When banter beats bullets
In Afghanistan and Iraq, soldiers try new ways to gain support
Inside the Bagram Air Force Base, Capt. Matt Pintur, an Army reservist from Chicago who has been in Afghanistan for three months, pulls together a group of soldiers to pitch in on a humanitarian assistance mission to a small village nearby. Pintur's plan on this day is to form a tight circle with his convoy of vehicles and then bring in the Afghan villagers one by one to select clothing from a load of donated scarves, jackets, and pants. "The biggest problem is keeping people in order, keeping them from jumping all over us so we do not have a riot," Pintur cautions his soldiers as they prepare to head out.
Sure enough, soon after Pintur's team arrives in the village of Qaleh-ye Khawaja, anarchy erupts. A dozen children push into the center of the circle, eager to get a piece of clothing, private donations from soldiers' friends and family members back home. Hajj Qand, the village elder, raises a thin stick and rather futilely tries to push the children back. It was Qand, a former militia leader who has put down his weapons and taken up road building, who brought Pintur to the village and decided where the goods would be distributed. By deferring to Qand, Pintur hopes to bolster the elder's influence in the village and cement his loyalty to the mission of the American forces in Afghanistan. "I am thankful," Qand says through an interpreter after the soldiers finish handing out the clothes. "This fills a human need." Putting his hand on Pintur, Qand invites him to dinner. "Be my guest tonight," says Qand. "I will prepare a feast." Pintur begs off; there is another leader in a neighboring village he must visit before the sun sets. Qand smiles: "Be my guest anytime."
Wedge. Undoubtedly winning friends in Afghanistan while handing out clothes is far easier than winning friends in Iraq while arresting people's children. But the key to the task--finding officers adept at interacting with locals--and the overarching goal of driving a wedge between the population and the insurgency are the same in both places.
In Iraq, Shaw has proved to be a natural at making friends. From August to November of last year, he was assigned to patrol the largely peaceful villages south of the Baghdad airport and prevent rocket attacks on incoming flights. He found that the best way to hinder attacks on the airport was to make allies among local imams, tribal sheiks, and community leaders. Shaw's current stomping ground, the suburb of Abu Ghraib, is a far more dangerous place. Located near the now infamous prison, much of its Sunni majority is hostile to both the Americans and the new Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
This is where Shaw first encountered Noori in early February, when his company discovered the rockets on Noori's son's adjoining property. At the sight of his son's being arrested by the Americans, Noori clutched at his chest and fell from his chair. Soldiers trained in lifesaving techniques rushed in and began treating him, discovering he had spectacularly high blood pressure. A few days later, as anger over the arrest grew, Shaw arranged a meeting with neighborhood leaders and Noori. "I took out a notebook and said: 'What are your problems?' " Shaw says. Over the course of three hours, Shaw listened to their complaints and also told them about himself, showing off pictures of his own 2-year-old son, Aidan.
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