What Is Really Going On

This is really about the most popular feature we put on here at the bureau, with readership increasing from the normal two or three up into the mid ten. As per usual, it is just an attempt by the analysts at the bureau to guess what is going on by reading between the lines.

We have some guiding principles, starting off with the fact that nearly everyone is telling some sort of untruth or half truth. This is based on the assumption that a few of the actors are mendacious, a few of them lazy, and an awful lot of them are credulous morons. One of the most important facets of a good lie is that the intended audience sincerely wishes to believe it to be true.

For instance, the ongoing smearing of Iran comes to mind. Certainly, Iran is playing at being a foil to the US, and certainly, Iran has made its lack of love for Israel clear, but certainly, it has done very little to act on either of those impulses.

We can start with the enrichment of fissile material, which many argue is indicative of its intent to wipe Israel off the map. The bureau does not concur with this analysis. Iran is engaging in the exact same thing Pakistan engaged in, that North Korea dabbles at, and that is acquiring a deterrent to a very viable threat.

The US provided Iran with notice when they attacked Iraq that the US will not brook those who stand up to the US for long. So, in order to remain independent, Iran must defend itself, meaning it must acquire powerful weapons.

The US, however, continues its hamfisted interventions and halloweenish saber rattling, alternatively trying to kill its way into hearts and minds and trying to threaten and bully its way into compliance. These policies have nearly ruined the state of Pakistan, leading to a schism in that government that threatens world security because they do have nuclear bombs.

As a short aside, one of the commonly used heuristics to determine the motivations of the various actors in this, the big game, is the basic assumption that we, as humans, are very much alike. We may approach acquiring our needs in different ways, but we have the same basic needs. As a result, the habit the US has acquired of killing and torturing innocent people in the name of suppressing terror seems to have been remarkably effective as a recruiting tool for those very people that we are trying to suppress.

How does it work? Well, it starts with a serious disdain for our fellow man, such as shown by military contractors killing locals for sport. It morphs into policies of spiriting people off for 'rendition', which turns out to be a horrifically bad idea. It ends when the whole world can see the utter lack of moral fortitude present in our policies, which clearly place the preservation of our precious skins above the wholesale slaughter of their young men.

It turns out that arguments in favor of torture are utterly silly and seem seated in a wish to believe torture effective. Too many Bond movies may be responsible, where the hero threatens some despicable half wit and thus gains the knowledge necessary to win the day. In reality, tortured people tend to tell you what you want to know.

That is an important fact that must be emphasized: tortured people tell you what you want to know, not necessarily what is true. When tortured, some young terrorist is just as likely to invent very intricate stories of conspiracies to do grievous harm as he is to tell the truth, that he hung out with some disreputable incompetents and had nothing at all going on.

In other words, we told him he was a big shot, we tortured him using fearsome methods into believing he was a big shot, and he may even pass a lie detector test with his confessions, but they are still likely to be false.

Ask a true interrogator what the most effective way to get intelligence is, and he will say to wine and dine the target, to become close friends, to spend time, and then to simply record and correlate. Once the target has been arrested and spirited away, the target is useless for further intelligence gathering. If the target is carefully groomed, the target can continue to provide useful intelligence for a very long time.

In closing, to warp back onto Iran and Pakistan, imagine being in their shoes. I know it is hard, since Americans seem completely serene in their moral superiority, but our government took young men from nearby countries and tortured them. Most of these young men had actually done nothing wrong.

Our government has killed over a hundred thousand people so far in the global war on terror. If you figure an average family size of five or so, that's four hundred thousand potentially very pissed off people. Given the population size of the average middle eastern country, that's a significant number, and it's not even considering the extended family.

To win a hearts and minds victory, the occupying force has to be utterly fair and has to be seen sacrificing itself to promote the local security. We have not been fair at all, and our troops ride around in armored trucks and shoot at anyone who gets too close. Now wonder they hate us...

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]