Finesse américaine :
The incident was recorded by an Australian photojournalist embedded with an American combat unit in Afghanistan. The unit, blasting music by Pink Floyd, races towards an Afghan village where an American and an Afghan soldier have been killed the day before. The unit’s interpreter is instructed by a psychological operations specialist, Sergeant Jim Baker, to encourage the villagers via loudspeaker to turn over the perpetrators of the killing that had occurred the previous day. When he receives no response, Sergeant Baker then orders the burning of the bodies of two Taliban fighters killed the day before. Baker surely knows that the burning of bodies contravenes Islamic law: bodies are to be buried quickly and the head is to face Mecca. While the bodies burn, the interpreter is instructed to insult the villagers:
You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve the bodies…. Your time in Afghanistan is short. You attack and run away like women. You call yourself Talibs, but you are a disgrace to the Muslim religion and you bring shame upon your family. Come and fight like men instead of the cowardly dogs you are.
Sergeant Baker explains to the journalist recording the incident that the idea is to flush the Taliban out with these insults and then to shoot them. Pratt’s description of these events illustrates quite graphically, the tactical use of “foreign language and cultural awareness” as a weapon.
Tiré de cet article, pas inintéressant au demeurant : comment le Pentagone et les services de renseignements US ont mis la main, après le 11-Septembre, sur l’enseignement de l’arabe et des langues orientales aux Etats-Unis.
▻http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/17286/teaching-arabic-in-the-us-after-9-11