Law of Large Numbers

The thing about something like this story of a soldier using the Koran for target practice is that it really sets into relief how audacious the goals of counterinsurgency theorists are for what U.S. military conduct could really be like. In the annals of wartime abuses, Koran-shooting is extremely stupid but also really not that bad compared to, say, massacre or pillage or torture. And it's so obviously dumb that, clearly, the chain of command was not sending tacit "everyone shoot Korans" messages down the line. And yet it's still really dumb and counterproductive.

Now consider that our deployment in Iraq has involved upwards of 200,000 soldiers at one time or another. I'd just be phenomenally hard to get a group of people that large together that didn't include any people who sometimes make the occasional idiotic blunder. Indeed, it'd be hard to get a group of people that large (about the population of Reno, Nevada) together that didn't include a few serious bad apples -- murders and rapists and the like. And historically speaking, while good discipline has always been an asset in war, nobody's won wars by having perfect discipline. But the prescriptions for successful counterinsurgency oftentimes seem to me to suggest that we really do need perfect or near-perfect discipline to succeed, and I just don't think that's realistic.

Comments

Even worse was when a soldier wrote "New Testament" on his tank and then the Pentagon put that picture on an official military website. How stupid do you have to be?

You can only get away with things like insulting the locals' religion, rape, murder, etc. if the number doing so is small and you overall have local support. The Indian Peace-Keeping Force was invited into Sri Lanka in the 1980's, but was so violent and committed so much rape they were nicknamed the Innocent People-Killing Force and the Sri Lankan government even started supplying funds and arms at the Tamil Tigers, the government's sworn enemy.

It just seems like so many conservatives don't understand that we live in an age in which various peoples around the world are not willing to live under occupation. If they had bothered to take any non-Western nationalism seriously they would realize how foolish they are. We live in an age of nationalism and other strong feelings of group identity and an abundance of cheap small arms and explosives.

Posted by Reality Man | May 19, 2008 3:04 PM

Indeed, it'd be hard to get a group of people that large (about the population of Reno, Nevada) together that didn't include a few serious bad apples -- murders and rapists and the like.

Why does Matthew Yglesias hate the troops, and by extension, America?

Posted by drjimcooper | May 19, 2008 3:05 PM

It's difficult to get a group about the size of a fraternity that didni't include a few rapists.

Posted by blah | May 19, 2008 3:10 PM

About as realistic as the chances of getting you to stop using the English language for target practice, AMIRITE?

Posted by the hell | May 19, 2008 3:10 PM

Seems to me that this soldier also found a really clever way to be removed from combat that didn't entail shooting himself in the foot or somewhere else . . .

Posted by Joshua James | May 19, 2008 3:14 PM

1. I bet Matt does not wear a flag pin.

2. As he points out, perfect discipline is impossible.

3. There have been numerous successful counterinsurgencies so perfect discipline is not necessary.

4. The volunteer force is much more disciplined than the draftee army. Imagine trying to do Iraq with a draftee army. See Vietnam.

5. Overall, Americans make good Soldiers. There are always a few bad apples in any barrel.

Posted by danceswithgoats | May 19, 2008 3:15 PM

I'd just be phenomenally hard...

LOL WUT

Posted by PowerGamer | May 19, 2008 3:16 PM

There have been numerous successful counterinsurgencies so perfect discipline is not necessary.

And if we're willing to use the sort of brute force required to prosecute a counterinsurgency lacking widespread appeal, then yes, what you're saying isn't completely beside the point at all. Totally.

Posted by PowerGamer | May 19, 2008 3:22 PM

"...we really do need perfect, or near-perfect discipline to succeed..."

No, we don't. We have excellent discipline, not "perfect" but quite good enough. The real issue here is that people like Matt simply think we can't possibly succeed.

Posted by Robert Powell | May 19, 2008 3:23 PM

The real issue here is that people like Matt simply think we can't possibly succeed.

So, you think we *can* succeed as long as American Soldiers are shooting Korans? You think we can win hearts and minds that way? Really!?

Posted by Trigger | May 19, 2008 3:32 PM

I don't know, if my choices were some guys that shot a Koran once or people that randomly blow up other people or a guy that has armed militias prowling the streets murdering people; I might go with the Koran shooters. What do you think?

Posted by danceswithgoats | May 19, 2008 3:35 PM

Robert Powell:

The real issue here is that people like Matt simply think we can't possibly succeed.

The last time I saw Robert Powell, he was enthusiastically describing Gallup polls that don't seem to exist. I wonder if he'll bring them up again here as part of "the real issue."

Posted by 23456 | May 19, 2008 3:53 PM

This is definitely one of the poorer arguments I've seen Matt make. Why exactly does counterinsurgency take more discipline than storming Normandy?

Posted by John | May 19, 2008 3:55 PM

How many American soldiers in Iraq believe the reason they're in Iraq is to avenge 9/11? Last I heard, it was most of them.

Posted by Gary Sugar | May 19, 2008 4:05 PM

I actually agree with him to a degree. I just don't agree with the notion that you have to have perfect or near perfect discipline or all is doomed. There is a different component to the discipline required of an Army involved in a counter-insurgency. Raping French women in WWII had no impact on the overall campaign in Europe. Raping Iraqi women is a totally different issue.

Posted by danceswithgoats | May 19, 2008 4:06 PM

PowerGamer wins.

Posted by El Cid | May 19, 2008 4:10 PM

What, did they run out of copies of "Atlas Shrugged?" Or maybe this was a typo from the East Asian office, and soldiers were really supposed to shoot Koreans?

>In the annals of wartime abuses, Koran-shooting is extremely stupid but also really not that bad compared to, say, massacre or pillage or torture.

Seriously, in the annals of wartime abuses, this isn't that bad compared to sending POWs to bed in wet socks -- the victim might catch a cold, after all. It's a book for God's sake. An inanimate bundle of paper and ink. The real crime is that they seem to have taken it from a civilian (or more charitably, found it) before they shot it up. Either way, it wasn't the soldier's book to ruin.

Yes, terrible publicity for the US, but to mention in the same breath as pillaging or torture is absurd.

Posted by Matt B | May 19, 2008 4:13 PM

How many American soldiers in Iraq believe the reason they're in Iraq is to avenge 9/11? Last I heard, it was most of them.

Dealing with this would require liberals to drop the "we support the troops more than you do" malarkey that is part of their pose.

Posted by MgGurk | May 19, 2008 4:13 PM

I have absolutely zero problems with someone using the Koran as target practice. It only becomes a problem when its reported. Just because its considered Holy by some doesn't mean that this soldier has to respect it.

Posted by Steve | May 19, 2008 4:16 PM

I only wish they were using a Bible as well.

Posted by Sandy | May 19, 2008 4:17 PM

Indeed, it'd be hard to get a group of people that large (about the population of Reno, Nevada) together that didn't include a few serious bad apples -- murders and rapists and the like.

It's worse than that. The population of Reno, Nevada, has many more children, women, and old and middle-aged people as compared to the US armed forces, which are composed mainly of fairly aggressive young men who have been socialized to kill (remember that young men make up the overwhelming majority of violent criminals). As a result, you'll have far more bad apples in a group of 200,000 soldiers than you'll have in a comparable group of random civilians.

Posted by Stefan | May 19, 2008 4:18 PM

Just because its considered Holy by some doesn't mean that this soldier has to respect it.

Yes he does. This soldier is a guest in Iraq. The US is not at war with Islam, and it's just stupid and counterproductive to go around shooting Korans. Any soldier who does that should be disciplined.

Posted by vanya | May 19, 2008 4:23 PM

Moreover, bad apples- especially in positions of power- can spoil otherwise good apples. A very famous Stanford study:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Results

Posted by 55 | May 19, 2008 4:25 PM

Moreover, bad apples- especially in positions of power- can spoil otherwise good apples. A very famous Stanford study:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

I hope I didn't just double post this with a different URL.

Posted by 55 | May 19, 2008 4:26 PM

In the annals of wartime abuses, Koran-shooting is extremely stupid but also really not that bad compared to, say, massacre or pillage or torture.

And maybe that's precisely why it was on the front pages and why the military effusively apologized. Because it gives the impression of good guys who will apologize for such small sins as cultural insensitivities, and who would never do such horrible things like wipe out a city the size of Falluja, torture prisoners, or engage in the rampant pillage that took place in the first year of the occupation (or try to pass a pillage-institutionalizing oil law).

Posted by Hans B | May 19, 2008 4:27 PM

I don't know, if my choices were some guys that shot a Koran once or people that randomly blow up other people or a guy that has armed militias prowling the streets murdering people; I might go with the Koran shooters. What do you think?

Well, it depends. Is my neighbor in the armed militia? Was my brother killed in a bomb set off by the people that randomly blow up other people? Did your uncle and aunt drive too fast through a US checkpoint and get shot? If you're living in Iraq right now, it's not so simple as comparing isolated sin against isolated sin.

Why exactly does counterinsurgency take more discipline than storming Normandy?

Because troops have to remain disciplined. Because no one got bored on the beaches of Normandy. Because unacceptable behavior is less visible in the 'fog of war' than in a day-to-day occupation punctuated by the occasional act of violence. Counterinsurgency takes a different set of rules, and there's more room, in some ways, for things to go very wrong. A beachfront assault has a lot of intelligence challenges, but very little need for message discipline.

Posted by Persia | May 19, 2008 4:31 PM

I think we need to be pretty clear in our own minds about what "success" means in this case. It's certainly not making everyone in Iraq love every American soldier, but it seems entirely plausible to expect that we have the capacity to support the development of a reasonably stable ally in Iraq. Lot's of people, including Barack Obama, think it's important that we do so.

Those Gallup polls show majority support from the US public for "invading Iraq with US troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power" over a dozen years. According to the Wall Street Journal (April 7 '03) Gallup asked this question "more than two dozen times since the first Gulf War". In none of the polls was there less than majority support, and it was at times over 70%. Those who imagine that this support was all due to "Bush lies" should explain how he could manage this while still a baseball team owner in Texas.

The public will support a war they see as just as long as the costs are manageable, the objective is important, and there is a reasonable likelihood of success (see Eric V. Larson at www.rand.org). For most of the last going on two decades, that's been the case so far as Iraq is concerned. The cavalcade of errors following the fall of Baghdad has changed the public's mind on all three points at the current time, but that doesn't mean they won't respond positively to a genuinely successful strategy based on realistic expectations.

Posted by Robert Powell | May 19, 2008 4:36 PM

Vanya,
No, he doesn't. He has to respect the people, and their property, but not a book. Would I get in trouble if I was a soldier who masturbated on on a Koran or a Bible every night? If so, that's ridiculous as well. He shouldn't have to give credence to some ridiculous religion, and frankly, it should have never been reported. Its like running off and telling your oversensitive girlfriend that you overheard someone saying they didn't like her dress. What's the point?

Posted by Soldier Gary | May 19, 2008 4:42 PM

This soldier is a guest in Iraq.

Really? Whose guest? Does he get to leave whenever he wants?

Posted by Matt B | May 19, 2008 4:44 PM

Soldier Gary - As I read the article the Iraqis found the shot up Koran. It was not self reported.

Respect of local culture is a major component of success in counterinsurgency. Shooting the holy book of the local populace is a guaranteed way to lose the support or at least the tolerance of the locals.

Matt B - the last time I checked, Iraq has an elected government. We are there with their support. That would make us guests in my book. And he did seem to find a way to leave.

Posted by danceswithgoats | May 19, 2008 4:53 PM

Just to bolster the case: the number of individual service members who have served in Iraq is >1 million. Not sure of the exact figure.

Posted by Mike | May 19, 2008 4:53 PM

Just to bolster the case: the number of individual service members who have served in Iraq is >1 million. Not sure of the exact figure.

Posted by Mike | May 19, 2008 4:55 PM

He should come back to the US, where he can put the Koran in a jar of urine and enjoy it at any local art gallery. No, wait. That would be insensitive, too. No art gallery owner, even in the US, would condone such a thing.

He should come back to the US, where he can put a JESUS in a jar of urine, and enjoy it at any local art gallery. That's not insensitive. That's just freedom of expression. And we can always count on our art galleries to stand up for freedom of expression!

Sk

Posted by Sk | May 19, 2008 4:59 PM

Dances,
Fair point. I shouldn't have assumed that it was reported by the American press. Yes, leaving a shot up Koran is stupid. Very stupid. But still kind of funny. Sorry, but if you get worked up about your Holy book being shot, then you are a loser. There is no other way around it. We need to stop acting like these are normal reactions.

Posted by Soldier Gary | May 19, 2008 5:16 PM

Just because its considered Holy by some doesn't mean that this soldier has to respect it.

Yes it does. When he's a private citizen, he can shoot as many Koran as he wants. When he's a soldier in an active war zone, he has to obey commands, and one of those commands is not to further incite the local populace to want to kill their occupiers.

Posted by Stefan | May 19, 2008 5:17 PM

Robert Powell:

According to the Wall Street Journal (April 7 '03) Gallup asked this question "more than two dozen times since the first Gulf War".

Ah, so it was you who converted "more than two dozen times since the first Gulf War" into "big-sample, good-methodology polls done about twice a year from 1991 to 2003" -- when in fact 24 out of the 27 polls were taken after 9/11, and none were from 1994-2000. And you did all this while blathering about "real history" and "facts." Gotcha.

You know, you might want to get your information from sources other than the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and also refrain from "improving" it to suit your needs. This will help you look less silly.

Posted by 23456 | May 19, 2008 5:26 PM

Well, I only agree with Steve in the sense that he doesn't have to "respect" the book. But he certainly shouldn't allow it to be found. Its only stupid because he got caught. Everyone knows you burn a Koran after you shoot it. Duh.

Posted by Sandy | May 19, 2008 5:26 PM

Gary, fair enough, but by the same token, if you get worked up about your flag being burned, then you too are a loser.

Posted by Sid | May 19, 2008 5:46 PM

>the last time I checked, Iraq has an elected government. We are there with their support. That would make us guests in my book.

I think it would be more accurate to say we invited ourselves over and now our "hosts" are afraid to kick us out.

Posted by Matt B | May 19, 2008 5:53 PM

Sid,
Trust me, I don't give a flying fuck if someone wants to burn the American flag. I might go burn one right now for shits. I'm not sure what in my post made you think I'm some type of uber-patriot.

Posted by Soldier Gary | May 19, 2008 6:12 PM

"...And if we're willing to use the sort of brute force required to prosecute a counterinsurgency lacking widespread appeal..."

A counterinsurgency protects the civilians by driving away and marginalizing the enemy. It is not a plan to kill every last foe. In turn, the Army works with the populace to stop the terrorists or militias from returning.

Posted by EWard | May 20, 2008 12:18 AM

Ward, shut the fuck up. You are clueless - about as clueless as Robert Powell, who is, however, a paid propagandist. You are just a nitwit.

As I have said before here, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do COIN with a foreign occupation army in a country which despises the nation from which that occupation army has come and the army itself, in support of a government which is despised by the local population, and in opposition to a local insurgency which is supported by the local population - especially in the case of Iraq where attacks on US troops are supported by well in excess of fifty percent of the population.

There ARE NO successful COIN operations to be pointed to under those circumstances. NONE.

And there will be none.

Matt may be incorrect for thinking that you have to have "perfect discipline" to pull off a COIN operation. That is irrelevant to the issue. It is also likely to be untrue, as most people in any country comprehend that not everybody in an army are necessarily good people. The locals own experience with their own military should make that clear.

What is required is not that a US soldier respect the locals and their customs. Anybody who thinks that is required is a moron. What IS required is that he APPEAR to respect the locals and their customs in the course of his interactions with those locals. And the more that is not the case, the less useful your COIN operation becomes.

But in Iraq, this is utterly irrelevant since the US didn't even bother with any kind of rational COIN for the first four fucking years of the occupation. And from what I've heard, most of the last year was incompetently done by Petraeus.

Read my lips. COIN in Iraq is not possible after the US has killed an estimated 300,000 Iraqi civilians and CONTINUES to kill civilians with air strikes and botched raids and stupid ass checkpoints manned by morons. Therefore any kind of military "success" in Iraq is also not possible - unless as someone else pointed out, you're willing to kill practically everybody in the country who is capable of carrying a weapon.

When Bush attacks Iran, Iran is going to activate its Shia assets in Iraq. Then you're going to see what happens to an occupying army who is actively opposed by the majority of the population. As William Lind has pointed out, it's quite possible we will lose the bulk of US forces and materiel in Iraq. Not "defeated" - LOST - as in DEAD and destroyed.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 20, 2008 7:11 AM

Now consider that our deployment in Iraq has involved upwards of 200,000 soldiers at one time or another

We have over 500,000 regular army, 180,000 marines and 700,000 in the active reserves, and my understanding (although I could not find a link) is that the total number of Iraqi veterans is well over 1 million (i.e., most soldiers, and even some Navy and Air Force, have gone in theater at least once).

the last time I checked, Iraq has an elected government. We are there with their support. That would make us guests in my book.

Calling a puppet government legitimate does not make it so, any more than calling an occupation a tea party would provide the population with scones and crumpets. We are not guests, we are the occupying power. Confusion on this point will only serve to get people killed.

Posted by Marshall | May 20, 2008 8:49 AM

"Calling a puppet government legitimate does not make it so, any more than calling an occupation a tea party..."

The current Iraqi government is not a puppet government. Despite the "fiasco" of the first four years, the Iraqis are no circumstances wish to have Saddam back. However, they are shocked by all the violence and felt the Americans let the situation deteriorate. Why would the Iraqis switch from one form of dictatorship to the draconian measures of the militias or terrorists?

Cyberbully RSH
No one reads your lips. Your posts are rants!

Posted by EWard | May 20, 2008 9:28 AM

Although the Iraqis under no circumstances want Saddam back, they do want their formerly functional state back (albeit without all the totalitarian killing). The possibility that the Iraqis might one day transition beyond Saddam while maintaining their comparatively developed and functional state has been utterly destroyed, as was predictable and predicted.

The Iraqi government is not in any definition a functional government, and is at this stage the functional administrator of the occupying power, since it is unable to take any decision without the direct or indirect permission and support of the occupying power.

Whether or not this sort of summary prompts EWard to slur those who truthfully and accurately point out these simple facts as pro-terrorist and as supportive of the cellular fascism under which the actual Iraqis is living is unimportant to me.

Posted by El Cid | May 20, 2008 9:36 AM

It is factually unsupportable and appallingly disrespectful of Iraqis to refer to their government, which is demonstrably the most representative and legitimate in the Arab world, as a "puppet". People like Marshall and Cid, not to mention lunatics like Hack, haven't the foggiest idea what actual Iraqis think or want beyond the most superficial generalities.

It is a fact far more significant than random Western polling that millions of Iraqis risked their lives to elect this government and to ratify a constitution that provides for steady improvements given the kind of minimal stability that seems to be developing. They have demonstrated startling independence since the beginning-- Sistani insisted on real elections, guys like Chalabi were given the heave-ho, etc. Alawi was able to pull the plug on Fallujah I, and even then was rejected by Iraqi voters along with lots of other people we liked, to be replaced by a number of people we absolutely don't like. The same people who are now deriding the independence of the Iraqi government were among the first to scream about the welcome given Achmadinejad.

It's easy to mock the performance of most governments in the world today. Few of them have more people risking their lives for the good of their country than Iraq's. Fans of "the insurgency" have yet to demonstrate that there is any such thing by any reasonable definition. There's a power struggle, but all the players are represented in the government. The "insurgency" has essentially collapsed.

Posted by Robert Powell | May 20, 2008 10:52 AM

"It is factually unsupportable and appallingly disrespectful of Iraqis to refer to their government, which is demonstrably the most representative and legitimate in the Arab world, as a "puppet".

Why do you hate Israel?

Posted by John | May 20, 2008 12:51 PM

"it's so obviously dumb that, clearly, the chain of command was not sending tacit "everyone shoot Korans" messages down the line."

actually i think you undermisestimate the stupidity of those in charge on the ground in iraq. i met the twenty-year-old son of an acquaintance of mine last summer who, as a reservist, had been in iraq for a year. he casually referred to iraqis as "towelheads" and stated that they are intellectually inferior to westerners. it was clear that this was an attitude that he had learned from his command superiors and internalized.

it was absolutely frightening talking to him because it is clear that there is something extremely ugly being fostered in our troops, just as was done in viet nam (mccain still refers to vietnamese as "gooks"). the act described in the article, "obviously dumb" or not, is clearly a result of "tacit" messages sent through the "chain of command."

Posted by karen marie | May 20, 2008 3:37 PM

EWard: "Your posts are rants!"

Coming from a Clinton freak show who's been screaming for days now, that one was rich. Which is why I said STFU.

All Ward did in the above posts was prove once again to be nothing more than a Republican masquerading as a Democrat.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 20, 2008 9:53 PM

Five Reasons to Ignore the Posts of RSH
1. He is off his meds.
2. He robbed a bank.
3. He used a bus as a getaway vehicle.
4. He spent 7 or 8 years in prison.
5. The brain implant chip that Iran installed has malfunctioned.

Posted by EWard | May 21, 2008 12:35 PM