Bag up the usual suspects

Watching President Bush last night on television reminded me of various adventures and misadventures in and around Fort Bragg, home of the 82^nd Airborne Division, a slice of Special Forces and Delta, the outfit that does not officially exist (there are several of those, by the way); and it is also the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne Corps.

I first went there in the early Nineties to attend an exhibition called SpecOps which was a sort of Aladdin’s Cave of Special Forces weaponry staffed and visited by strange people who did strange things. If you wanted to kill somebody, this was the place to go shopping. Personally, I fancied a Barrett .50 because every author wants to do evil things to his editor at some time or other, but they are awkward things to lug around when you are flying coach.

After the exhibition was over, I stayed in the area for a few days doing corrections on a manuscript, and then decided I would round off my stay by visiting Fort Bragg on the Fourth of July. Remember I’m Irish, so did not appreciate the full significance of that date. Also us writers can be a little vague sometimes.

Fort Bragg was like a ghost town, and since in those days terrorists were regarded as confined to books and movies – at least as far as America was concerned - the post was wide open and even the Special Operations buildings were unlocked and deserted. This was quite amazing to me because I regarded terrorism as a very real threat to the US and, in fact, though all my books were on terrorism in general, the last book focused on the terrorist threat to America in particular.

Mind you, I was not advocating that the US military go on a global rampage. I was more arguing that reasonable precautions be taken internally (such as controlling the borders) and that, where intelligence was good, the fight should be taken to the enemy in a suitably discrete but lethal manner – as befits the talents of Special Forces.

I was, and remain, against over-reaction because all that does is play in to the terrorists’ hands. Counter-terrorism should be a subtle business. Brutalizing the local civilian population and imprisoning tens of thousands of so called “suspected insurgents” merely recruits hostiles faster than you can capture or kill them. That should scarcely be a surprise. Imagine how you would feel if someone smashed in your front door in the middle of the night, wrecked your house, abused your family (well, so it seemed judging by all the shouting) and then handcuffed you and put a bag over your head before dragging you off to places unknown?

“But I’m not an insurgent,” you will say. Ah, but you soon will be if that is how you, your family, your friends and your neighbors are treated. And let’s add in the fact that your family do not know where you have been taken for months – and the effect of an extended free vacation in Abu Ghraib.

It strikes me that although the US Army generals – this is a command issue - may have a serious problem recruiting Americans, they have done a truly wonderful recruiting job for the Iraqi insurgency.

Could it be that it is our presence in Iraq that is largely fueling the insurgency!

Victor.