WOT -- Me Worry?

You don't become a cop because you want to serve and protect.
You join the force because they let you carry a gun and a badge.
You do it because you get respect.
--Righteous Kill (2008)
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How does one make a killer? Disregarding sociopaths, is one more effective if motivated by one's God, or country, or revenge or some other reason altogether?

These thoughts are prompted by a recent viewing of the HBO series, "Generation Kill," and the story of former Guantanamo detainee Abdallah Saleh al-Ajmi, who became a suicide bomber following his release. Though Marines and al-Ajma visualized different aims, they both set about achieving them via the directive to "Kill".

For the Marines, their chain of command ends their formation with the chant, "Kill". Though they are a likable bunch, it is clear they consider themselves stone cold killer, bulldogs being let off the leash to kill and depredate.

Ranger is uncomfortable with "kill" being a valued concept in the U.S. Military. We are not killers but soldiers. Ranger's tax dollars are not paid to support a network of killers. Killers cannot win hearts and minds. Killing is never a constructive effort.

For al-Ajmi, who spent almost four years in Gitmo detention and later in Kuwait upon his repatriation, killing meant driving an explosive-laden truck "onto an Iraqi army base outside Mosul, killing 13 Iraqi soldiers and himself. It was the denouement of a nihilistic descent. . ."(A "Ticking Time Bomb" Goes Off.)

Of course, to call his action "nihilistic" is to dismiss the validity of his calling to jihad, which is probably a mistake. Just as the Marines see purpose in killing, so did al-Ajmi.

The WaPo says,

"[T]here is also a view in some quarters of the U.S. government that cases such as Ajmi's are the inevitable result of locking up 779 foreigners in an austere military prison, without access to courts or consular representation, and subjecting them to interrogation techniques that detainees say amount to torture. Some of them are bound to seek revenge, these officials believe. The challenge is figuring out which ones."

The problem is, secrecy under the guise of security has sabotaged complete and accurate record-keeping. Though al-Ajmi's behavior at Gitmo indicated problems, they went unnoted in his court file here, "which Kuwaiti legal officials deem a complete repository of the material provided by the United States."

His brothers reported his behavioral changes upon his return. "He stared all the time. You could not have a normal conversation with him. . . . It seemed as if his brain had been washed," brother Mansur Saleh al-Ajmi said.

Unable to fit back into Kuwaiti society, al-Ajmi was nonetheless lionized by radical elements for having survived his treatment at Gitmo, the "rest house" on the path of jihad, as al-Ajmi described it. While al-Ajmi was fascinated with radical Islam before his capture, his problems were exacerbated by his incarceration according to his Kuwaiti attorney, Khaled al-Mahan.

"Guantanamo added problems to the original problems," he said. "It didn't treat the problem. You cannot correct a wrong by a wrong." Though tried in criminal court in Kuwait, al-Ajmi's court file did not contain "interrogation transcripts, or any data that corroborate U.S. claims that he was a Taliban fighter."

Al-Ajmi and four others were released by the Kuwaiti court after defense attorneys argued they "lacked jurisdiction over alleged crimes that occurred in another country" and questioning American evidence and interrogations procedures.

"At the last session of the trial, Azmi gave the court a copy of a report issued by United Nations human rights inspectors that February. It argued that many of the detention and interrogation practices used at Guantanamo amounted to torture, and it called for the prison to be closed 'without further delay.'"

The court decided there was no merit to the ill-gotten American testimony, and dismissed the case. Al-Ajami later made his way to Iraq via Syria, where he would drive his truck into the center of Combat Outpost Inman probably with help from someone on the inside, where he would detonate his payload with maximum effect. Actions like his are not aberrant occurrences.

So both al-Ajmi and U.S. Marines are motivated to kill. But al-Ajmi has the added motivation that came from being tortured and indoctrinated. Viewed in this light, it is hard to believe the U.S. thinks can win this war. On the individual level, it is a failure.

The only way we will win those hearts and minds is when we put them in a body bag.