Comments on: A New Iraq Culture Smart Card

By: Steven Aftergood

Steven Aftergood — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:29:27 +0000

Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed in the course of the war (source). Courtesy, while commendable, cannot change that terrible fact.

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:14:24 +0000

[i]It seems late in the day for such niceties. Amid the daily brutality of the Iraq war, there is probably little to be gained by courtesy or to be lost by mere rudeness.[/i]

This just screams out your, and the FAS’s bias, and diminishes the (already low) status of science in American society.

By: martin g

martin g — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:11:35 +0000

Awwww shucks . . .

I just finished coloring this in :

http://public.afosi.amc.af.mil/deployment_stress/Documents/Camel.pdf

and now they tell me :
“ The thumbs-up gesture traditionally is an offensive Iraqi insult, equivalent to using the middle finger in the Western world. “

Doh !

By: will gilmore

will gilmore — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:51:56 +0000

After returning from Vietnam in 1970 I was an instructor in Vietnamese culture – aimed at familiarizing Marines with proper social protocol etc. I always told my class something told to me by a South Vietnamese soldier: He’d rather we Americans didn’t attempt to speak Vietnamese, because it meant he could better understand our insults.

By: Ron Schmidt

Ron Schmidt — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:02:15 +0000

Nothing New! I remember being issued something similar in Vietnam in 1969 by the Army. I found it very useful.

By: Carl

Carl — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:35:57 +0000

Similar cards were issued in 1990-91 and I have copies, somewhere, of the 2003 and 2005 versions given, respectively, to the Marines, Marines and U.S. Army National Guard.

My Arabic got to be rather good, I thought, and one is always encouraged to be as polite and humane as possible.

If only others in uniform saw it so.

By: streiff

streiff — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:39:19 +0000

Not to be argumentative but your statement: “It seems late in the day for such niceties” implied, to me, that this was a new project not just a new edition of a decade old card.

Most military forms have be updated annually so I’m sure you’ll find a 2004 and 2005 edition of this card out there, too.

[Point taken, thanks. There was indeed a 2004 edition. --SA]

By: streiff

streiff — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:23:32 +0000

Not new.

These were handed out in the first Gulf War and were handed out in 2003.

[As noted above, the latest card is a new edition, dated May 2006 --SA]

By: Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu

Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 22:01:27 +0000

If there’s little to be gained and little to be lost, then it’s better to err on the side of courtesy. We must remember that an occupied people are still people…