Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad by Stephen Coughlin

Author:Stephen Coughlin [Coughlin, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Center for Security Policy Press
Published: 2015-05-04T06:00:00+00:00

As General Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sees it, “there’s a percentage [of attacks] which are cultural affronts.”[1517] His solution was mandatory Islamic-sensitivity training for the troops, including severe punishment for those who violated the rules. Soldiers were trained that they were being murdered because they “show the bottom of their feet,” “share photos of [their] wives or daughters,” or blow their noses in the presence of a Muslim.[1518] Yet what was the “cultural affront” that justified the killing of 20-year-old Army PFC Dustin Napier, who was murdered during a base volleyball game? It required a reporter to provide that additional detail, as the Pentagon declined to provide any context to the killing.[1519]

From whom is this kind of information being withheld? The Afghans are aware of it. The service members are keenly aware of both the unreasonable risk and the official reports that will misrepresent and disparage their fallen comrades. Could it be that it is withheld from the American people—not because they might draw the wrong conclusion, but because they might draw the right one? This is an insult.

Regarding Dempsey’s mandate, while no one is arguing for rude or deliberately disrespectful behavior, commanders run the risk of violating the First Amendment when they order American citizens to conform to the religious mandates of a faith. This should not change just because religious conformance is stated in facially neutral terms.

Many of the rules the service members could be punished for violating involve compliance with real Islamic law. This is true regardless of whether those in command are subjectively aware of the situation, especially given their objective duty to know. As one skeptical Army official put it:

I would like to see a public affairs officer explain to the press where showing the bottom of your shoe to a Muslim or shaking with your left hand was legitimate grounds for murder.[1520]

Given the emphasis on conditioning U.S. success on the preferences of the Afghan people, it’s legitimate to ask if the Afghans’ “hearts and minds” were ever ours to lose. A senior Army intelligence officer provides the best ground truth on that question from both the American and the Afghan perspectives:

[T]he cultural affronts excuse is a bunch of garbage … the Afghans that know we’re doing all this PC cultural sensitivity crap are laughing their asses off at our stupidity.[1521]

Yet its stupidity that kills. The surviving families of the dead are not laughing. Nor are those with a concern for the state of our national security.

In a way, General Dempsey was correct when he said that “there’s a percentage [of Green-on-Blue attacks] which are cultural affronts.”[1522] In each of the instances discussed, that cultural affront was that U.S. forces in Afghanistan were non-Muslims in Muslim lands. Islamic law mandates that such a non-Muslim military must be fought by “every possible means.”[1523]

Even Al-Jazeera had to stop short of guffawing at the ridiculousness of the generals’ rationalizations. In an article whose subtitle says it all for the entire Muslim world (“The Sting

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