This story really has little to do with Iraq, but does illustrate the weirdness of US intervention in the Middle East, as well as the power of propaganda (both with America's troops and foreign soldiers).
Here, an excerpt from a Frontline interview with Special Forces soldiers:
You said earlier that Dostum thought you had a death ray. What can you tell me about that?
Mark, Capt.
Due to the altitude that the aircraft was flying with the laser-guided munitions, when it dropped its ordinance the bomb was falling for a minute and half to two minutes. If you timed it just right, as the laser target designator is engaging and [targeting the] enemy position, you let your Northern Alliance commander take a look through the laser target designator. He sees it going, but he doesn't see the bombs fly into the target. He hears that chirping noise from the laser target designator and then the enemy position explodes. They believe that we have the death ray, and this was a myth that we were willing to perpetuate. Every one of us on our rifles carried a smaller laser. We let the Northern Alliance guys look through our night vision goggles. ... I think Will has summed it up best. This whole situation is like the Flintstones meet the Jetsons. And those guys could not fathom that we have some sort of aiming device that would allow us to hit a target at night on the first round.
Will, Sgt.
I think something that's key in all this is that both Northern Alliance and enemy communications were, for the most part, CB radios. They would be arguing with each other in the heat of battle. The Taliban would be saying, "nanny, nanny, boo, boo" and the Northern Alliance would be saying, "hey, we're coming to get you." They would also tell the Taliban about this death ray. At Kunduz, we were negotiating back and forth to try to get these guys to surrender. They were saying, "We'll surrender, we'll march into your camp, but we want to keep our guns." Dostum finally said, "Put your guns down, take your jackets off, march in here or we're turning the Americans onto you with the death ray." Instantly you could see the guys bend over. They put their guns down, they took their cloaks off and they started marching in, in single file right up into the middle of our perimeter, because they knew that it was over if that death ray was coming out.
Mark, Capt.
This was also perpetuated by the presence of the AC 130 Spectra gunship. They had a female fire support officer that was on the radio. Dostum heard her voice and he brought Mohammed Fazal, who's the former Taliban chief of staff. He's trying to delay this surrender in Kunduz while his forces are attempting to recapture Mazar-e-Sharif. Dostum brings Fazal near the radio so that he can hear this female voice. Fazal hears her voice as it's being explained to him, through the translators, that we have the angel of death overhead, from the AC 130 gunship. Dostum explains to him that we have the angel of death overhead and that we possess the death ray. If they don't surrender now all of their troops will burn in hell. Fazal jumped on the radio and his men were surrendering within minutes.
There's more interesting stuff at the site. I like the bits about horses, but I'm like that. |
