Wired has just published a piece by Danger Room editor Noah Shachtman titled “How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social–Not Electronic.” After reading the piece, I’m not sure the title really works–no doubt it’s about the bad that can come of relying too extensively on technology, but what struck me was the story of one Joe Colabuno, a sergeant doing psychological operations in Iraq:
But an alligator-recruiting drive yesterday in the Askeri district, in the northeastern corner of town, didn’t go so well. The marines got less than half of the 125 they were looking for. So Colabuno hops into a Humvee to find out why. We pull up to a narrow, unpaved street alongside the Askeri recruiting station. A group of seven men sit on the gravel, beneath a set of drying sheets. In the middle of the crowd, leaning on a cane, fingering prayer beads and dressed in white, is a rotund, bearded man. He’s clearly the ringleader. Colabuno and his wire-thin interpreter, Leo, approach him. In every other district, they’ve recruited plenty of alligators. “Why not in Askeri?” Colabuno asks the ringleader. The money’s not good enough, he answers. An alligator makes only $50 a month; day laborers get $8 a day – when there’s work, that is. “That’s the weakest argument ever,” Colabuno says. The men looked stunned; Americans don’t normally speak this directly – they’re usually deferential to the point of looking weak, or just condescending. “Do you remember Sheikh Hamsa?” Colabuno asks. Sure, sure, the men nod. The popular imam was killed more than a year ago by insurgents, but they’re a bit surprised that Colabuno knows who he is. Most of the US troops here have been in town for just a few months. “Well, Sheikh Hamsa told me that weak faith protects only so much.'” The ringleader stares down at the ground and fingers his beads. Colabuno has hit a nerve. “You know, I looked in the Koran. I didn’t see anything about Mohammed demanding a better salary before he’d do God’s work,” Colabuno says, jamming his forefinger into his palm. A skinny man at the back of the pack speaks up, telling Colabuno that the Americans are just here to take Iraq’s oil. “Yeah, you’re right. We want your oil,” Colabuno answers. Again eyes grow big with surprise. “We want to buy it. So you can pay for jobs, for water, for electricity. Make you rich.” The men chuckle. Everyone shakes hands. Askeri’s alligator quota is filled by the next morning.
Shachtman tells the story of a couple wonks who came up with the idea of network-centric warfare, and how the idea spread through the military, becoming something of a religion, with Rumsfeld as head priest. But it’s clear that network-centric warfare, as critical as it was to the invasion of Iraq, isn’t the key to counterinsurgency, and Shachtman observes men like Colabuno, and Petraeus, building a new strategy for a victory based on interaction with the local population. All of which is a long way of saying that this is a story of how we might win the war in Iraq just as much as it’s a story of how technology almost lost us that war. Go read the whole thing.
