A critical weapon

A critical weapon

The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.): It’s basic training, of sorts, for U.S. troops headed for Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots: Learn the culture. Deal with the locals in ways they understand.

At Fort Lewis, Army units at the platoon level learn how to distinguish friends from enemies and avoid insulting behavior in what can be very foreign Arab societies. In one mock exercise, for example, soldiers left their helmets, body armor and weapons outside when dealing with an Iraqi police chief.

In that country, a matter of simple respect. Counterinsurgency campaigns can be won or lost over such issues.

The notorious jailers of Abu Ghraib could hardly have done more harm to American interests — in Iraq and the rest of the world — if they had turned over reams of state secrets to al-Qaida. By posing and photographing Arab captives in degrading positions, they created an anti-American furor throughout the Middle East and far beyond.

Setting the bar high

At the opposite end of the cultural sensitivity spectrum are soldiers like the late Capt. Travis Patriquin, who was killed in Iraq in 2006.

Patriquin helped transform Ramadi, once one of the most lethal snakepits in Iraq, into an oasis of safety by carefully cultivating Ramadi’s tribal leaders. By winning over the local Sunni sheiks with diplomacy, weapons and funding, Patriquin turned them into U.S. allies eager to run off the al-Qaida forces who’d once all but owned Ramadi.

One of Patriquin’s keys to winning over Iraqis: growing a mustache. A seeming triviality here can be a big deal there.

Thus the importance of equipping American forces with as much cultural awareness as possible before putting them in harm’s way. If a soldier winds up dead or wounded in a combat zone, it shouldn’t be for not knowing when to take a helmet off or for turning down tea from an Arab host.