept weakness, indecision, laziness, or incompetence because we know that these things lead to death in combat. We drive ourselves past normal points of endurance, often damaging our own bodies just to reach a finish line or save a buddy. We expect no less from anyone else, a point that often leads to friction with our old high school friends, our families, and especially other Marines. We have been called extremists, and in many ways we are. Marines can best be described as “extreme Americans.”
…American Marines have unusually high expectations…
IRAQIS OF AL-ANBAR:
Although we don’t like to call ourselves “Arabs,” the Iraqi culture is an Arabic culture. We are a communal people, and our lives revolve around our family; close, extended, and tribal. The paths of our lives are less lineal than the Americans, less “A to B,” more nebulous. Our sport of choice is also football, but not the American variety.
We play the sport played extensively everywhere in the world except America. Soccer isn’t a direct, aggressive kind of sport like the game you play. In fact, we spend a lot of time kicking the ball backwards instead of towards the goal. Much time is spent on the field lining up shots, less time shooting. The goal is to win, but a tie is okay as long as it was a good tie. We often view a tie as a victory if it is against a better team.
Our perception of victory and success is often malleable to the circumstances. Our honor demands victory, we have trouble accepting anything less. We’re not lying to ourselves; we just adjust the standards to fit the situation. The Gulf War was a victory for Saddam because we prevented you from driving into Baghdad. Despite the fact that we were losing on the field, Fallujah is a victory because you could not finish the attack -- our will to hold out defeated your will to crush our forces. If you push us into a position where we have obviously lost, we become distraught and angry, and our honor demands that we seek a victory to balance things out. This is no different from you -- Americans hate losing as well. It is different from you because to us it is all that matters.
This sense of honor permeates everything we do. This isn’t the Western definition of honor; it’s more like Hispanic honor. Perception of manhood is vital, and in fact it can be a matter of life and death. A man without honor gets no wife, often no work, and in Iraq he may be shunned or killed by his family depending on how grave the offense. Defending honor is part of our cultural heritage and it is a focal point for our behavior. We protect the virtue of our women and the pride of our family. We are disgusted that American men allow their women to act and dress like “sharmuta,” or whores. If our wives dressed in public like Brittany Spears we would kill them or burn them with cooking oil.
An Iraqi man unable to support his family has no honor and must take action to counterbalance this loss. It doesn’t necessarily matter how we support our families as long as we provide. In many cases, we are pushed out the door by our wives to conduct attacks against the Coalition to regain our honor and to make money. An Iraqi woman knows that a husband without honor is worthless to her and her children.
Saddam was a terrible father, but many of us loved him as an abused child loves the parents who beat him. We still act like abused children, playing one side against the other, looking for an advantage, support, and acceptance. We will play you against your boss, against the CPA, and against the government to get what we want. Don’t expect loyalty from us, we are survivors. When we give loyalty to a cause it is to God’s cause. When we give loyalty to people it is to our family.
When we are presented with challenges, we accept the fate prescribed by God. Acceptance of fate is an Islamic trait, and it guides almost everything we do. If we are poor, then it is Gods will that we are poor. If there is a task to be completed, then by the will of God it will be completed -- In Sha Allah. In many cases, except for those of us educated in Baghdad or the west, we see no reason to put extra effort into succeeding beyond the norm. Getting by is good enough because that is our lot in life. We have basic expectations and these are tied into our honor -- we need food, shelter, water, electricity, and medical help just like everyone else.
Don’t expect any miraculous stories of hardship overcome, “personal best” in the Marathon, or an “I can make it on my own” attitude. These concepts are luxuries for people who live in pampered societies like America. Even when we are poor we have our families and that is enough to keep us happy. When you ask us to do something, we rarely think to ourselves, “Gee, how can I do a great job?” We are answering the call of our stomachs and our screaming wives. After that, a little coffee, some shisha, and leave us alone.
Our families make us who we are. The family is everything, and only those on the margins of society live without family support. Because we live in a developing country, and our needs are more survival oriented than yours, we have to rely on common survival techniques. People group together to survive, to protect each other, to look out for each others interests. The closer the grouping, the closer the interest of the group. Our immediate families are most important to us, then our larger families, then sub-tribe, then tribe, then tribal confederation.
Our loyalty expands and contracts based on our survival needs, but we almost always work within this construct. If you kill or imprison one of us, you have taken some of our pooled resources and reduced our chance of survival. Because we survive as a group, an attack on one is an attack on all. This is why we demand blood money for death, injury, and damage. You must replace the resource you have taken from our pool to balance things out. As long as you recognize that need, we can work together. Here’s a real-life example of how seriously we take our tribal resources:
The tribal feud started when three members of one tribe borrowed some money from a sheikh of another tribe. They had borrowed the money because they could not find jobs to support their families. After allowing sufficient time for repayment of the loan, the sheikh attempted to collect the money he was owed by taking possession of a vehicle that the three borrowers had purchased in an attempt to start a small business carting groceries from the market to surrounding towns. An argument ensued between the two groups, and the sheikh threatened to harm members of the three men’s families if they didn’t repay the money. Upon hearing this, the three men shot and killed the sheikh. The sheikh’s tribe immediately vowed revenge. Soon, all three of the borrowers had also been killed by a member of the sheikh’s tribe. The feud will continue until blood money is paid, balancing out the losses on each side. Very much like your Hatfield and McCoy’s, no?
Pooling resources and interest within a family means that there is little room for individualism. We rarely choose our own path in life. If a father owns a business, the son will almost certainly work for his father. If marriage to another tribe solves an inter-tribal conflict, we marry who we are told. Our parents pick our spouses, and we often have little or no input in who we marry. Only the rich and the elite choose their own life. This lack of individuality further reduces our sense of individual responsibility. Again, don’t expect us to act like independent Americans.
Our tribalism is tightly bound to our sense of honor. Just as honor is vital to each one of us, it is also vital to the tribe. A dishonored tribe loses “wasta” and therefore influence. Less influence means less money, less power, less ability to support the members of the tribe. Therefore, a tribe’s honor is jealously guarded as a group resource. Mistreating a sheikh of our tribe makes him less powerful, making all of us less powerful. Less power means fewer contracts, less money, less food, angrier families. We must regain this honor any way we can. Because Iraqi tradition is violent, we often choose violence to regain our honor. If you dishonor our tribe, we have to negotiate with you…. or attack you until our honor is restored.
We don’t ask for much. Our standard of living is low compared to the Western world. If you put us in the United States, most of us would fall well below your poverty level. Since the collapse of the economy last year, many of us cannot afford to feed our families without finding odd jobs, begging money from family members, or supporting the ACF. Look around -- most of us live in humble homes, farming small plots with a few animals and a broken down car. If we have a big home, we may have had a good job before the war and now we have nothing and are twice as angry as our poor neighbors.
There are certainly rich people amongst us, but they don’t represent the majority. When you tell us you can improve our lives and make us rich, you have an image of your own homes in mind. Most of us cannot even imagine what your lives must be like in America, and we do not necessarily value what you value. We don’t dream of Outback Steakhouse. We are proud of our lives even if they don’t meet your expectations.
Unlike you, we do not enjoy the protection of concerned government leaders. Nobody cares if there is lead in our water or pollution in the air. Sometimes our leaders feign concern about our healthcare system, but that’s only because our harried tribal leaders take up our cry. Your system is so refined that every little whimper draws the ire of a champion congressman. Our system is so broken our raging screams barely make a sound. We must use the power of our tribes and our religious groups to effect any change, so again, if you weaken our affiliations you weaken our only hope of being heard.
Where you have been protected from invasion, martial law, and torture for nearly two centuries, we have experienced nothing but invasion, martial law, and torture for our entire lives. We have been in a state of almost constant warfare with either the US or with Iran. When we weren’t fighting you, we were fighting ourselves in the north and the south. Our sons and brothers were killed fighting to keep Saddam in power, and our lives seemed painfully short. At any time, a government official, police officer, or secret policeman could decide that we had done something wrong and have us killed. They might have to pay off some blood money, but so what?
Just as many of you have become callous about death in combat, we have grown up to be callous about death in everyday life. We are not the Baghdad elite. All of us have seen animals slaughtered and have helped pull their guts from their bodies, so blood is nothing new to us. Beatings are a part of life, pain is a part of life, and death is an ever-present part of life. If pain and death are our lot in life, we accept that as part of God’s plan. This is how we are able to accept money for a relative you have killed -- we accept God’s will, and you have balanced out our resources. What can we complain about?
Because our lives are so brutal, we have almost no capacity to view the long term. Our inability to envision our own futures is our greatest weakness. We are faced with a simple hierarchy of needs. One must breathe before he can think about shelter and security, shelter and security before water, water before food, and so on. It is only by building a normal, healthy society that you can extend that focus into the long range, to think about things like education, leisure time, investment, and retirement. You have heard our complaints. We want shelter, security, water, and food. Your talk about democracy and culture and prosperity mean little to people who are simply surviving.
With this short term view, if you give us money we spend it. If you give money to one of our public officials, he’ll steal as much as he can because he doesn’t even know if he’ll have a job next week. He has to get more, now, to fulfill basic needs. He can’t see into the long term, to see the effect his corruption will have on the future of his community. He may even be a good person, but he has to look out for his family first.
What you see as corruption we see as part of the normal process of doing business. Because most jobs underpay, we always take a cut. This is built into the price of the job. Iraq follows the trend of many other Arab countries -- there aren’t enough jobs for the expanding population so the government hires everyone. The government can’t afford high salaries for so many people, so the pay is low. Because the pay is low, it’s expected that you accept bribes and cheat to get by. Everyone knows the rules, even the government.
Typically, we’ll take a slice of 10% to 15% off the top of a contract or a work order. Nobody will really get too upset if we keep things in this “normal” range. If we go too far, and take 30% or higher, then we know we are stepping over the line. However, unless you catch on we’ll take what we can get. If you’re too stupid to figure out what we’re doing, it’s your fault, not ours. There is no real shame in corruption; after all, we’re looking out for our families as expected.
Corruption is natural in a country without the rule of law. We do not respect law the way you do because for us law comes from the end of a gun. In the absence of the gun, we try to respect our families and friends and live by God’s will. If the government passes laws, or you give us a transitional law, we don’t respect it because we don’t respect the government. Government to us means corruption, violence, dictatorship, and rule by fear. In the absence of fear, there is no rule.
We know that Saddam lied to us often. We feel that he did this to protect us, but also to protect himself. We have never trusted our social institutions as much as we trust our families and our friends. It all comes back to the family and tribe. If the government tells us that the Americans are going to enter our town in peace, but our cousin tells us they are coming to murder everyone and rape our women, we will almost always believe our cousin. You have made many promises to us, but kept so few. Why should we believe you? In the absence of trusted institutions, our lives are ruled by rumor, and rumor is spread by word of mouth.
In such a nebulous society, where life is a tenuous prospect, we rarely take responsibility for our own actions. “Owning up” for our poor performance or behavior would be a stupid thing to do if it reduces our chance of survival and success. If we can put off our mistakes on others, we’ll do it in a heartbeat not because we’re lazy or incompetent but to avoid damaging our honor and possibly losing our jobs. Remember, without honor and a job, we are nothing. So we break a few rules and lie about our mistakes. We don’t care about rules anyway; we do things to achieve an effect not because they’re right or wrong.
We’re masters of achieving effect. Everything we do is designed to coax, cajole, trick, or steer you into doing what we want you to do. This is a standard survival skill, one that you obviously haven’t mastered. Your naiveté never ceases to amaze us. You either take us at face value, or you get mad when we “lie.” It’s not lying if you get what you want, and we almost always get what we want from you. We are in a constant state of negotiation, and there are no permanent solutions to any problem. You pretend to be so honest, but we see you as the biggest liars of all. You promised us security, jobs, and peace. All we have is crime, unemployment, and war. Who’s the liar?
You may have noticed we have a very emotional nature. There’s no imperative to control our emotions, and in fact we’re encouraged to express ourselves. We wear everything on our sleeves, and we change our minds at will. We can be furious at you one minute when you offend us, and truly love you the next minute. Every death is a massacre, every accident a murder, every threat is an impending disaster.
Iraqis are complicated people. We can be kind, generous, and forgiving in the worst circumstances. If you are a visitor in our homes, we will feed you our last morsel of food. If you become a true friend, we will die for you. But we see no future for ourselves or for our families.
We are stuck in a rut, and we need someone who has the capacity to see a better future to guide us onto the right path. We may take your hand, or we may bite your hand because we do not trust you. It is on your head to be patient and forgiving, not ours. Do not expect us to be American Marines. If you expect too much from us, you will be disappointed. There is nothing worse than unmet expectations, my friend.
…Iraqis will never live up to the Marines’ expectations because they are Iraqis, not American Marines. We haven’t lived up to their expectations either…
Wow.
That was really good.
Shukran, Cicero.
But the Bene Gesserit have known this all along.
We are all tribal. The most basic tribe is the tribe of genetics, the tribe of blood kin. The extended tribe is the tribe of shared-memetics, of those who share your beliefs and cultural values, whether it be the tribe of democrats, the tribe of marines, the tribe of muslims, the tribe of republicans, or the tribe of iraqis.
These tribes are all competitive and seek to prosper. There is no altruism in nature. We are not in Iraq to help Iraqis, but to help our tribe. Helping Iraqis may be a side-effect, but that is not why we are there.
And this will continue, all the tribes of earth in competition, until we are united in effort against biggest guy's aliens. It is indesputable.
Excellent Cicero, excellent.
We play the sport played extensively everywhere in the world except America. Soccer isn’t a direct, aggressive kind of sport like the game you play. In fact, we spend a lot of time kicking the ball backwards instead of towards the goal. Much time is spent on the field lining up shots, less time shooting. The goal is to win, but a tie is okay as long as it was a good tie. We often view a tie as a victory if it is against a better team.
Soccer can be as direct as you will. You are free to play it in any way as long as the other team allows you it. I think it is closer to war than football, and as any war, may be moments of stagnation and boredom. It is also heavily impacted by events with psychological yield (such as a goal just before the end of the first part).
My problem with that whole line of thought is cultural differences aren't stopping us from unifying warlord ridden ignorant hyper islamist Afghanistan, they didn't stop us from resolving Bosnia or Kosovo, they didn't stop of from totally transforming Japan from a Bushio militarist samuri culture into pacifist business men.
Whatever our cultrual differences with the Iraqis, we're much closer to them than a lot of other places where we're succeeded in recreating a nation. If we could do it there, we can do it here.
Yeah, right. Here is the American version of the joke:
What's the difference between football and soccer? Honduras has never gone to war with El Salvador over a game of football.
GWOT - Clash of Ideologies/Cultures
Excellent - This is truly a war of information.
See my comment over at Roger L. Simon that furthers this thread on how to win GWOT and meet the needs of the people that our enemy has brutalized.
Islamofascism is a failed ideology. We must drive this message home!
*****
HT Roger L. Simon and Dr. Zin of Regime Change Iran
Rift Now Opening within Iran's Ruling Megalomaniacs
Very good everyone. Your comments are excellent. Now lets force our governmental leaders to "fight the fight" instead of postering for the 08 Election. This only endangers our troops on the ground. The stakes are just too high!
Yes, there is a rift brewing between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ultra fascist wing and the clerics they used to come to power.
The clerics are beginning to realize that their days are numbered. Ahmadinejhad has been purging the political and governmental ranks of the more moderate thinkers. At some point those opposed will resist. This was seen recently in the rejection of Ahadinejhad's choice for oil minister.
We need to exploit this rift so this house of cards will tumble in on itself and save the world from Armageddon (HT LGF).
[...]
Read More
Here
"Soccer can be as direct as you will. You are free to play it in any way as long as the other team allows you it. I think it is closer to war than football..."
(American) Football isn't close to war. Football is war.
Granted, football tactically much more closely resembles the set peice formation/engagements of pre-20th century warfare, than modern warfare, but it most certainly is a form of ritualized warfare. The tactics of football involve creating and exploiting local concentrations of force. On offense you try to move harrassers past the defensive phalanx to strike at the weak rear areas, while on defense you try to deploy your skirmishers to disrupt the same. The action is extremely physical, and would it not for the pads would be extraordinarily violent. When the game was first formalized it was played virtually without protection and thus nearly banned as 'man mangling barbarism'.
American football is a game a Roman centurian could love. (Although IMO he'd more likely be a NASCAR dad.)
And soccer by comparison seems an individual competition in which the players require no discipline at all. In football, every player's action is coordinated down to the single steps, the position of the head, the way you move your arms, even the way you hold your hands. Soccer and basketball share a feature of many team sports in that one truly great player can virtually carry the team. Football (or volleyball) isn't like that. The greatest quarterback in the world is nothing if he doesn't have a good offensive line blocking for him and recievers that can get open and catch the ball. A good running back, which is often the heart of alot of good High School and college teams, needs blockers and enough of a credible passing game that the field opens up. And the greatest offense in the world means nothing if the defense can't keep your opponents from scoring every possession.
Moreover, football requires like no other sport I can think of the full range of body shapes and atheletic prowess. Top cornerbacks and wide recievers are often world class sprinters, while the offensive linemen would make worthy opponents for Sumo wrestlers. Running backs vary from barrel shaped juggernauts to lithe slashers. And no team sport I'm aware of has anything remotely like the bizarre specialist positions of 'punter' and 'place kicker'. And no other team sport I know of has anything like the massive tactical playbooks and precision drills of football.
Don't get me wrong. I love soccer. I just finished watching the World Cup selections live, but I don't think of it as being much anything like war. Even played at the highest level, soccer consists of alot of running around simply because moving the ball is so hard that even good players frequently seem clumsy and lose to simple physical clearing. That's why fans cheer in soccer whenever anyone does anything with the ball that seems remotely graceful or creative.
It's almost entirely anglo-sphere sports which compete with American football as true ritualized warfare: Canada's hockey, Australia's football, England and NZ's Rugby. Somewhere I read a theory that if you wanted to produce high quality infantry, the first step was to adopt one of the anglosphere sports.
Its true. Football is trained very similiarly to the military as well. Small unit cohesion, etc. There is a familial, we all sink or swim together mentality that cant really be described unless you participated in it. I'm sure soccer has something of a similar feel, but i doubt its as deep. In soccer if your teammate screws up the ball goes out of bounds or the other team scores a goal. In football your are putting you health and even you life in 10 other guys hands. One missed block could easily send you to the hospital.
One quick aspect of " ' the' rule of law"
that I think deserves elaboration (there are others, such as the notion of clear title to real property, that are important -- even more so now with the recent 5th Amendment "takings" problems showing up --
Blackstone (the big history-and-theory-of-CommonLaw/Anglo/American-jurisprudence honcho) says that a crucial element of this tradition is that there must be an end to disputes.
Generational and tribal feuds are generally held to be alien or a waste of time. That also is made easier by the "drop everything, move 3k miles, start over" modus.
The thing that strikes me about the whole article is the moral equivalency of it: that Iraqi's have every right to their way of life and we have no right to demand that they change.
Involved in this particular way of life, as the article points out, are lying, cheating, corruption, and that horrible honor/humiliation thing that means it's OK to slit your wife's throat if you think she showed too much ankle beneath her burkha. Or that it's fine and dandy to take a 9-year old girl as a wife if it will satisfy an inter-tribal feud.
I don't care if Iraqi's are a proud and complicated people. They'd better listen up and start acting more like the Marines or they'll be forever living like blood-sucking barbarians in the sand box that they're in now. I cannot see one single thing about the whole Mideast morality or lifestyle, let alone the religion of Islam, that should remain the way it's currently being lived.
And I'm REALLY not interested in allowing these "proud" Iraqi's to continue to bop happily down the path of life the produces jihadists and plane hijackers and other lunatics who think that a world-wide Caliphate is a sane goal in life.
So if they won't change, then they'll each and every one of them deserve the firey nuclear death that's sure as shooting coming their way.
Football is trained very similiarly to the military as well. Small unit cohesion, etc. There is a familial, we all sink or swim together mentality that cant really be described unless you participated in it. I'm sure soccer has something of a similar feel, but i doubt its as deep. In soccer if your teammate screws up the ball goes out of bounds or the other team scores a goal. In football your are putting you health and even you life in 10 other guys hands. One missed block could easily send you to the hospital.
OK, I agree: a football team is much closer to a platoon in war, but as a whole, I think soccer gives a variety of engagements closer to what happens during a conflict in a tactical level.
For instance, the tactic of let them come and then strike back breaking their defence lines and advancing fast towards the objective is fully military (the enemy increases the distance between lines enabling a fast breakthrough while the lines of the other contender are compressed favouring defence), the demolishing psychological effect of an adversary controlling most of the field but losing, is too.
In addition, Guerrilla war is possible in soccer: committing faults in order to prevent a fluid game; also public opinion manipulation: rolling on the floor complaining about an inexistent blow or kick.
As in war, many coachs (generals) begin important matches with a very conservative approach, not daring to risk till the other team scores one or two goals.
Soccer is a quite free sport. 22 players in a field with almost no rules, therefore a match can evolve into many different situations, that better reflect reality, while football is more objective oriented, in my opinion.
J Aguilar: As much as I would like otherwise, I can't help but feel that the basis of your opinion is a much greater degree of familiarity with soccer than with football.
The tactic of stretching the field is not exclusive to soccer.
For example, the 'let them come' tactic of feinting a trade in space in order to break the defensive lines perfectly describes a 'screen pass'. Your quarterback runs hard backward while your offensive line seems to collapse and leave him vunerable. The defense over commits to attacking the apparantly vulnerable quarterback, who then lobs it over the heads of the blizters to a waiting running back. The offensive line, which seemly collapsed in fact only shifted to the side to protect the running back, and you now ideally have a local concentration of force in that many of the defenders are now behind the play and the skirmishers designed to protect against the pass find thier ability to get the ball carrier obstructed by the largest and strongest members of your team. Set up properly, the running back need only get one or two down field blocks, and the way to the end zone is completely open.
Feints of various sorts are used in the 'play action pass', the 'reverse', the 'double reverse', the 'counter tre', the 'flea flicker', and so forth. All of which have to do with getting your opponents defense to overcommit to an 'counter-attack' and so leave open your real intended line of advance.
Feigning fouls and injuries are used in every sport. In football for example, a feigned injury is often used against a no huddle offense to take away temporary advantages in tempo. Feigned fouls are used to draw and exagerrate 'pass interferance', 'holding' and even 'clipping' calls. In soccer its reached the level of an art, its true, but its also become so common and ridiculous (especially in the latin countries) as to detract from the sport and become a joke even amongst the fans. Football players would find these actions unmanly. I'm amazed the refs let players get away with it, but then again soccer referees are notoriously corrupt. Bribery is still a major issue in international soccer, which makes to my mind soccer more like politics than war.
Likewise, there are very conservative 'generals' in football (Bill Cowher of Pittsburg most famously, and slightly less so Mike Shannahan of Denver) who play 'time of possession' and 'field position' strategies, and very daring ones. Exactly which strategy you adopt depends partly on the strengths of your team (Tony Dungy was conservative in Tampa, but much less so in Indiana) and partly on your philosophy. Championship teams have won with all sorts of strategies.
NahnCee,
Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
I my self was born in a different culture from the Marine/USA one (rural Romania + Israel), and we also have a very strong family tradition & no American Football. Yet unlike the Muslim/Arab excuses for "honor," we dont murder our wives & daughters but try to, rather, instill our values to maintain our traditional lives inspite of ubiquitous pop culture. Not that all pop culture is bad all the time.
We dont blow up "infidels" because we dont have global reality match our long held messianic aspirations. We have lots of political and economic corruption, but everyone I speak to is ashamed of it. It's NOT a fact of life. Not only can it be addressed- it has to be addressed, and it does to some extent in every election.
It's vicerally painful to hear their "narrative," as rarely as its presented, in an honest fashion, even more so than the typical made-for-the-West, yet obvious, dawa and taqqyia. The justifications are abhorant.
In a nut shell, this is the myopia of western multi-culturalism writ large: it's ok for them not only to not disrespect Western Civilization (or really any other then their own), but cry foul when questioned on their own obvious failures and hypocracy. I hope common people read things like this more often. When such massive failure inducing cultures perpetuate, they should indeed be called civilizations- Craven civilizations. To be sure, many of these people live in self fullfiled misery but it seems they want the rest of us for company.
Sorry to be so vociferous in my first post.
If this be true, one must wonder whether Iraq is a fertile field for the seeds of democracy. There seems to be little capacity for honesty and altruism, which are required for millions to live together in peace. How then are the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds to find common ground. Let's hope, for Iraq's sake, that they do.
Just got through reading "The Culture Cult" by Roger Sandall. It was an excellent review of how civilization has viewed various forms of primativism. We've had the noble savage, the wise American Indian of the plains, the peaceful Maoris, etc.
In fact, much of what we "know" about these cultures is a sham.
Over and over again, we see some primative cultures do very well when integrated into modernity, as long as there is an absolute guarantee of private property and binding contracts supported by an independent judiciary. Not a fascade, but the real deal. Personally, I would add an institutionalized democratic system of changing leaders peacefully, and on a regular basis.
The Iraqis will make decisions of whether these cultural factors are important to them. What with satellite tv and cell phones all over the place (not to mention the cultural influence of the marines themselves, an aspect that is overlooked all too often) I'd give them better than even chances. But it is their country. They might get it right the first time, they might go through a civil war (like the US), or it might take 200 more years. Giving them the chance is what is important -- not trying to guess whether "those poor savages could ever have a real democracy" or not.
Seth,
"...they didn't stop of from totally transforming Japan from a Bushio militarist samuri culture into pacifist business men...."
Your statement is fantastic. Bushido/Samurai is just one of many aspects of Japanese culture. Before Edo was Heian which in many ways has been much more important in creating and influencing the Japanese identity. To keep a long story short: Edo ain't Heian. Even during the heights of the feudal regime and the prominent role the Samurai played within, many other groups and identities vied and thrived. Liberty and law and many other things essential for a successful liberal democracy have had long standing. Before the particular kind of militarism that unfortunately took route in Japan, particularly the 1930's, which was modern in means and outlook and decisively anti-bushido and anti-Heian in the most important respects, Japan was well on its way to becoming just the kind of liberal democracy it has become. I wonder how the U.S. in the twenties stands up. Anyway. All this is not to say that I believe America hasn't been a good influence post-war on Japan, or at least parts of the U.S. establishment, definitely not the Acheson/State Dept. wing mind you, but definitely the MacArthur side of things. I'm basically agreeing with you Seth on the big point, but your statement and all that it intones is fantastically naive and the silliest kind of hype. Fabulism.
To the larger point. I think we need to make a distinction between the nature of regimes and the nature of civilizations/culture. People, generally speaking, don't fight over differences in musical styles and eating utensils. Nor over religion unless it is grafted onto more primary differences related to the difference in regimes. Which is one of the basic points Bush seems to be making when he says democracies don't fight each other. For the neo-cons regime is the touchstone. Fundamentally, I agree. Switching from one regime to another as is currently taking place in Iraq is not easy, but there is nothing about the culture per se that precludes democracy based on the rule of law from taking hold. Of course besides containing the Baathists you also have to neutralize the terrorists who stand outside of all this to a certain extent. Ultimately, isn't Democracy much easier on culture and the people so to speak, and much more able to respect ancient tradition and mores than, say, the ways of a 20th century dictator schooled by Hitler and Stalin? I personally think the answer is yes. Which is why China is on its last legs too.
route= root (and apologies for other mistakes in thought and execution. sorry about the long comment)
If this be true, one must wonder whether Iraq is a fertile field for the seeds of democracy.
Well, it seems the Arabs used to call the people from Iraq, the "Germans" of the Middle East. They are disciplined and better educated than the average. In fact one of the problems was this, they started to develop high tech mass destruction weapons.
I think Bush's administration was right, Iraq is one of the best grounds to plant the seeds of democracy.
How then are the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds to find common ground. Let's hope, for Iraq's sake, that they do.
This, I think, is the most difficult part. Kurds and Shia may have a symbiotic relation. The Sunnis should accept that they don't rule alone the country anymore and stop making Bomb-the-Shia a regional sport. So proud people may take many years, maybe a generation, to realize that the old good times are gone and that the future is to jump into a market economy and economic development, so do not expect a sudden drop in violence there.
And they don't see the connection.
Actually, the thing is that for a long time, lying was in fact required to guarantee security, jobs, or peace. Circumstances changed, and now those things will contribute to the erosion of security, jobs, and/or peace. We ain't in Saddam-land any more.
It's a bit of an adaptation shock, one also faced by Eastern European countries post-Marxism. The good news for the Europeans was that they could fall back on an earlier set of norms wherein lying was a problem. The Iraqis are less lucky in that respect, given Arab political culture.
Over time, however, if a real market economy grows up it will be a big help in this regard. Both socialism and tribalism inherently put a premium on lying; capitalism is imperfect but much more efficient at punishing it. Just one more reason that an Alaska-style citizen voucher program for the nation's oil wealth is such an important idea.
Circumstances don't change that much. I really doubt that the Americans would give an Iraqi a job when he says that the invaders must go, that he wants a socialist style state (A democracy with heavy state influence and state ownership, i don't mean DDR but France) or that he likes the Iranians more than the Israeli's.
Zoundz !! Nahncy number nine,
Angry hate or what !?
She'd not be babysitting my children anytime soon.
Glibness pales in comparison.
Interesting, the obvious desire expressed in this thread to discuss football and soccer.
American football was not always as popular as it now is. And as I understand it, soccer was played in the US quite a bit in the twenties and thirties and it was only by a concerted effort by the naiscent professional football team owners that professional soccer never took hold in the US. Soccer was even posited as a Communist game by some government people.
And that was that for soccer.
Could be the only country in the world where this kind of nonsense was accepted as 'truth'.
There is little hope for an American style democracy to flourish in Iraq. The cultures are quite different, never mind the fantasy of imposing an american democracy where a culture wasn't and isn't seeking it.
Already we see differences that many snigger at, with some 10 parties in the running for the national elections. The freedom of too much choice?
Then we and they are faced with the AngloAmerican structured Iraqi Federation of three states,each of a religion oriented culture.
Tell me where in the world that has worked before.
The civil war in Iraq is ramping up. The elections will clarify the reality of it.
"American football was not always as popular as it now is. And as I understand it, soccer was played in the US quite a bit in the twenties and thirties and it was only by a concerted effort by the naiscent professional football team owners that professional soccer never took hold in the US. Soccer was even posited as a Communist game by some government people."
This is nonsense and no sports historian would endorse it. There are two half truths. First, football wasn't always as popular as it is now, but it wasn't because of the popularity of soccer but rather because of the popularity of baseball. Football has a relatively higher profile than baseball right now, but in the '20's and 30's baseball was king. Secondly, soccer was popular in the '20's and 30's but there was no concerted effort to kill it. But the rest is just lies. Basically, soccer killed itself via balkanization. Soccer died in the US due to a series of problems, and most of the wounds were self-inflicted. Foremost in the demise of soccer was the 1876 Ivy League decision to formalize the rules of football in a manner that favored the development of a rugby style game - eventually leading to college football as we know it. While this wouldn't immediately kill the game, this relative weakness compared to football would ultimately doom soccer. Collegiate football would lead to the widespread adoption of a universal rules by which everyone played. Even in the '20's and 30's different soccer club leagues could be using widely different rules.
The second thing that killed soccer was the Great Depression. Since soccer was exclusively a club sport with little college impact, if the atheletic clubs died then thier would be no one playing it. The timing of the Great Depression was horrible for soccer, in that it occurred right during the midst of a bitter turf war between the various soccer leagues. The Great Depression bankrupted most of the professional clubs. By this point, soccer was firmly behind baseball (then the premier American professional sport) and football (then the premier American collegiate sport) in popularity. The real question would be whether it would take the third spot, or the new sport of basketball.
The effect of WWII on all american sports was pronounced, but it was especially hard on soccer. It destroyed the atheletic clubs. The prominence of the Army-Navy game in the years up to the war, and the fact that many of the leading public figures of the war had first been known to the public as players on the Army-Navy teams helped secure football as 'the American' game. The GI Bill which sent returning vets to college helped ensure that the next generation of American atheletes after WII would largely be football players.
The TV would be what would finally kill soccer in the US. Baseball, football, and even to a lesser extent basketball easily accomodate television commercials. Soccer does not. Without a way to convince the TV networks to carry the sport and with little widespread appeal for the game, soccer continued to lag in popularity, becoming an increasingly ethnic and regional pasttime and was virtually unknown in the heartland (where basketball would take off as the premier high school sport amongst small schools). To make matters worse, since the 1920's the various atheletic club leagues had been bitterly feuding with each resulting in no national league with cross country appeal.
The only thing that saved American soccer was the 1994 World Cup.
There was no big conspiracy against soccer. The whole thing basically comes down to what a few college kids decided should be the rules of an intercollegiate match 130 odd years ago. I'm completely unable to locate even a single quote attributing 'soccer' to being a communist game. For one thing, that sort of statement would never occur to anyone reflexively, since the major communist powers/opponents of the US (with the sole exception of East Germany) have never have been very good at soccer, whereas our prominent allies like England are soccer fanatics. The prominent clashes between the US and USSR in team atheletics were in hockey, baseball, and basketball - three games with a genesis in North America.
"Already we see differences that many snigger at, with some 10 parties in the running for the national elections. The freedom of too much choice?"
You do realize don't you that while this might be unusual for the US, isn't at all unusual amongst democracies in general. England, Israel, and Canada (and probably more if I was more familiar with the local politics of more foreign countries) all have large numbers of major and minor political parties.
Guys:
No more football. Or soccer. Please.
"There is little hope for an American style democracy to flourish in Iraq."
Despite all evidence to the contrary? First of all, there isnt American style democracy in Iraq to begin with. There is a constitutional process written and approved entirely by Iraqis, quite different from our own. And care to wager on whether Iraqi turnout is higher than US turnout in 04?
"The cultures are quite different, never mind the fantasy of imposing an american democracy where a culture wasn't and isn't seeking it."
Again, what makes a democracy 'American style'? Elections with more than one candidate? And what do you know about Iraq that convinces you of this? I suggest you enlighten yourself. At the bottom of your argument, one of two things must be true: either self-determination isnt a universal human right and desire, or it is and the Iraqis dont want it anyway, which by definition would make them subhuman. Which are you espousing?
You know its one thing to suppose Iraqi democracy wont flourish for pragmatic reasons- instability, outside influence, etc. Its quite another to suggest Iraqis have no desire for what we as Americans consider the birthright of every human.