Congratulations! Your special report on American military playacting of Afghan war in the pine forests of Fort Polk in southern Louisiana made me laugh (“How to Do Better,” December 17, 2005). And you take it so seriously! Imagine teaching a bunch of near-illiterates on steroids from the most deprived bits of the Midwest and the many horrendous urban ghettoes on eastern and western seaboards how to fit snugly into the worst bits of Asia, South America, or Africa! Although it is commendable that someone up the American military ranks has figured out that blasting everything around you to smithereens is not enough to win a war, the playacting is risible. And so is your account of the attempt. Cultural baboons will get nowhere, let alone into people’s souls. The best they can ever do is blast everything around them to smithereens. For that is what they have learned at the height of their education, playing inane computer games.