Winning Hearts and Minds in Iraq

I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that this is not the way to do it:

12October, Dhuluaya. US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops.

Too bad the Nazis used such measures so effectively during WWII. Otherwise, maybe they wouldn’t have been outlawed by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949:

Art. 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

Sigh…

Kash