The Draft Military Manual on Dealing With the Taliban and Suggested Interpretive Directives

The Wall Street Journal recently obtained a draft 75 page United States military manual on how to treat the Taliban.

The premise of the Manual is that the reason for the insider attacks on the American forces is that we don’t understand or respect their religion; i.e. cultural insensitivity.

The manual calls for “Better situational awareness” of Afghan culture to avoid cultural conflicts with the Afghan people.

The draft apparently contains several taboos: “making derogatory comments about the Taliban,” “advocating women’s rights,” “any criticism of pedophilia,” “mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct,” and anything directed at Islam.

Major General John Allen, commander of American forces in Afghanistan, does not approve of its contents. He understands that we are not at war with Islam, but we are at war with international Islamic fanaticism/terrorism.

Let me suggest though that if the draft manual is approved, then the Department of the Army should issue these clarifying and interpretive directives:

1)   We will apologize when Taliban attacks fail, but remind them we are always looking forward to incoming;

2)   Ask if they need assistance in beheading the 13 year old Pashtun girl who disgraced her family by being raped by her second cousin;

3)    Politely inquire if the Taliban needs more explosives in blowing up monuments;

4)   Provide them warnings before initiating any military actions;

5)   Effectuate their IED attacks by disclosing our electronic counter measures;

6)   Ground our drones;

7)   In the future any female service members will be uneducated and untrained but wear burqas or hijabs;

8)   Endorse the Taliban’s war on Women;

9)   Offer stones when they’re killing gays;

10)                   Ignore any human trafficking;

11)                   Partake freely of their weed, but do not offer any pork in exchange; and

12)                   In essence, respond to the terrorist attacks by engaging in a Muslim outreach program.

These directives may border on the absurd, but much of the combat operations in fact were not controlled by the commanders on the ground, but by military lawyers safely ensconced in offices. It began at the beginning of the Afghan conflict. The military apparently had Mullah Omar in its sights, but a military lawyer vetoed the strike.

No word yet from General Dempsey on what he thinks of the draft manual (See September 24, 2012 blog).