board77

An occupation force is one of the worst duties a soldier can have. Fighting a war is difficult enough, being made to kill, but at least then it is soldier versus soldier. In an occupation force the enemy is not an organized force but the people of the country, including and especially the civilians.

A soldier in an occupation force does not know who the enemy is. It could be the person selling him a snack at a roadside stand, or it might not be. Shots come out from somewhere, the soldier tries to fire back, and finds out that he just killed several innocent civilians. He is constantly on edge, not knowing friend or foe, not knowing how or when the next attack might come.

Often the local population is alien to the occupying soldier. Neither of us are Iraqis, I know that I don't speak Arabic and somehow think it statistically unlikely that you do either. While I'm not a Christian, I grew up in a Christian country in a Christian family, and that's not Islamic. I would be quite out of touch with the people I'm supposed to be watching if I were in Iraq, and no single day long briefing would ever be enough. (The culture briefing I got when I was stationed in Korea was only a couple of hours long.) Police are part of the community they police. Occupying soldiers are not.

The end result is that an occupying force has to be more brutal than regular combat just to survive, has to learn to treat people, not just enemy soldiers, as less than human, has to be paranoid, etc. It's not healthy.

C_G, I agree in part with some of what you say but not everything. I don't have time to respond right now but will try later.


freddy