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March 16, 2009

The Dead Goat Scam

Afghans, being cleverer than their erstwhile saviours, have worked out what to do when Christians are prepared to pay $1000 to $5000 in compensation for a dead civilians: establish a thriving dead civilian industry. The locals make money, the Taliban and "the left" score a propaganda victory and the rest of us get to feel good about feeling guilty. Everybody wins!

Works like this. Any time a smart bomb gets dropped in an isolated location (which describes most of Afghanistan), and there is any chance of civilian casualties, the locals immediately make a fuss about seeking out who was hurt or killed. The village elders insist that outsiders stay away during this trying time. Even the foreign soldiers and Afghan police are put off (after the search for Taliban bodies, documents and equipment is completed. Being good Moslems, they bury the dead before sunset of the same day. The next day, the elders will claim as many civilian dead as they think they can get away with. The additional graves get a dead goat or other animal, so the proper stench permeates the mound of earth. Digging up graves is also against Islamic law, so the elders know the foreign troops have to take their word for it.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at March 16, 2009 01:04 AM

Comments

Glad you read StrategyPage!

Posted by: Jay Crawford [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 17, 2009 02:38 AM

Reminds me of when I was stationed on Antigua in my Navy days. If you had the misfortune to kill an animal with your vehicle, you were responsible for compensating the owner of the animal for its value. This was, of course, enforced only against US Navy personnel. The well-to-do locals (one family, in particular) were never held to be at fault.

Compensation value was not only based on the animal's value, but the value of the offspring it would have had had you not killed it. I knew a guy who got out of paying for a chicken that flew into his motorcycle's front wheel by immediately getting up off the ground and ranting about what he'd do to the idiot who'd let the chicken onto the road. Surprisingly, nobody claimed it as theirs.

Posted by: wheels [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 19, 2009 01:49 PM

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