This is ridiculous:
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.
Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."The religious courses are led by Muslim clerics who "teach out of a moderate doctrine," Stone said, according to the transcript of a conference call he held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers. Such schooling "tears apart" the arguments of al-Qaeda, such as "Let's kill innocents," and helps to "bring some of the edge off" the detainees, he said.
As a result of the increased U.S. troop presence in Iraq this year, the number of Iraqis in U.S. detention has swelled from about 10,000 last year to more than 25,000. The effort to reshape attitudes among the growing detainee population is aimed at addressing a problem that has vexed U.S. troops in Iraq for the past four years: Military detention facilities have served as breeding grounds for extremist views, transforming some prisoners into hard-core insurgents, according to military analysts.
Stone said he wants to identify "irreconcilables" -- those detainees whose views cannot be moderated -- and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish the extremists from others, he said.
After reassessments and interrogations, Stone said, some detainees are recommended for release. "If a detainee is an imperative security risk . . . then I'm going to reduce that risk and I'm going to replace that destructive ideology," he said. "And then when he's assessed to no longer be a threat, I'm going to release the detainee being less likely to be a recidivist."
Since May, Stone said, he has released about 2,000 detainees "and we've not had any coming back." He said his goal is to keep those who are released from harming U.S. troops or anyone else. "They're not going out of here unless I can feel comfortable about that," Stone added. "I'm not doing mass releases."
Other initiatives at the facilities include vocational training and basic education programs for about 7,000 detainees. Stone said he believes his approach is "compelling because it's how you win this war, not only the one in Iraq, but the one on a greater basis." He quoted Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi as saying that "America could win the war if they just applied the exact process that you're putting in detention to the rest of the entire nation," in Stone's words.
I'm all for the vocational training and basic education, but religious indoctrination is not something the US government, and particularly the US military should ever be involved in. Ever. I don't even care if it is effective. This is just something we should not ever do. Period.
We have created a "House of Wisdom" designed in part to "bend them back to our will." We are using psychological evaluations to separate those who can be corrected from those who cannot. The ones who can be saved are taught a moderate form of Islam by moderate clerics who have been selected by the US military; the "irreconcilables," on the other hand, are to be permanently detained.
Here's an idea: let's get the US military directly involved in a program that attempts to settle Islamic theological debates. What could possibly go wrong?
If the Iraqi government wants to do this, that is their choice. Based on this one article, it sounds as if the program could be a positive force for change in Iraq. It sounds like something we should definitely be encouraging. But for the US military to run something like this is insane.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
