To get inside the mind of Glen McMahon, you really need first to get a handle on the madness of modern American war.
Lieutenant Colonel Frank Groom.
Welcome to Kandahar, sir.
Nice to meet you, Frank.
I'm here to get the lay of the land.
Counterinsurgency.
In the good old days, wars were fought against conventional armies from nation states.
在过去的好日子里,战争是与民族国家的常规军队作战的。
Guys in uniforms, like Nazis and stuff.
穿着制服的人,像纳粹之类的。
When, however, you've just gone and invaded a place that you probably shouldn't have, you end up fighting against just regular people in regular-people clothes.
然而,当你刚刚去了一个你可能不应该去的地方,你最终只会和穿着普通衣服的普通人作战。
These guys are what are called insurgents.
这些人就是所谓的叛乱分子。
Basically, they're just guys who picked up weapons 'cause... so would you, if someone invaded your country.
基本上,他们只是拿起武器的人,因为。。。如果有人入侵你的国家,你也会这样做。
Funnily enough... insurgencies are next to impossible to defeat.
And so, if you wanna go on pretending you can win, you're really left with no option but to try to convince the country you've invaded that you're actually here to help.
He's saying the Americans are urinating in the streets, and, uh, they call us motherfuckers all day.
It's "motherf***er, motherf***er" all the time.
And it's considered in our culture a very bad thing to f*** your own mother.
In ours, too. Uh... in ours, too.
This is counterinsurgency.
It's a popularity contest.
Salaam alaikum.
You're trying to convince the people that they're better off with you than they are with the insurgents.