Sun Tzu will out

Just saw this post by Stephen Walt:

Today we learned that the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan are now spearheading a major effort at (drum roll) ... prison reform. We've figured out that the brutal treatment that even petty criminals face while in jail is facilitating Taliban recruitment in the prisons, and so the United States is going to build some new facilities and try to get the Afghan government to change its incarceration practices. Your tax dollars at work.

Walt goes on to note the irony of all of this.

Remember what Sun Tzu said (something that had been rejected by the Bush administration):

Treat captives well, and care for them

Chang Yu: All soldiers taken must be cared for with magnanimity and sincerity so that they may be used by us.

This is called "winning a battle and becoming stronger."
(2.19,20)

Dick Cheney, call your office....

Comments

[Confucian Socialist]

Get over your castigation of the Bush administration. There's a new government in town, and guess what? They're continuing the policies of their predecessors. It's Obama's war now, and it's his hands which are stained by the blood of innocents because he has done nothing to reverse the policies of the previous regime. Cosmetic changes like changing "war on terror" to "overseas contingency operations" don't count---innocents are still dying in droves, people are still being tortured, and the same old US imperialistic agenda is continuing in the name of "hope" and "change".

I'm sorry if this offends your liberal sensibilities, but the ball is in Obama's court. It has been for half a year now, and it's been in the court of the Democratic Congress for several years now.

If your criticism of US policies is to have any relevance at all, I suggest you focus on those who current have the authority to authorize and re-authorize systematic brutality in the name of imperialism. And that's no longer Bush and Cheney.

[Cao Cao]

You do not have to go back to Sun Tzu's Art of War. If the American political class cannot even heed the lessons Robert McNamara learned from the Vietnam War, it is hopeless.

R.S. McNamara's eleven life lessons

1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality will not save us
3. There's something beyond one's self
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6. Get the data
7. Belief and seeing are often both wrong
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never
11. You can't change human nature