US unleashes new anti-Taliban weapon: charm

[Rose Siding]

...Two hours earlier the Americans' had arrived in terrifying style. Three giant Chinook helicopters, each the size of a bus, had dropped out of the sky at dawn and landed in boiling clouds of dust and sand thrown up by the rotors...

So the atmosphere across the cups of green tea and plates of banana creme biscuits was tense at first as the American officers sat awkwardly cross-legged on the carpet in kevlar helmets and bullet-proof jackets addressing a collection of anxious-looking men in huge turbans.

What happened next left the villagers bemused. What did they want the most, Colonel McBride demanded - a new school, a well to be dug, a doctor for the derelict clinic? "Just tell us what you want and how we can help you," he urged while the villagers furiously stroked their long Taliban-style beards and stared as if unable to believe their luck.

"Have you come to build or come to destroy?" one of them had nervously asked before the meeting. They remember Soviet soldiers whose policy was to carpet-bomb villages, not build schools for them.

On the roof above were snipers in position, watching the scruffy bazaar where GIs in sunglasses tried smiling and waving at scowling tribesmen in a charm offensive. The soldiers have been warned to tone down the raids and ensure fewer doors are kicked in and suspects handcuffed. The military is here to make friends as well as hunt down enemies.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=553274

[qanda]

1. You mean they're being "sensitive"?

Just asking...

[daleo]

2. The Charminators on another charm offensive

"Assault guns pointing in every direction, young American soldiers began methodically searching for arms caches and Taliban suspects, barging into homes and training machine guns on the streets as their radios crackled out instructions.
...
The morning before two teenagers with AK-47s had been shot as they tried to make a run for it during a raid on a village in a neighbouring valley. One boy's head was blown apart by a burst of gunfire."

How to make friends and influence people.

[ScrewyRabbit]

3. Why bother rebuilding a nation

when you can slap a new coat of paint on a school?

Mission accomplished.