Scans_Daily

I can be glib about Afghanistan too: no. We're gonna be there a long time. But think how its lowering our costs on heroin..

I think Iraq can be made as safe as the south side of Chicago...Right tribe/color/country, you're fine. But there's a world of difference between the two countries. Right now, most troops stationed in Iraq have nothing to do, so they play video games all day long. They see the occasional insurgent murder as the result of someone being stupid.

Regarding the labels...if a man shoots another man, it might be because he hates him, because the other man was threatening him, or because the damn thing went off by accident. The same act happens, but the circumstances alter our views considerably. If we shoot insurgents for sabotaging power stations, we are conquerors protecting our assets. If the Iraqi shoot insurgents with our troops for backup, we are supporting civil order. Circumstances mean a great deal.

? I thought militias were the definition of civilians carrying weapons.

By the way, I was wrong.

Special Forces are a kind of diplomat soldier. As a requirement for graduation, they have to engage in practice training of native peoples for warfare. Its called the Robin Sage exercise, and they do it in the backwoods here. Everyone involved roleplays that they are in a fictional country (and locals play along). I know guys who enjoy 'getting into character' and harassing the SF guys by sneaking away and laying around or refusing to admit they speak English. It is, however, a seriously tough exercise, and its commonplace for people to come back starving, eat a regular meal, and get sick, because their system can't take it.

I was under the impression that only military could participate as fake native recruits, and Wiki thinks so too, but someone told me today that the military will pay civilians $3000 to go through it, though they prefer friends and relatives of military members. But understand that SF training is tougher than regular basic training, which involves a lot of stupid culture crap like shortsheeting your bed. In Robin Sage, you WILL kill your food.

However, the numbers of civilians trained this way pales before the number of foreign nationals trained this way by SF--which is their primary job. It got so a Senator realized that we were training armies of assassins, with little accountability. He made the Leahy Law, which requires vetting potential trainees. The entry notes the weaknesses when someone is determined to get around it, and the bit about private citizens hiring mercernaries and owning gunships might be interesting to you. I think personally that the law is a good idea, even if it doesn't cover every loophole.