[lit-ideas] Re: A Question REALLY Answered
- From: John Wager <johnwager@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 16:56:55 -0600
Mike Geary wrote:
>> Is "Andy" saying that those people who choose to join Iraq's new
armed forces are different from their American counterparts in some
way: I.Q. or hand-eye co-ordination or willingness to listen and to be
subject to military discipline? What makes them "untrainable"? <<
I know nothing personally of these matters -- having spent 10 years
assiduously avoiding the draft during Vietnam as did all the Bush men
so eager to wage war in Iraq -- but it's my understanding from what
I've read that the training problems aren't with the troops nearly so
much as with the officier corps that we eliminated after our
"victory". I would never have believed it, but apparently there's
something to this management stuff besides kissing ass. Maybe they're
right.
Let me suggest two other factors:
1. Aiming a tank gun is NOT like aiming a rifle; it's a fairly technological action,
requiring lots of thought while one is bouncing around inside a hot dusty metal box. The
Russian tanks were much "simpler" than American designs, but that increases the
need for the Iraqi tank gunner to make compensations on the fly. This would be difficult
for American soldiers, too, but Americans are inside a much more comfortable and much
more sophisticated metal box that does most of the compensations for the gunner.
2. If we're talking about firing a rifle with a scope, the problem may be that you can clearly see the human being you are aiming at. You can even see the blood spray out of the other side of the falling corpse. To be able to fire at a single living human with a particular face is something that DOES require extensive training; it's possible to shoot once or twice without training, but after that the human feelings take over and you need some strong counter-factor that lets you shoot even after you know what's going to happen. Training supplies this.
I don't think I would say it's a "defect" in Iraqi troops if they are not all
that interested in using telescopic sighted rifles.
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