Dr. Frank's What's-it

The Strategic Brilliance of

The Strategic Brilliance of George Monbiot

Here's George "anti-everything" Monbiot lecturing Richard Perle on the folly of Camp X-ray and American military strategy during an appearance on the BBC's NewsNight yesterday:

Richard, the really daft thing about this-- and we've had Donald Rumsfeld boasting about how harsh the conditions are-- is that it makes no sense not just in the moral sense but also in strategic terms. If you want people to surrender, you want to show them that they're going to be treated well, having surrendered.

So even if we were to put aside the moral argument: it's still stupid.

Another celebrated expert on military strategy, the Bishop of Birmingham, found himself in complete agreement that, strategically speaking, the best way to defeat the enemy is always to entice him to surrender with the promise of an idyllic time in prison.

Such bold and forward-looking strategic planning, which the British have applied so successfully in preventing terrorist attacks from the Irish Republican Army, was clearly too sophisticated for the recalcitrant Perle, who stubbornly insisted that US policy aims would best be served by ensuring that the al Qaeda prisoners be denied opportunities to attempt to kill their American captors.

It appears that, despite this sage advice, the US is determined to persevere with its policy of (in the words of Donald Anderson, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Comittee) "banging these people on the head and acting in a rather macho way."

(Cheers to Andrew Ian Dodge, Anglospherist, Cthuluologist, Rock Critic and Dodgeblogger for keeping me up to date on these and other BBC shenanigans now that I'm back in the US, acting in a rather macho way...)

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 22, 2002 12:25 AM | TrackBack