I was a Marine in Afghanistan. ICE’s tactics are strategically incoherent.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/28/minnesota-ice-unrest-reader-reaction/

In 2009, I was a Marine in Helmand province during the height of the shift to counterinsurgency operations. We were heavily armed and trained for violence, as Marines are expected to be.

But when we encountered local Afghans, we took off our helmets. We removed our sunglasses. We put a hand over our hearts, we looked the Afghans in the eye and said Salaam Alekum, or “peace be upon you.” If the situation allowed, we sat down. We drank tea. We talked. This wasn’t weakness or wokeness. It was strength, discipline and strategy.

We were still Marines. When it was time to fight, we did so decisively. But we also understood something essential: You cannot intimidate your way into lasting security. You cannot terrorize a population into cooperation. And you cannot claim moral authority if your posture communicates only contempt or fear.

I reflect on those lessons as I watch an anti-immigration agenda in the United States that has gone badly off course. Masked officers in military-style gear, conducting raids with theatrical dominance rather than measured authority. Communities treated as hostile terrain rather than neighborhoods. I find this not only disturbing but also strategically incoherent.

In Afghanistan, we understood that showing up as faceless, armored enforcers was a fast way to lose the population’s trust. We knew that intimidation buys compliance only temporarily, and resentment compounds faster than control.

If Marines could understand this in a war zone, we should be able to understand it in our own country.