Dining with the enemy. posted by Richard Seymour

The Pentagon has released an Iraq Culture Smart Card to help soldiers meet and eat with Iraqi families. Replete with lists of dos and don'ts, diagrams outlining social structure, tribal allegiance and so on, it is an invaluable cultural map for enterprising soldiers who want to get on with the locals. Unfortunately, it misses out a few. Allow me to inform the troops before one of the poor bastards gets shot.

DO: Get the fuck out of the country right now.

DON'T: Torture anyone. It's a war crime and you could end up on America's Whackiest Torture Videos. Then you'd look pretty stupid.

DO: What are you still doing there?

DON'T: Shoot up houses, cars or ambulances.

DO: Return those idiotic medals that some of you have been given for your services to imperialism. Just chuck it back in their face, and tell 'em to fuck off.

DON'T: Bomb cities and shoot at anything that tries to escape. Remember the advice of the Good Soldier Svejk: "Don't shoot! There are people on the other side!"

DO: Form alliances with other pissed off Vets and their relatives demanding an end to the occupation.

DON'T: Play that stupid fucking 'nu metal' crap. You're just making things worse for yourselves. Let me put it this way: if I had to listen to that horseshit, I'd be strapped into a car-bomb, flying right into your base yelling "ALLLLAAAAAAAHU AKHBAAAARRRR!!"

DO: Frag, shoot at commanding officers, set fire to effigies of Bush, piss on the flag, go AWOL.

DON'T: Let Oliver Stone make a movie about your life. You will rue the fucking day.

There's more, but I think we both understand each other.