<begin quote> Lt Col Bill Macdonald, spokesman for the 4th division, meanwhile defended US intelligence gathering techniques. "We have specially trained soldiers who work with local people, to gather local information and send it up the chain of command. And we devote a lot of resources to vetting that information and making decisions about its reliability.
And let me emphasise that we use more than just human intelligence to identify targets." <end quote>
1.) we're specially trained 2.) we review information carefully 3.) we have fancy spying machines
The Americans have developed the necesary techniques, as Jaques Ellul might say, to deal with the problem (minor and technical, I assure you) of resistance.
This is not Vietnam of course, but the technocratic elements of this entire campaign are spookily familiar - from Wolfowitz's belief that, with mathematical certainty, 'democracy" will flower in 'the region' as a result of invasion to the 4th division spokesman's little PR speech on American super-techno-intelligence-competence
Who are the Iraqis? These people don't know. In place of familiarity and respect, they insert technique and firepower.
As I've said before, you needn't be clairvoyant or an alarmist to see that the bad beginning of this will lead to a bad end.
DRM
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