Gone but not forgotten: wartime Trojan Horse tactics.
I should start with the obligatory disclaimers. Overall, I prefer peace. For everyone, everywhere. But if that goal isn't attainable, then I think the Cold War was pretty bitchin', all things considered (ideological battles over economic systems, walls to help people understand who goes where, nuclear chicken keeping everyone in ultimate check, and the military machine protecting us from recessions going too far off the deep end).
My least favorite state of world affairs -- the current reprise of the crusades (religious extremism makes folks do the darnedest things) in which we find ourselves. And, in this high-stakes game of Risk (depending on your age -- that was a board game, or a video game, or, new this summer, an Iphone app), there seems to be a sensitivity to so-called "deception warfare". In the spirit of 1943's Operation Mincemeat (corpse dumped off the coast of Spain with the wrong invasion plans for the Nazis to find) comes a recent Marine IED task force's creative approach of spreading the word that our latest IED-spotting machinery couldn't detect the types of bombs that the enemy was using. The enemy then starts hiding the bombs like grandma hides the Easter eggs for the 2 year olds. And then we swoop in with fully functioning equipment and blow up those easier to find IEDs.
I'm sure that "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" translates to Pashto, but to think that extra sensitivity toward creative gotchas THAT ULTIMATELY SAVE LIVES means that our troops don't feel empowered to practice a little deception warfare THAT ULTIMATELY SAVES LIVES seems a little نېم سړې شاته. As usual, I'm still most certain that the truth is in the middle, so I'm not advocating for Abu Ghraib style free-reign to human nature's darker fringes (OK -- I know in war it's kill or be killed), but surely there's room in the military for creativity.
"Which like a steed of monstrous height appear'd:
The sides were plank'd with pine; they feign'd it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide ..."
... and other such tricks of the wartime trade, you are too important to be missed.
THE ARTICLE I READ THAT STARTED IT ALL:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-06-15-iraq--afghanistan_N.htm
A PAX ON US ALL:
http://www.theshalomcenter.org/index.php?q=node/1314
MINCEMEAT, or THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049471/
FUN WITH INTERNET TRANSLATORS (crossing my fingers that it's idiom proof):
http://www.stars21.com/translator/english_to_pashto.html
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