Soft power more effective than force
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My love-hate relationship with the United States continues as I was struck last week by two different stories both testifying to the great power of this country.
On Tuesday, PBS' Frontline aired the documentary Kill/Capture. It details the campaign by elite US soldiers to take thousands of insurgents off the battlegrounds in Afghanistan.
The US military in Afghanistan, led by General David Petraeus, who is to become the new CIA chief, claims the escalated operation has led to the killing or detention of some 12,000 Taliban insurgents over the past year, but scenes from the documentary are, to say the least, disturbing.
In the middle of the night, units under the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) raid private homes based on, sometimes fraudulent, tips they have received about suspected insurgents.
When US soldiers with night vision goggles and other high-tech gear burst the doors open and ransack the houses, you can see the fear and anger in the eyes of the local inhabitants.
Even top Afghan officials have criticized the night raids, saying they alienate the locals and serve to encourage people to join the Taliban. According to one former Taliban insurgent who now works for the Afghan government army, he felt much more welcome in the villages as a Taliban fighter than as a government soldier.
Kill/Capture showed that the costly hard power projected by the US military is ultimately doomed to failure. An operation, which aims to reduce violence, is actually sowing the seeds of hatred among the local people. We have seen that not just in Afghanistan, but also in Iraq and Pakistan.
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