General Petraeus' Year-End Letter To The Troops

28 December 2007

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Civilians of Multi-National Force-Iraq:

As 2007 draws to a close, you should look back with pride on what you, your fellow troopers, our Iraqi partners, and Iraqi Coalition civilians have achieved in 2007. A year ago, Iraq was racked by horrific violence and on the brink of civil war. Now, levels of violence and civilians and military casualties are significantly reduced and hope has been rekindled in many Iraqi communities. To be sure, the progress is reversible and there is much more to be done. Nonetheless, the hard-fought accomplishments of 2007 have been substantial, and I want to thank each of you for the contributions you made to them.

In response to the challenges that faced Iraq a year ago, we and our Iraqi partners adopted a new approach. We increased our focus on securing the Iraqi people and, in some cases, delayed transition of tasks to Iraqi forces. Additional U.S. and Georgian forces were deployed to theater, the tours of U.S. unites were extended, and Iraqi forces conducted a surge of their own, generating well over 100,000 more Iraqi police and soldiers during the year so that they, too, had additional forces to execute the new approach. In places like Ramadi, Baqubah, Arab Jabour, and Baghdad, you and our Iraqi brothers fought—often house by house, block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood—to wrest sanctuaries away from Al Qaeda-Iraq, to disrupt extremist militia elements, and to rid the streets of mafia-like criminals. Having cleared areas, you worked with Iraqis to retain them—establishing outposts in the areas we were securing, developing Iraqi Security Forces, and empowering locals to help our efforts. This approach has not been easy. It has required steadfastness in the conduct of tough offensive operations, creative solutions to the myriad problems on the ground, and persistence over the course of many months and during countless trying situations. Through it all, you have proven equal to every task, continually demonstrating an impressive ability to conduct combat and stability operations in an exceedingly complex environment.
Your accomplishments have given the Iraqi people new confidence and prompted many citizens to reject terror and confront those who practice it. As the months passed in 2007, in fact, the tribal awakening that began in Al Anbar Province spread to other parts of the country. Emboldened by improving security and tired of indiscriminate violence, extremist ideology, oppressive practices, and criminal activity, Iraqis increasingly rejected Al Qaeda-Iraq and rogue militia elements. Over time, the desire of Iraqis to contribute to their own security has manifested itself in citizens volunteering for the police, the Army, and concerned local citizen programs. It has been reflected in citizens providing information that has helped us find far more than double the number of arms and weapons caches we found last year. And it has been apparent in Iraqi communities now supporting their local security forces.

As a result of your hard work and that of our Iraqi comrades-in-arms—and with the support of the local populace in many areas—we have seen significant improvements in the security situation. The number of attacks per week is down some 60 percent from a peak in June of this year to a level last seen consistently in the early summer of 2005. With fewer attacks, we are also seeing significantly reduced loss of life. The number of civilian deaths is down by some 75 percent since its height a year ago, dropping to a level not seen since the beginning of 2006. And the number of Coalition losses is down substantially as well. We remain mindful that the past year’s progress has been purchased through the sacrifice and selfless service of all those involved and that the new Iraq must still contend with innumerable enemies and obstacles. Al Qaeda-Iraq has been significantly degraded, but it remains capable of horrific bombings. Militia extremists have been disrupted, but they retain influence in many areas. Criminals have been apprehended, but far too many still roam Iraqi streets and intimidate local citizens and Iraqi officials. We and our Iraqi partners will have to deal with each of these challenges in the New Year to keep the situation headed in the right direction.

While the progress in a number of areas is fragile, the security improvements have significantly changed the situation in many parts of Iraq. It is now imperative that we take advantage of these improvements by looking beyond the security arena and helping Iraqi military and political leaders as they develop solutions in other areas as well, solutions they can sustain over time. At the tactical level, this means an increasing focus on helping not just Iraqi Security Forces—with whom we must partner in all that we do—but also helping Iraqi governmental organizations as they endeavor to restore basic services, to create employment opportunities, to revitalize local markets, to refurbish schools, to spur local economic activity, and to keep locals involved in contributing to local security. We will have to do all of this, of course, while continuing to draw down our forces, thinning our presence, and gradually handing over responsibilities to our Iraqi partners. Meanwhile, at the national level, we will focus on helping the Iraqi Government integrate local volunteers into the Iraqi Security Forces and other employment, develop greater ministerial capacity and capability, aid displaced persons as they return, and, most importantly, take the all-important political and economic actions needed to exploit the opportunity provided by the gains in the security arena.

The pace of progress on important political actions to this point has been slower than Iraqi leaders had hoped. Still, there have been some important steps taken in recent months. Iraq’s leaders reached agreement on the Declaration of Principles for Friendship and Cooperation with the United States, which lays the groundwork for an enduring relationship between our nations. The United Nations Security Council approved Iraq’s request for a final renewal of the resolution that authorizes the Coalition to operate in Iraq. Iraq’s leaders passed an important Pension Law that not only extends retirement benefits to Iraqis previously left out but also represents the first of what we hope will be additional measures fostering national reconciliation. And Iraq’s leaders have debated at length a second reconciliation-related measure, the Accountability and Justice Bill (the de-Ba’athification Reform Law), as well as the 2008 National Budget, both which likely will be brought up for a vote in early 2008. Even so, all Iraqi participants recognize that much more must be done politically to put their country on an irreversible trajectory to national reconciliation and sustainable economic development. We will, needless to say, work closely with our Embassy teammates to support the Iraq Government as it strives to take advantage of the improved security environment by pursing political and economic progress.

The New Year will bring many changes. Substantial force rotations and adjustments already underway will continue. One Army brigade combat team and a Marine Expeditionary Unit have already redeployed without replacement. In the coming months, four additional brigades and two Marine battalions will follow suit. Throughout that time, we will continue to adapt to the security situation as it evolves. And in the midst of all the changes, we and our Iraqi partners will strive to maintain the momentum, to press the fight, and to pursue Iraq’s enemies relentlessly. Solutions to many of the tough problems will continue to be found at your level, together with local Iraqi leaders and with your Iraqi Security Force partners, in company and battalion areas of operation and in individual neighborhoods an towns. As you and your Iraqi partners turn concepts into reality, additional progress will emerge slowly and fitfully. Over time, we will gradually see fewer bad days and accumulate more good days, good weeks, and good months.

The way ahead will not be easy. Inevitably, there will be more tough days and tough weeks. Unforeseen challenges will emerge. And success will require continued hard work, commitment, and initiative from all involved. As we look to the future, however, we should remember how far we have come in the past year. Thanks to the tireless efforts and courageous actions of the Iraqi people, Iraq’s political and military leaders, the Iraqi Security Forces, and each of you, a great deal has been achieved in 2007. Thus, as we enter a new year, we and our Iraqi partners will have important accomplishments and a newfound sense of hope on which we can build.

As always, all or your leaders, our fellow citizens back home, and I deeply appreciate the dedication, professionalism, commitment, and courage you display on a daily basis. It remains the greatest of honors to serve with each of you in this critical endeavor.

Sincerely,

David H. Petraeus

The latest post from Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

Marines,

These guys never forget, never forgive, and never quit

There is credible merit in the argument that the CIA
destroyed the tapes of high-level Islamic terrorist
interrogations because they contained information that
could lead to the identification of the intelligence
officers.

A number of years ago, before the war, before 9/11, I
was working overseas for DIA DHS. We were actively
conducting HUMINT operations directed at possible
foreign Islamic extremists, amongst other threats.

The personnel I worked with were professional and
courageous. They dealt with these risks without
complaint and with determination.

But, for the record, let me state that the operations
directed against the Islamic terrorists entered into
another level of intensity. These were the only
operations where we not only had many of the local
people working with us flatly refuse to participate
but these were the only operations where our own
people voiced strong and reasoned reservations.

The concern was simple: If we did not take every
conceivable precaution to absolutely protect their
identities from the Islamic terrorists then our people
knew that the Islamic terrorists would likely issue a
death sentence for them and their families and the
sentence would remain in effect until their death,
however long that took.

I still recall a conversation with one of my best
operators on this subject. He was not complaining
about the risk. He knew the score and was still
willing to face being put on an Islamic terrorist
death list for life if that is what it took. His sole
concern was for the long-term safety of his family if
the Islamic terrorists were able to identify him.

If you have never seen how viciously savage these
Islamic terrorists are you cannot understand the
concerns of those on the front line fighting them.
This enemy never forgets, never forgives, and never
quits.

Semper Fi,

Mike Walker

A general letter from Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

Marines,

By now you have all read the reports about the "town
meeting" at the HS Truman Building in Washington DC
regarding deployments to Iraq.

I will first state that the "death sentence" remarks
by the fellow in Foggy Bottom was a regrettable muddle
of panic and cowardice that can only be characterized
as disgraceful.

Hopefully these inane reactions are isolated for they
are cancerous in that they cannot but enfeeble the
organization.

Having written that, it is my opinion that those
remarks are not indicative of the performance of the
officers of the Department of State, especially of
those serving in Iraq.

The State Department officers I served with in Iraq
were exemplary. The names Stu Jones, Kieth Kidd, Hugh
Geoghan, Nate Jensen, and Kael Weston are names of
honor and sacrifice and all were from State.

I saw them on a daily basis work tirelessly in some of
the most dangerous parts of the al Anbar governorate.
The were routinely shot at, rocketed and mortared.
They were deliberately targeted for attack. Yet they
never shirked from their duty. They never allowed
personal risk to stand in the way their mission.

Those folks upheld the highest ideals of courageous
service to the United States of America. We should
take great pride in the fact that we have people like
this in our Department of State.

We should should not allow the comments of one aged
yet still callow soul to besmirch the honorable record
of so many outstanding members of the Department of
State.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Cartoonist Mike Ramirez at it again visually displaying what we all know is true.

Col. Mike Walker (USMC retired) provides an article
written by BGen Dave Reist

Anbar: Feb 06-Feb 07
Moving the Ball down the Field
Focus on Economics, Governance, & Tribal engagement


Of late, Al Anbar province has been touted as the model for how to quell the dilemma faced in Iraq. As the surge is unfolding, Anbar is referred to as “The place where it worked” and some feel copying Anbar successes would mean success in Baghdad – and the rest of Iraq. This missive is intended to put into perspective what was done from Feb 06 through Feb 07 (and before that) that could have laid some of the foundation that has resulted in the successes currently enjoyed in Al Anbar province that II MEF is exploiting superbly. This piece will not serve as a template of “How to do it everywhere else in Iraq.” That caution is offered up front as the complexities of time, situation, culture throughout the country, and so many other variables make a “Recipe for success” an over-simplification for an extremely complex problem. It is safe to say that lessons learned in ANY counterinsurgency are applicable in bits & pieces, but to take one recipe in total is imprudent. One last qualifier, I will not focus on the tactical battles. The security LOO is crucial and a certain level of security is paramount for progress in a counterinsurgency.

Names will not be used as some events are still unfolding and mentioning Iraqis could endanger them.

On the Waterfront

In looking back at how Anbar has unfolded, I can’t help but recall the celluloid classic of 1953 entitled “On the Waterfront.” In this film, Johnny Friendly (played by Lee J. Cobb) has a tight grip over the waterfront – he controls who works, who doesn’t work, he gets his cut, he twists arms and breaks heads when needed, etc – in sum, total corruption maintained by murder and intimidation. The film starts with the murder of Joey Doyle. Terry Malloy (played by Marlon Brando) unwittingly assists in luring Joey to the roof the night before he was to testify against Johnny Friendly. Friendly’s thugs kill him by throwing him off the roof. Terry Malloy befriends Joey’s sister Edie (played by Eva Marie Saint) and she starts getting him to see the corruption. In addition, a local priest, Father Barry (played by Karl Malden), works to get Terry to testify against Johnny Friendly, and convinces him that the thugs are really hurting the workers and the docks, not helping them. Father Barry invites Terry to a meeting at a local church that is broken up as Johnny’s thugs surround the church and beat the attendees with baseball bats. Father Barry points out that Johnny Friendly will eventually kill anyone in his way, and this point is shown when Johnny Friendly kills Terry’s brother Charlie (played by Rod Steiger) who works for Johnny Friendly. Terry finds his brother murdered, hanging by longshoreman hooks after Charlie could not sway Terry (his own brother) not to testify against Johnny Friendly – murder to intimidate. This event did not intimidate Terry, but rather cemented his will against Johnny Friendly and he boldly testified and then went to the docks and took a beating. He lived, served as the lone wolf willing to stand up amongst sheep, and the sheep followed his lead and Johnny Friendly was finished. I’ll let you draw the parallels as the story of Anbar unfolds.

Thoughts up-front:

- We are playing 3 level chess, not checkers. Iraq is complicated.
- We can’t afford to loose in Iraq.
- We have to ask who is “driving” in Iraq. We have an Ambassador, an MNFI Commander, and a legitimately elected Government. Think unity of effort here.
- It’s not about money, it’s all about money. It’s always about money. There are other factors that contribute, but remember – MONEY.
- Differentiate between Insurgency and Resistance, because Iraqi’s do. Resistance fighters are those who do not want us in their backyard. Insurgents are the die-hard folks who need to be killed. AQI = Insurgents. This differentiation is not germane today (Aug 07) as any “resistance” is advertised by the local tribes as affiliation with AQI.
- If you ever hear someone say “This is the solution” or “Just do that” – run away from them. They do not understand the complexities of the situation – they are checker players. People who write books about the books they’ve read or repeat thoughts from other people are not who we need here.
- Cultural sensitivities are important. We spend a lot of time on this. We should continue to do so. BUT, if you are rude in America you will be rude in Iraq – just be a decent human being and it goes a long way.
- Perceptions of Anbar from Baghdad and vice versa. Anbar sees Baghdad as Shia led, Iran backed/controlled. Baghdad sees Anbar as those former Sunni’s who used to be in control and now it is our turn (maybe some payback here).
- Shame & Honor (this point is taken from a retired Army Officer & from Judith Miller in “God has Ninety-Nine Names”): Hearts and minds is over-used and it is more important to understand the dynamics of shame & honor. This is extremely complex, an antithesis of western culture, and goes to the heart of tribalism and understanding how things are done and why.
- Who is the real Sheik? If you ask anyone if they are a Sheik, they will probably say yes, at some level. Sheik is odd term that could imply a no-kidding tribal Sheik, a Sheik because of wealth, a Sheik because Saddam made Sheik’s to undermine the tribal influence in Anbar, etc. If you are ever in the room together and ask who the real Sheik is though, they all know.
- Sherman stated “War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” Are we cruel enough for this war?

Looking Forward through the past: February 2004

I MEF entered Anbar province relieving the 82nd Airborne Division. Because Marines had a greater number of forces to apply against the problem, they were able to place forces where the 82nd could not. This is not a “Marines vs. Army” statement, just a statement of shear numbers and how a US Army Division is structured compared to a MAGTF (the surge in placing more troops on the ground is aimed at the same resultant). In doing so, the forces get into areas in which the enemy had enjoyed total freedom of action. This freedom translates into the ability to effect the local population and sway matters their way. The introduction of additional troops resulted in the insurgent grip being threatened, and increased casualties resulted (as happened in the surge).

CPA guidelines resulted in some things that negatively impacted Anbar. First, de-baathification resulted in many former Iraqi Army being out of work. As much of the leadership in Saddam’s Army was Sunni, many Anbari’s now had no job. Looking for employment was virtually impossible, and these former unemployed were prime candidates for the insurgency to sway to become resistance fighters. Also, throughout Iraq state owned enterprises (SOEs) were opened to private investment that never materialized and these SOEs stagnated. Result: More unemployment (or workers not receiving their full pay as the central Government continued to make partial payment to workers) that added to discontent.

Amidst all of the above, a NGO conference was held in Amman in Mar 2004 that looked at revitalization of Anbar. The MEF had LNOs in Amman and this conference was seen as a positive sign so the following month the MEF supported a conference that brought together businessmen – the embryonic Al Anbar Business Association (ABA) was formed. Key to this meeting was support from both Jordanian and Iraqi government ministries existed. A follow-on conference in Bahrain was held and MEF leadership at the highest levels attended. The signal was there were options to kinetics, and if security could be brokered, advances may occur. It is important to realize all this occurred after four US contractor bodies were hung in Fallujah. As Fallujah fell farther into dis-repair, a fall business conference in Dubai was planned that had 200 Anbar businessmen ready to attend. In November, the battle for Fallujah occurred and the Dubai business exchange was cancelled.

It must be noted that tribal engagement had occurred before the ground war and prior to Jan 06 with engagement taking place at various levels and in varying areas throughout Anbar. The point here is engagement takes time.

II MEF’s time in Anbar

II MEF was faced with conducting elections and operations in the Western Euphrates River Valley (WERV). The elections piece was huge and it took a Herculean effort. A key point to mention is the Sunni’s boycotted the election and missed an opportunity to influence the action to adequately represent their party (or tribe) at the provincial level and in Baghdad. Hence, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) had the preponderance of the seats in the Anbar Provincial Council. This translated into the IIP determining who the Governor was, and Governor Mamoun was placed in the Governor’s chair – and remains today.

I MEF had fought Fallujah in November 04 and squeezed the insurgents out. II MEF chased the insurgents up the WERV throughout 05, all the way to Al Qaim. Al Qaim is crucial though, because it was the first effort that witnessed US and tribal forces working together to oust the insurgents that resulted in subsequent police recruitment. This is the model of integration of capabilities. The insurgency has attempted to creep back into Al Qaim, but the security that has come with a permanent CF presence, coupled with the tribal buy-in to keep the insurgents out has been the key to keeping them out. Police recruiting increased immediately after the insurgents were pushed out of Al Qaim. This is what is currently happening in Ramadi (started in summer 06 and is being championed today) that is being heralded as a ground-breaking effort: II MEF established the model in 05. In the spring of 2006, in the small town of Baghdadi (north of Hit), the same thing happened as local forces pushed against the insurgents. Police recruitment soared and men from that area were placed in formal training. This is another example of “A model” that worked before the Ramadi Awakening (to be discussed).

Also critical was a meeting held 29 Nov 05. Many key Sheiks, Iman’s, and leaders came together in Ramadi. The purpose of the meeting was to gather the key players and simply determine what could be done by working together. As the insurgents had been decimated in Fallujah, then chased up the WERV, they were making their way to Ramadi and they used this meeting to ID targets for murder to intimidate. From Dec 05 to March 06, insurgents selectively murdered approximately 10 influential Iraqi’s in Ramadi that forced all others in Ramadi to go underground. Insurgents had a grip on the city that was tightening, and the M&I campaign accelerated that grip. It also forced any progress that was started to happen in Governance to wane, and quickly.

I MEF (Fwd) arrival in theater

Prior to deploying, I MEF (Fwd) held an Economic and Governance Conference in Camp Pendleton that brought together an eclectic group. The purpose of the conference was to look at what could be done in these “Lines of Operation” (LOOs) and develop a plan. MNFI, MNCI, Iraqi ministry, academia, OSD, independent businessmen, USAID, Department of State, and more attended and it was quickly realized the issue was complex and required a long term approach. No false pretenses were arrived at and a “Quick win” was out of the picture. It was readily apparent that sustained, dedicated operations in these LOOs that would be required in order to make a difference – and as stated before, security was paramount. Sponsored (and attended) by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Business Transformation Agency), it became readily apparent that jobs and productivity were paramount to an Anbar solution. While it was clear that there were a lot of challenges to be overcome, there would also be a lot of resources to draw upon as Anbar is loaded with raw materials: oil, gas, bauxite, agriculture, etc.

Arriving in theater, the M&I campaign had served its purpose. Ramadi was spiraling downhill, but Fallujah was slowly improving and Al Qaim was quietly the “Jewel” of the province. We wanted to “Meet the Sheiks” but the local ones would not come forward and many had fled to Amman. Amman offered safety for those who could afford to relocate and is a traditional hub for business as well as a town that many Sunni’s in Anbar had relations or dual households. It is estimated that somewhere between 500K to 1 Million Anbari’s have taken residence in Amman for a variety of reasons. I MEF (Fwd) placed an LNO in Amman. His arrival caught the attention of the Anbari’s and they asked, “The Marines are back and what do they want?”

It is important to emphasize that limited dollars was available at this point – both from the Iraqi Government and the US Government. Iraqi funding was caught in the tight grip of a non-functioning government (either intentionally or unintentionally) and US funding (in the form of CERP) was not available in adequate amounts because the budget had not been passed. CERP funding did not become tangible until July 2006. This lack of funding resulted in the inability to empower the provincial government to hire contractors, reward locals, and in general make progress.

Death of a Sheikh

In March 2006, a prominent Sheik died unexpectedly while undergoing surgery in France. He was from a large tribe in Anbar and he had been outside Anbar for years as his business was run from Amman, but his tribe was still prominent. The wake (a four night affair) would be held in Jordan and we received notification from civilians (who had attended our Econ/Gov conference) to attend the wake – it is the right thing to do. Approval was granted and this opened more gates than we’ll ever know. By simply being at this funeral, it showed respect and demonstrated that the Marines where serious about talking with the Sheiks. From this participation, 75 businessmen from Fallujah agreed to come to Amman in May and meet with businessmen from the region – some US businessmen attended. Supported by DUSD (BTA), this conference was intended to simply put businessmen together in the same room. We had been looking to engage with the “Top tier sheiks” and they were not to be found, so we jumped on this opportunity. The conference did exactly what we wanted, and while at this conference, the “Top Tier Sheiks” quietly approached us and asked if we were interested in meeting with them. In retrospect, they found us, we did not find them. Later in May, again with the support of DUSD (BTA) a conference was held with the “Top tier Sheiks” and this continued to keep the ball rolling. Two issues here: In defining the Top tier Sheiks, it is not implied that all the Sheiks/tribes were represented. They made the guest list and defining who is “Top tier” is contentious. Second, the gathering of these “Top tier” resulted in some friction that created some chasms. It was viewed that meeting and talking was better than non-meeting and we were sure that even if someone was omitted, they were “In the know.”

Our LNO in Amman continued the ball rolling. In meeting the Top tier Sheiks; the intent was to pursue numerous initiatives. Encouraging the Sheiks to return to Anbar was key, as this would send a signal that normalcy was returning to the province. We encouraged the Iman’s to attempt to influence the messages coming from the mosques on Friday. We did not want to attempt to shape the message, we simply asked it not be anti-coalition or inflammatory. We also asked to influence the action against the insurgents – stated another way, assist in getting them out of Anbar as it was to their benefit to rid their homeland of this problem. We asked them to invest in the province. All of these were viewed as long term.

Economics: Task Force for Business and Stability Operations – Iraq (TF-BSO)

Unemployment in Iraq is high, by any standard. Figures from USAID list unemployment and underemployment at around 55%. Without work, Iraq is a recruiting haven for insurgents. DUSD Paul Brinkley had visited Iraq several times and as his perspective evolved, at the urging of then MNCI Commander (LTG Chiarelli) and at the direction of Deputy Secretary of Defense England, TF-BSO was formed. He focused on economic revitalization of Iraq. The philosophy is simple: Jobs create fewer personnel on the street who can be co-opted by insurgents and there is a feeling of honor again in having a job and being a productive Iraqi. This involved two key elements: restoring state-owned enterprises (SOEs, i.e., factories) thus reestablishing business connections between sources of demand and potential Iraqi factories and linking Iraqi industry to the global economy. An assessment of dormant or partially running factories has been conducted and coordination with the Iraqi ministries and MNFI in attempting to get as many factories back on line as possible is underway. Also, senior executives from American and international industry have been brought to Iraq to provide support for Iraqi revitalization. This is the deep fight, seeds need to be planted, and a security posture needs to allow this to unfold.

The efforts of the TF are needed and are a good primer. It has been proffered by some that DoD needs to get out of this initiative and commercial business involvement is needed for this effort to truly gain traction.

The Awakening in Ramadi

In late summer/early fall of 2006, a movement by a Sheik arose. Simply stated, a Sheik banded together with a few other Sheiks, banded with coalition forces, and fought the insurgents. They also encouraged the “Sons of Anbar” to join the police. Both of these measures were huge. First, in the tribes joining the fight against the insurgents it created a scenario in which the local population no longer allowed the insurgents safe havens. The growth of the police put locals on the beat, and their intelligence, as well as Sunni’s now seeing Sunni’s in their neighborhoods was a tremendous plus. Up to this point in Ramadi, few police were being recruited – some, but not enough to make a difference. Stated another way: Men would not join the police in adequate numbers until the Sheiks allowed it to happen.

In Anbar there are approximately 88 tribes that fall under the Dulaymi Federation, of which 15-18 are considered prominent tribes. The Sheik who founded the Awakening was not from one of the prominent tribes. He was not the Sheik of his tribe. The dynamics of how he rose to power and who joined him (and who didn’t join him) are fascinating, in some cases a matter of opinion, and honestly to all Americans and most Iraqi’s not completely known. This topic could be a complete paper itself, but suffice it to say the Awakening movement served the causes of the coalition forces.

The challenge in dealing with the Awakening was to get the tribal entities to work in coordination with the existing Anbar Government to maximize progress via unity of effort in Anbar. This was a delicate matter because the Awakening had not participated in the election process and did not have representation on the Provincial Council. As their movement came to the forefront, they thought they should have a greater say in the governance process, and they had already established a back door relationship with the highest levels of Government in Baghdad. Some felt the Awakening should have the lead in governing Anbar as they were having the greatest impact (remember here successes in Al Qaim and Fallujah counters this). Others felt elections should be held as soon as possible as to better provide a more accurate representation of Anbar Province within the Provincial Council – this would take a mandate from the Central government, and one that was barely functioning in most opinions. The Governor was routinely making weekly trips to Baghdad and lobbying the Iraqi Government. This was happening at the same time the Awakening was dealing with Malaki and he “authorized” the existence of units (that were police like) but did not appropriate for them. What this created was the emergence of forces under the Awakening not trained through any ISF formal structure but operating in Ramadi. Some saw this as the potential to be viewed as a militia – a dangerous concept as Sadr’s militia was being targeted by the coalition forces. Throughout the fall of 2006, the Awakening, the Provincial Council, and the Governor met on numerous occasions, worked matters, and the Awakening forces were integrated into formalized training. The Awakening was also given seats (by appointment) in the Provincial Council. This unity of effort in fighting the insurgents, communicating with Baghdad, and speaking with a unified voice was huge.

Tipping Point

Many have said Anbar is at a tipping. It may be and if so, why. Many factors contribute to this:
- Tribal unity against the insurgents: Huge point
- Competency of ISF: This includes police, army, and border forces, and placing qualified advisors is the key. Two points here: Police are more effective than the Army in curbing the insurgency (Army was mainly Shia and Sunni’s of Anbar did not receive Army forces well – and vice versa as Shia Army at times abused the Sunni population) and closing the border was seen as a critical measure to control what was coming into Iraq (the Iraqi’s have a saying “Do not try to dust the house with the windows open).
- Murder & Intimidation: The more the insurgents use this tactic, the more they drive the local population to embrace the coalition message. On the other hand, the coalition forces must watch how heavy handed they are, for fear of driving the local population towards the insurgents.
- Economic growth: Employment offers an alternative to accepting financial rewards from insurgents.
- National Government support: If Baghdad supports Anbar, what a plus this would be. This support needs to come in a cash flow that supports Anbar programs and promotes growth. However, the Central Government needs to demonstrate its commitment to providing for the welfare of Anbar Province not just through the budget, but in other areas such as fuel and power allocation.
- PRT proficiency: The embedded PRTs at the RCT/BCT level are proving effective and a totally flushed out PRT and the MNF-W level makes a huge difference. It is unfortunate it took this long for this to come to fruition.
- Foreign Investment: This would have tremendous impact as it would show the environment supports investment and confidence would soar. This is feasible, but the mechanism to make it happen is delicate. Again, this is an area where the Central Government has an opportunity to help by passing investment laws that will be attractive to foreign investors.
- Crime: At this point it is hard to differentiate between what is criminal and what is insurgent activity. Also, with all the money going towards projects and possible growth, this attracts nefarious people. As much effort that goes into defeating the insurgency should go towards monitoring criminal activity IOT prevent money being squandered.
- Sunni tolerance of the insurgency wanes: This is huge.

Final thoughts

We need the elements of National Power present in Iraq and we need them integrated. We need Treasury, Commerce, Justice, State, etc all in Iraq maximizing the areas that they can lend a hand too. Key here is unity of effort. When the above agencies send representatives, we need first-string players, not representatives.

Two mandatory books to read are the Old Testament because we are all sons of Abraham and the history of the Peloponnesian Wars by Thucydides as war is timeless.

Americans are arrogant or perceived as arrogant. This will not change, realize it, and simply be nice. You will never be able to get the “US stink” off you.

Democracy is a great concept but to strive for democracy in Iraq is a bridge too far (after all, the US is a Republic and arguably the most stable Government in the area is a Monarchy (Jordan)). We need to watch how we use this word.

Reservists are key. The tool set brought to the table by our reservists are crucial and their skills are priceless when working economic and governance issues. Shop for those skills.

Iran: The Sunni’s mantra was Iran is the problem. It was not until the State of the Union address in January 2007 that a public remark was first made against Iran. When asking the Sheiks about this statement, they responded, “That was very good and what will be said next?” Most were kind in not saying “What took you so long?” -- although some did.

Process vs Result: Process is important, but get a result. If your process is good you will get a result. If you do not get a result, but want to cling to process improvement and refinement, you risk spinning in a circle – and in war this is unacceptable. To use a sports analogy, when you leave the field, if you do not have more points on the scoreboard than the other guy, you lose. Talking about the nice block during the 3rd quarter (process) is nice but how many points are on the board (result) and did you win the game?

Economic initiatives: Before getting into specifics, the overarching thought in elements below is to have gangsters of capitalism replace gangsters. Security will be enhanced by businessmen protecting their assets. The creation of jobs will limit the population for the insurgents to draw from and hopefully create an environment that the people of the Iraq chose peace, prosperity, and economic growth over war. This means they keep the insurgents out.

The Anbar telecommunications capability is broke. It consisted of in-ground cooper lines to begin with that had no potential to support the province. The insurgents demolished what existed. Cell phone capability was minimal, and insurgents destroyed cell phone towers that cut that capability. Recently, re-establishment of cell phone towers has re-established cell phone capability in portions of the province. What the province needs is wireless local loop (WLL). WLL offers both voice and data capability (cell phone does not allow for data). Data would allow businessmen to operate on the internet – this is HUGE. It is totally doable, is minimal cost, and has a huge profit margin for whoever invests. There are some concerns, but WLL has been the choice in virtually every country that has to build from the ground up and Anbar is a prime candidate.

Anbar has tremendous gas & oil reserves. The people that need to know about this already know, and it is as simple (and complex) as the central government sorting out the business laws that allow for foreign investment. Foreign investment is a must because of the dollar value and capabilities required to fully exploit these raw materials. The Shia’s in Baghdad are well aware of the future monetary potential of Anbar gas & oil reserves and this is a large stumbling block in determining legislation for how the profit is divided.

Electrical power is the backbone of industry and Anbar (and most of Iraq) has a fragile skeletal system. It is antiquated, is in disrepair, is an easy target, and is being stressed at the same time it is being improved. This is a long term effort and crucial to economic growth as industry needs consistent power, not 12 hours a day. Large generators are an initial solution, but building additional dams, solar/wind power, etc all will add to solving this crucial problem.

Agriculture: It is estimated that only 20% of the capacity of farming in Anbar is being tapped. The potential is endless and not just farming. Crops are just the beginning and even just maximizing this would not only create jobs but allow Iraq to feed itself. Jobs created in harvesting, packaging, distribution, sales, etc would be huge. Agricultural centers (Co-Ops) that would branch into livestock would only add to the boom.

Microfinance loans: This initiative will allow the smaller businessman to engage. Economic growth needs both a top down and bottom up approach. This program is just getting off the ground and should have happened years ago but did not for a variety of reasons.

A credible banking system is needed. There is interest in making this happen.

Iraqi Railroad (IRR): A track that enabled commerce to be conducted all the way to the Al Qaim was opened in 2006. This enhances distribution and the transport of any goods and shows confidence that a sense of normalcy is returning. More track repair is ongoing and the potential for passenger movement (which was done in the past) is being considered again.

The number of opportunities to stimulate economic growth are endless in Anbar. It is truly a chicken-and-egg scenario when dealing with economic growth and security: Which comes first? An Iraqi general once stated, “A Hand Alone Cannot Clap.” By this he meant that the combination of economics and security will feed each other and create the endstate. Iraqi’s are innovative businessmen and they are primed to make money (remember, it’s all about money). Even if the security posture is totally set, without jobs (other than ISF) the country will stagnate.

Conclusion

Positive progress in Anbar has been the result of iterative, continual, and consistent actions by coalition forces. Each MEF has pushed the ball down the field after the hand off from their predecessors. Security actions (AL FAJR, RIVERGATE, etc) have gone into areas, maintained a presence within the town and their people, built up the IP and the IA, and progress has resulted. Economic and Governance initiatives have been integrated with the Security LOO and this synergy in the LOOs has produced the most dynamic result. The challenges and opportunities need to be assessed daily to make needed course corrections and closely watch the dynamics of tribalism within Anbar. Results in Anbar and tribalism reverberate well beyond the Anbar borders and have impacts throughout the entire Middle East – this is evident today with the success in Anbar. There are massive amounts of money at play at this juncture and power and long-term posturing is a daily occurrence. Marines have done a good job of remaining consistent while adapting to opportunities; this must continue. What comes next? How are opportunities exploited?

Columbia, The Propaganda Tool
Carol Platt Liebau

This piece indicates that, predictably, Ahmadinejad is using his speech at Columbia as a propaganda tool. His invitation to speak there is being spun as a hunger on the part of Americans for "correct and clear information about global developments," which he, presumably, will provide.

Congratulations to Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger -- he's just allowed his university to be used as a propaganda tool by one of the world's most despicable regimes.

Perhaps one of the "tough questions" he might ask Ahmadinejad is this: Will Ahmadinejad encourage one of Iran's universities to permit President Bush to deliver a speech there, offering "correct and clear information about global developments"? I wouldn't hold my breath.

Interesting read....

Propaganda Redux
Take it from this old KGB hand: The left is abetting America's enemies with its intemperate attacks on President Bush.

BY ION MIHAI PACEPA
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT(Wall Street Journal)

During last week's two-day summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thanked President Bush for leading the global war on terror. Mr. Brown acknowledged "the debt the world owes to the U.S. for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism" and vowed to follow Winston Churchill's lead and make Britain's ties with America even stronger.

Mr. Brown's statements elicited anger from many of Mr. Bush's domestic detractors, who claim the president concocted the war on terror for personal gain. But as someone who escaped from communist Romania--with two death sentences on his head--in order to become a citizen of this great country, I have a hard time understanding why some of our top political leaders can dare in a time of war to call our commander in chief a "liar," a "deceiver" and a "fraud."

I spent decades scrutinizing the U.S. from Europe, and I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America's own respect for its president.

My father spent most of his life working for General Motors in Romania and had a picture of President Truman in our house in Bucharest. While "America" was a vague place somewhere thousands of miles away, he was her tangible symbol. For us, it was he who had helped save civilization from the Nazi barbarians, and it was he who helped restore our freedom after the war--if only for a brief while. We learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that.

Later, when I headed Romania's intelligence station in West Germany, everyone there admired America too. People would often tell me that the "Amis" meant the difference between night and day in their lives. By "night" they meant East Germany, where their former compatriots were scraping along under economic privation and Stasi brutality. That was then.

But in September 2002, a German cabinet minister, Herta Dauebler-Gmelin, had the nerve to compare Mr. Bush to Hitler. In one post-Iraq-war poll 40% of Canada's teenagers called the U.S. "evil," and even before the fall of Saddam 57% of Greeks answered "neither" when asked which country was more democratic, the U.S. or Iraq.

Sowing the seeds of anti-Americanism by discrediting the American president was one of the main tasks of the Soviet-bloc intelligence community during the years I worked at its top levels. This same strategy is at work today, but it is regarded as bad manners to point out the Soviet parallels. For communists, only the leader counted, no matter the country, friend or foe. At home, they deified their own ruler--as to a certain extent still holds true in Russia. Abroad, they asserted that a fish starts smelling from the head, and they did everything in their power to make the head of the Free World stink

The communist effort to generate hatred for the American president began soon after President Truman set up NATO and propelled the three Western occupation forces to unite their zones to form a new West German nation. We were tasked to take advantage of the reawakened patriotic feelings stirring in the European countries that had been subjugated by the Nazis, in order to shift their hatred for Hitler over into hatred for Truman--the leader of the new "occupation power." Western Europe was still grateful to the U.S. for having restored its freedom, but it had strong leftist movements that we secretly financed. They were like putty in our hands.

The European leftists, like any totalitarians, needed a tangible enemy, and we gave them one. In no time they began beating their drums decrying President Truman as the "butcher of Hiroshima." We went on to spend many years and many billions of dollars disparaging subsequent presidents: Eisenhower as a war-mongering "shark" run by the military-industrial complex, Johnson as a mafia boss who had bumped off his predecessor, Nixon as a petty tyrant, Ford as a dimwitted football player and Jimmy Carter as a bumbling peanut farmer. In 1978, when I left Romania for good, the bloc intelligence community had already collected 700 million signatures on a "Yankees-Go-Home" petition, at the same time launching the slogan "Europe for the Europeans."

During the Vietnam War we spread vitriolic stories around the world, pretending that America's presidents sent Genghis Khan-style barbarian soldiers to Vietnam who raped at random, taped electrical wires to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies and razed entire villages. Those weren't facts. They were our tales, but some seven million Americans ended up being convinced their own president, not communism, was the enemy. As Yuri Andropov, who conceived this dezinformatsiya war against the U.S., used to tell me, people are more willing to believe smut than holiness.

The final goal of our anti-American offensive was to discourage the U.S. from protecting the world against communist terrorism and expansion. Sadly, we succeeded. After U.S. forces precipitously pulled out of Vietnam, the victorious communists massacred some two million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Another million tried to escape, but many died in the attempt. This tragedy also created a credibility gap between America and the rest of the world, damaged the cohesion of American foreign policy, and poisoned domestic debate in the U.S.

Unfortunately, partisans today have taken a page from the old Soviet playbook. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention, for example, Bush critics continued our mud-slinging at America's commander in chief. One speaker, Martin O'Malley, now governor of Maryland, had earlier in the summer stated he was more worried about the actions of the Bush administration than about al Qaeda. On another occasion, retired four-star general Wesley Clark gave Michael Moore a platform to denounce the American commander in chief as a "deserter." And visitors to the national chairman of the Democratic Party had to step across a doormat depicting the American president surrounded by the words, "Give Bush the Boot."

Competition is indeed the engine that has driven the American dream forward, but unity in time of war has made America the leader of the world. During World War II, 405,399 Americans died to defeat Nazism, but their country of immigrants remained sturdily united. The U.S. held national elections during the war, but those running for office entertained no thought of damaging America's international prestige in their quest for personal victory. Republican challenger Thomas Dewey declined to criticize President Roosevelt's war policy. At the end of that war, a united America rebuilt its vanquished enemies. It took seven years to turn Nazi Germany and imperial Japan into democracies, but that effort generated an unprecedented technological explosion and 50 years of unmatched prosperity for us all.

Now we are again at war. It is not the president's war. It is America's war, authorized by 296 House members and 76 senators. I do not intend to join the armchair experts on the Iraq war. I do not know how we should handle this war, and they don't know either. But I do know that if America's political leaders, Democrat and Republican, join together as they did during World War II, America will win. Otherwise, terrorism will win. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi predicted just before being killed: "We fight today in Iraq, tomorrow in the land of the Holy Places, and after there in the West."

On July 28, I celebrated 29 years since President Carter signed off on my request for political asylum, and I am still tremendously proud that the leader of the Free World granted me my freedom. During these years I have lived here under five presidents--some better than others--but I have always felt that I was living in paradise. My American citizenship has given me a feeling of pride, hope and security that is surpassed only by the joy of simply being alive. There are millions of other immigrants who are equally proud that they restarted their lives from scratch in order to be in this magnanimous country. I appeal to them to help keep our beloved America united and honorable. We may not be able to change the habits of our current political representatives, but we may be able to introduce healthy new blood into the U.S. Congress.

For once, the communists got it right. It is America's leader that counts. Let's return to the traditions of presidents who accepted nothing short of unconditional surrender from our deadly enemies. Let's vote next year for people who believe in America's future, not for the ones who live in the Cold War past.

Lt. Gen. Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc. His new book, "Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination" (Ivan R. Dee) will be published in November.

Another Michael Ramirez toon picked from TownHall...

from the Santa Barbara Diarist
The Big White Lie
Andrew Klavan

The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that Islam means peace.

Of course, like everything, this candor has its price. A politics that depends on honesty will be, by nature, often impolite. Good manners and hypocrisy are intimately intertwined, and so conservatives, with their gimlet-eyed view of the world, are always susceptible to charges of incivility. It’s not really nice, you know, to describe things as they are.

This is leftism’s great strength: it’s all white lies. That’s its only advantage, as far as I can tell. None of its programs actually works, after all. From statism and income redistribution to liberalized criminal laws and multiculturalism, from its assault on religion to its redefinition of family, leftist policies have made the common life worse wherever they’re installed. But because it depends on—indeed is defined by—describing the human condition inaccurately, leftism is nothing if not polite. With its tortuous attempts to rename unpleasant facts out of existence—he’s not crippled, dear, he’s handicapped; it’s not a slum, it’s an inner city; it’s not surrender, it’s redeployment—leftism has outlived its own failure by hiding itself within the most labyrinthine construct of social delicacy since Victoria was queen.

This is no small thing. To rewrite the rules of courteous behavior is to wield enormous power. I see it in Southern California, in the bleeding heart of leftism, where I live. I’ve been banned from my monthly poker game, lost tennis partners, lost friends—not because I’m belligerent but because I’ve wondered aloud if the people shouldn’t be allowed to make their own abortion laws, say, or if the world might not be a better place without the UN.

It’s a rotten feeling. I sometimes think that I’d rather be deemed evil than a boor. Wickedness has some flair to it, even a whiff of radicalism. If you molest a child, there’s always a chance that you can get the ACLU to defend you as a cultural innovator. But if you make a remark at table about the destructive social effects of broken homes and then discover that your dinner partner is a divorcée—trust me, you feel like a real louse. It’s manners, not morals, that lay the borderlines of our behavior.

This, I believe, is the reason conservative politicians so often lose their nerve, why they back down in debate even when they’re clearly right. No one wants to be condemned as a brute—especially not conservatives, who still retain some vague memory of how worthy it is to be a lady or gentleman.

And because we’ve allowed leftists to define the language of political good manners—don’t say women are less scientific; don’t remark that black people bear the same responsibility for their actions as whites; don’t point out that the gunman was a Muslim, it’s not nice—the sort of person willing to speak the truth isn’t always the sort of person you want to be seen with. It sometimes takes, I mean, a Rush Limbaugh or a Sean Hannity to withstand the obloquy attached to stating the facts of the matter. If these people in their public personae seem harsh to more genteel conservatives, it may be because it requires that extra dollop of aggression to shatter the silence created by the Left’s increasingly elaborate sensitivities.

Still, mannerly as we would rather be, truth-telling continues to be both compelling and ultimately satisfying. There is, after all, something greater than courtesy. “Firmness in the right,” Lincoln called it, “as God gives us to see the right.” We find ourselves at a precarious moment in an endeavor of great importance: namely, the preservation of Western rationalism and liberty. It does mankind no good to allow so magnificent an enterprise to slip away merely for fear of saying the wrong thing.

Brilliant!
Victor Davis Hanson

The New York Times Surrenders

A monument to defeatism on the editorial page

12 July 2007

On July 8, the New York Times ran an historic editorial entitled “The Road Home,” demanding an immediate American withdrawal from Iraq. It is rare that an editorial gets almost everything wrong, but “The Road Home” pulls it off. Consider, point by point, its confused—and immoral—defeatism.

1. “It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”
Rarely in military history has an “orderly” withdrawal followed a theater-sized defeat and the flight of several divisions. Abruptly leaving Iraq would be a logistical and humanitarian catastrophe. And when scenes of carnage begin appearing on TV screens here about latte time, will the Times then call for “humanitarian” action?

2. “Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.”

We’ll get to the war’s “sufficient cause,” but first let’s address the other two charges that the Times levels here against President Bush. Both houses of Congress voted for 23 writs authorizing the war with Iraq—a post-9/11 confirmation of the official policy of regime change in Iraq that President Clinton originated. Supporters of the war included 70 percent of the American public in April 2003; the majority of NATO members; a coalition with more participants than the United Nations alliance had in the Korean War; and a host of politicians and pundits as diverse as Joe Biden, William F. Buckley, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Francis Fukuyama, Kenneth Pollack, Harry Reid, Andrew Sullivan, Thomas Friedman, and George Will.

And there was a Pentagon postwar plan to stabilize the country, but it assumed a decisive defeat and elimination of enemy forces, not a three-week war in which the majority of Baathists and their terrorist allies fled into the shadows to await a more opportune time to reemerge, under quite different rules of engagement.

3. “While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept promising breakthroughs—after elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost.”

Of course there were breakthroughs: most notably, millions of Iraqis’ risking their lives to vote. An elected government remains in power, under a constitution far more liberal than any other in the Arab Middle East. In the region at large, Libya, following the war, gave up its advanced arsenal of weapons of mass destruction; Syria fled Lebanon; A.Q. Khan’s nuclear ring was shut down. And despite the efforts of Iran, Syria, and Sunni extremists in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, a plurality of Iraqis still prefer the chaotic and dangerous present to the sure methodical slaughter of their recent Saddamite past.

The Times wonders what Bush’s cause was. Easy to explain, if not easy to achieve: to help foster a constitutional government in the place of a genocidal regime that had engaged in a de facto war with the United States since 1991, and harbored or subsidized terrorists like Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, at least one plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida affiliates in Kurdistan, and suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank. It was a bold attempt to break with the West’s previous practices, both liberal (appeasement of terrorists) and conservative (doing business with Saddam, selling arms to Iran, and overlooking the House of Saud’s funding of terrorists).

Is that cause in fact “lost”? The vast majority of 160,000 troops in harm’s way don’t think so—despite a home front where U.S. senators have publicly compared them with Nazis, Stalinists, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, and Saddam Hussein’s jailers, and where the media’s Iraqi narrative has focused obsessively on Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and serial leaks of classified information, with little interest in the horrific nature of the Islamists in Iraq or the courageous efforts of many Iraqis to stop them.

4. “Continuing to sacrifice the lives and limbs of American soldiers is wrong. The war is sapping the strength of the nation’s alliances and its military forces. It is a dangerous diversion from the life-and-death struggle against terrorists. It is an increasing burden on American taxpayers, and it is a betrayal of a world that needs the wise application of American power and principles.”

The military is stretched, but hardly broken, despite having tens of thousands of troops stationed in Japan, Korea, the Balkans, Germany, and Italy, years—and decades—after we removed dictatorships by force and began efforts to establish democracies in those once-frightening places. As for whether Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror: al-Qaida bigwig Ayman al-Zawahiri, like George W. Bush, has said that Iraq is the primary front in his efforts to attack the United States and its interests—and he often despairs about the progress of jihad there. Our enemies, like al-Qaida, Iran, and Syria, as well as opportunistic neutrals like China and Russia, are watching closely to see whether America will betray its principles in Iraq.

5. “Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs.”
The Times should abandon the subjunctive mood. The catastrophes that it matter-of-factly suggests have ample precedents in Vietnam. Apparently, we should abandon millions of Iraqis to the jihadists (whether Wahhabis or Khomeinites), expect mass murders in the wake of our flight—“even genocide”—and then chalk up the slaughter to Bush’s folly. And if that seems crazy, consider what follows, an Orwellian account of the mechanics of our flight:

6. “The main road south to Kuwait is notoriously vulnerable to roadside bomb attacks. Soldiers, weapons and vehicles will need to be deployed to secure bases while airlift and sealift operations are organized. Withdrawal routes will have to be guarded. The exit must be everything the invasion was not: based on reality and backed by adequate resources.

“The United States should explore using Kurdish territory in the north of Iraq as a secure staging area. Being able to use bases and ports in Turkey would also make withdrawal faster and safer. Turkey has been an inconsistent ally in this war, but like other nations, it should realize that shouldering part of the burden of the aftermath is in its own interest.”

This insistence on planned defeat, following incessant criticism of potential victory, is lunatic. The Times’s frustration with Turkey and other “inconsistent” allies won’t end with our withdrawal and defeat. Like everyone in the region, the Turks want to ally with winners and distance themselves from losers—and care little about sermons from the likes of the Times editors. The ideas about Kurdish territory and Turkey are simply cover for the likely consequences of defeat: once we are gone and a federated Iraq is finished, Kurdistan’s democratic success is fair game for Turkey, which—with the assent of opportunistic allies—will move to end it by crushing our Kurdish friends.

7. “Despite President Bush’s repeated claims, Al Qaeda had no significant foothold in Iraq before the invasion, which gave it new base camps, new recruits and new prestige.

“This war diverted Pentagon resources from Afghanistan, where the military had a real chance to hunt down Al Qaeda’s leaders. It alienated essential allies in the war against terrorism. It drained the strength and readiness of American troops.”
The Times raises the old charge that if we weren’t in Iraq, neither would be al-Qaida—more of whose members we have killed in Iraq than anywhere else. In 1944, Japan had relatively few soldiers in Okinawa; when the Japanese learned that we planned to invade in 1945, they increased their forces there. Did the subsequent carnage—four times the number of U.S. dead as in Iraq, by the way, in one-sixteenth the time—prove our actions ill considered? Likewise, no Soviets were in Eastern Europe until we moved to attack and destroy Hitler, who had kept communists out. Did the resulting Iron Curtain mean that it was a mistake to deter German aggression?

And if the Times sees the war in Afghanistan as so important, why didn’t it support an all-out war against the Taliban and al-Qaida, as it apparently does now, when we were solely in Afghanistan?

8. “Iraq may fragment into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics, and American troops are not going to stop that from happening. . . . To start, Washington must turn to the United Nations, which Mr. Bush spurned and ridiculed as a preface to war.”

But Bush did go to the United Nations, which, had it enforced its own resolutions, might have prevented the war. In fact, the Bush administration’s engagement with the UN contrasts sharply with President Clinton’s snub of that organization during the U.S.-led bombing of the Balkans—unleashed, unlike Iraq, without Congressional approval. The Times also neglects to mention that the UN was knee-deep in the mess of its cash cow Iraq, from its appeasement of the genocidal Hussein regime to its graft-ridden, $50 billion oil-for-food scandal, reaching the highest echelons of Kofi Annan’s UN administration.
9. “Washington also has to mend fences with allies. There are new governments in Britain, France and Germany that did not participate in the fight over starting this war and are eager to get beyond it. But that will still require a measure of humility and a commitment to multilateral action that this administration has never shown. And, however angry they were with President Bush for creating this mess, those nations should see that they cannot walk away from the consequences.”

New governments in France and Germany are more pro-American than those of the past that tried to thwart us in Iraq. The Times surely knows of the Chirac administration’s lucrative relationships with Saddam Hussein, and of the German contracts to supply sophisticated tools and expertise that enabled the Baathist nightmare. Tony Blair will enjoy a far more principled and reputable retirement than will Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder, who did their best to destroy the Atlantic Alliance for cheap partisan advantage at home and global benefit abroad.

Nations like France and Germany won’t “walk away” from Iraq, since they were never there in the first place. They never involve themselves in such dangerous situations—just look at the rules of engagement of French and German troops in Afghanistan. Their foreign policy centers instead on commerce, suitably dressed up with fashionable elite outrage against the United States.

10. “For this effort to have any remote chance, Mr. Bush must drop his resistance to talking with both Iran and Syria. Britain, France, Russia, China and other nations with influence have a responsibility to help. Civil war in Iraq is a threat to everyone, especially if it spills across Iraq’s borders.”

China and Russia, seeing only oil and petrodollars, will take no responsibility to help. Both will welcome a U.S. retreat. Yes, “civil war” will spill over the borders, but not until the U.S. precipitously withdraws. Iran and Syria—serial assassins of democrats from Lebanon to Iraq—are hoping for realization of the Times’s scenario, and would be willing to talk with us only to facilitate our flight, with the expectation that Iraq would become wide open for their ambitions. In their view, a U.S. that fails in Iraq surely cannot thwart an Iranian bomb, the Syrian reabsorption of Lebanese democracy, attacks on Israel, or increased funding and sanctuary for global terrorism.

11. “President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans’ demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened—the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.”
But as the Times itself acknowledges, what has happened in the past only previews what is in store if we precipitously withdraw. And this will prove the case not only in Iraq, but elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, Taiwan, and Korea. Once the U.S. demonstrates that it cannot honor its commitments, those dependent upon it must make the necessary adjustments. Ironically, while the Times urges acceptance of defeat, Sunni tribesmen at last are coming forward to fight terrorists, and regional neighbors are gradually accepting the truth that their opportunistic assistance to jihadists is only threatening their own regimes.

We promised General Petraeus a hearing in September; it would be the height of folly to preempt that agreement by giving in to our summer of panic and despair. Critics called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a change in command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops. But now that we have a new secretary, a new command in Iraq and at Centcom, new strategies, and more troops, suddenly we have a renewed demand for withdrawal before the agreed-upon September accounting—suggesting that the only constant in such harping was the assumption that Iraq was either hopeless or not worth the effort.

The truth is that Iraq has upped the ante in the war against terrorists. Our enemies’ worst nightmare is a constitutional government in the heart of the ancient caliphate, surrounded by consensual rule in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Turkey; ours is a new terror heaven, but with oil, a strategic location, and the zeal born of a humiliating defeat of the United States on a theater scale. The Islamists believe we can’t win; so does the New York Times. But it falls to the American people to decide the issue.

Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

This letter was written by Charles Grennel and his comrades, veterans of the Global War On Terror. Grennel is an Army Reservist who spent two years in Iraq and was a principal in putting together the first Iraq elections in January 2005.

They wrote it to Jill Edwards, student at the University of Washington, who did not want to honor Medal of Honor winner USMC Colonel Greg Boyington. Ms. Edwards, other students and faculty do not think those who serve in the U.S. armed services are good role model.

To: Jill Edwards, Student, University of Washington Subject: Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

Miss Edwards, I read of your student activity regarding the proposed memorial to Colonel Greg Boyington, USMC and a Medal of Honor winner. I suspect you will receive many angry emails from conservative people like me.

You may be too young to appreciate fully the sacrifices of generations of servicemen and servicewomen on whose shoulders you and your fellow students stand. I forgive you for the untutored ways of youth and your naiveté. It may be that you are simply a sheep. There's no dishonor in being a sheep, as long as you know and accept what you are.

William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997 said
"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident. We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people, not capable of hurting each other except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

Then there are the wolves who feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

Then there are sheepdogs and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the

wolf. If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the unchartered path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

We know that the sheep live in denial that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kid's schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard. So they choose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports, in camouflage fatigues, holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go Baa. Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them.

This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be.

Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter. He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed, right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." You want to be able to make a difference. There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that would destroy 98 percent of the population.

Research was conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said they specifically targeted victims by body language: Slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When they learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd and the other passengers confronted the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents - from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

Edmund Burke said "There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men." Here is the point I want to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They don't have a choice.

But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision. If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you.

If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

This business of being a sheep or a sheepdog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between.

Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously.

Its OK to be a sheep, but do not kick the sheepdog. Indeed, the sheepdog may just run a little harder, strive to protect a little better and be fully prepared to pay an ultimate price in battle and spirit with the sheep moving from "baa" to "thanks".

We do not call for gifts or freedoms beyond our lot. We just need a small pat on the head, a smile and a thank you to fill the emotional tank which is drained protecting the sheep. And, when our number is called by The Almighty, and day retreats into night, a small prayer before the heavens just may be in order to say thanks for letting you continue to be a sheep. And be grateful for the millions of American sheepdogs who permit you the freedom to express even bad ideas.

Michael Ramirez again hitting a tremendous shot over the center field pavilion roof.

This is what the immigration of a person to the US should be... proud to be here. Below is a letter sent by Cesar to those that subscribe to his newsletter... good man, calm and assertive.

Greetings,

The first time I really felt like I was a part of America was when I was watching fireworks and eating hot dogs and hamburgers on the Fourth of July. You can't get much more American than that! There are few places in the world where you can see a dog around the food. Here dogs are really family members. Whether taking a shower or cooking a meal, your dog can be right there with you – it's not a problem.

The sky is the limit in America. I truly believe that. It is the reason immigrants, such as myself, move here. In this country, you are free to be the person you choose to be spiritually, emotionally and intellectually. What can sometimes be missing is common sense. America is an intellectual country, an emotional country, a spiritual country – but not instinctual. Through my work with dogs and their families, I hope that I can bring a little of the instinctual aspect back to a country that has given me so much – a country that allowed me to be born again, to dream again, and to see my dreams become reality.

It’s a beautiful feeling to be acknowledged here for the work I have done with dogs and in the community. I really feel as though America has adopted me as one of its own because of what I have done for one of their own: the dog.

Stay calm and assertive!


Cesar Millan

Lest we forget what is important...from Move America Forward...

FORGET PARIS HILTON- HONOR OUR TROOPS
The past 24 hours have seen television, radio, print and online news organizations fixated with the subject of Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile, our nation has over 150,000 men and women of the United States military fighting a war against terrorism on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the next week, meteorologists predict temperatures in some parts of Iraq will range between 110 - 120 degrees. You can see the forecast for Basra, Iraq - HERE.

Our troops are once again facing the dual challenges of stifling heat, wearing 50-100 pounds of body armor, uniforms, equipment and supplies, and facing attack from Islamic militants determined to kill U.S. troops. On the homefront our troops hear reports of the Senate Majority Leader declaring, "this war is lost," and see efforts by Congress to cut off their funding.

Whenever our troops achieve success in their day-to-day operations it receives little or in many cases no media coverage. It seems like they can't win for losing.

We here at Move America Forward want the men and women serving in the United States Armed Forces to know that they ARE appreciated.

That's why we're asking you to join us in sponsoring a " Gatorade and Beef Jerky for Our Troops" or " Coffee and Cookies for Our Troops" care package.

Between now and the 4th of July we're going to step up our efforts to ship thousands upon thousands of these " Support Our Troops Care Packages."

Please help us make this effort a success by sponsoring a package - and please include a personal message of support with each package. You'll see a place on the order form where you can type in your message, which will be affixed to each item in the packages that are sent.

If Paris Hilton deserves saturation media coverage and attention from this nation for 2 days straight, don't you think our troops deserve recognition and attention from each of us as well?

Visit MAF's site at http://www.moveamericaforward.org for more info...OOPS, I'V CORRECTED THE ADDRESS ERROR...

Bear with me, I know this is off-topic.

A year ago I read a comedic article where some genius at UC Berkley was trying to get academic funding to study "conservatives" to see if there was a genetic source for their apparent lack of cognitive skills.

I started thinking about how much different the world is now as compared to twenty or thirty years ago. That abberations are the now the norm and are celebrated. Our strongest social interaction apparatus is now a fluid and undefinable media octopus. And like those that wouldn't dare tell the king that he didn't have any clothes on we just turn our face away from that which was deemed inappropriate milleniums ago by the forebearers of our overlapping cultures and in most of the present world is considered an offense. We are applauded by the left when we do look the other way, because we can "see" the value of being non-judgemental.

Scott Johnson writes in his "Powerline" Blog...
I think the June issue of the New Criterion represents the conclusion of the magazine's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration. If so, it ends on a high note with articles including Roger Kimball's "Why the art world is a disaster." Roger takes as one of the two epigraphs for his essay a sentence from Randall Jarrell's Pictures From an Institution:

"Some of what she said was technical, and you would have had to be a welder to appreciate it; the rest was aesthetic or generally philosophical, and to appreciate it you would have had to be an imbecile."

As the epigraph suggests, Roger's explanation of why the art world is a disaster -- particularly with respect to "the domestication of deviance" -- applies beyond the narrow world he discusses in the essay.

I understand the problem in the art scene... I am an "artist", both practicing and a fairly well known art teacher. One of my former students who attends Northern Arizona University came by last week (out for the summer) and was discussing the problem she has selling her work in Flagstaff. Students always need capitol and she said that she was willing to bend her "art" a little to sell but she realized that her work was just never going to be dark enough. Of course, her work is fantastic, perfect illustrative work suitable for publishing. Not dark enough. In order to "stand out" she would have to out do her competitors in some "shocking" way.

I think I'm on to something.

Whenever I'm talking to a friend who is a liberal or an outright communist. I catch myself cutting into their skulls and extracting various tissues, examining hollow areas, tapping on solidified constructions, and weighing possible reprogramming techniques. I am always astounded at the "moral" stance, even in the face of facts.

Just this morning I met a guy who I went to Palm Springs High School with about a million years ago. We were reminiscing about the "Easter Break Crusing" of our youth and some of the named groups who used to perform when he launched into a tirade about Sonny Bono. After running a string of well-rehearsed one-liner invectives about Sonny, he concluded first with, " Sonny personally killed Palm Springs Easter Break by outlawing thongs and then with how it was appropriate that Sonny was killed running into a tree."

Of course, there was that strange lag in the conversation when he must have noted by my tilted head and open mouth. Yes, there were thoughts going through my head. A couple of instant "very dark" invectives for my friend (unspoken) and the burning question, "Do you believe in the death penalty?" I know what his answer would be, "Of course not, how can someone willingly take someone else's life? Only a neo-con would consider it." So, follow along here.... I do have a point.

It is unthinkable to put to death a repeat offender who rapes and kills a ten year old girl but it is perfectly natural to celebrate the death of a "thong" disliking mayor and Republican.

The thought process is way out of line. My one time friend doesn't see it. In order to be noticed he has to take the road that sets him apart. In his pushing the envelope he by-passes a millenia of social mores concerned with social balance. Does he care? No, in the next statement he strides out into another even more repugnant exclamation on a completely different topic.

There is something wrong. It isn't that extreme liberals suffer genetic deformation it is that they are clinically anti-social. Yes, even the stoutest Trotskyite (murdered by agents of his best friend) socialist.