Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Decks of cards = counterinsurgency weapons

The war in Iraq has clearly entered a new phase, to judge from the playing cards the Pentagon has been handing out to U.S. soldiers in the field. Early in the conflict, the Pentagon famously distributed 52-card decks featuring photographs of "high-value targets" -- that is, top Iraqi military and political leaders. But now, reports Archaeology magazine, the Department of Defense is handing out 40,000 decks on which are printed (in addition to the stuff you need in order to play poker and solitaire) photographs of many of Iraq's architectural and archaeological treasures. The cards offer information about the buildings and sites as well as hortatory messages about cultural preservation -- not just for its own sake, but as part of a broader hearts-and-minds, counterinsurgency project.

The cards have also been used during cultural-awareness training sessions at Fort Drum, New York, for soldiers about to deploy, the magazine reports.

Laurie Rush, an archaeologist at Fort Drum, told Archaeology: "Most troops are honorable people who want to do the right thing. But we're not naive. Damage to sites in this conflict is enormous."

The cards offer such tips and tidbits as: "Drive around -- not over -- archaeological sites." And: "This site has survived for seventeen centuries. Will it -- and others -- survive you?"

Here's a larger, more legible image, featuring more cards.

Posted by Christopher Shea at 01:58 PM

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