Man, Michael Ramirez should get a Pulitzer for his work, oh yeah, he has!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Michael Ramirez
A Gaffe, an Absurdity, and a Policy
By Charles Krauthammer
Townhall.com
WASHINGTON -- When the House of Representatives takes up arms against $4 gas by voting 324-84 to sue OPEC, you know that election-year discourse has gone surreal. Another unmistakable sign is when a presidential candidate makes a gaffe, then, realizing it is too egregious to take back without suffering humiliation, decides to make it a centerpiece of his foreign policy.
Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace."
After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.
Should the president ever meet with enemies? Sometimes, but only after minimal American objectives -- i.e. preconditions -- have been met. The Shanghai communique was largely written long before Richard Nixon ever touched down in China. Yet Obama thinks Nixon to China confirms the wisdom of his willingness to undertake a worldwide freshman-year tyrants tour.
Most of the time you don't negotiate with enemy leaders because there is nothing to negotiate. Does Obama imagine that North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela are insufficiently informed about American requirements for improved relations?
There are always contacts through back channels or intermediaries. Iran, for example, has engaged in five years of talks with our closest European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency, to say nothing of the hundreds of official U.S. statements outlining exactly what we would give them in return for suspending uranium enrichment.
Obama pretends that while he is for such "engagement," the cowboy Republicans oppose it. Another absurdity. No one is debating the need for contacts. The debate is over the stupidity of elevating rogue states and their tyrants, easing their isolation and increasing their leverage by granting them unconditional meetings with the president of the world's superpower.
Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as presidents who met with enemies. Does he know no history? Neither Roosevelt nor Truman ever met with any of the leaders of the Axis powers. Obama must be referring to the pictures he's seen of Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and Truman and Stalin at Potsdam. Does he not know that at that time Stalin was a wartime ally?
During the subsequent Cold War, Truman never met with Stalin. Nor Mao. Nor Kim Il Sung. Truman was no fool.
Obama cites John Kennedy meeting Nikita Khrushchev as another example of what he wants to emulate. Really? That Vienna summit of a young, inexperienced, untested American president was disastrous, emboldening Khrushchev to push Kennedy on Berlin -- and then near fatally in Cuba, leading almost directly to the Cuban missile crisis. Is that the precedent Obama aspires to follow?
A meeting with Ahmadinejad would not just strengthen and vindicate him at home, it would instantly and powerfully ease the mullahs' isolation, inviting other world leaders to follow. And with that would come a flood of commercial contracts, oil deals, diplomatic agreements -- undermining precisely the very sanctions and isolation that Obama says he would employ against Iran.
As every seasoned diplomat knows, the danger of a summit is that it creates enormous pressure for results. And results require mutual concessions. That is why conditions and concessions are worked out in advance, not on the scene.
What concessions does Obama imagine Ahmadinejad will make to him on Iran's nuclear program? And what new concessions will Obama offer? To abandon Lebanon? To recognize Hamas? Or perhaps to squeeze Israel?
Having lashed himself to the ridiculous, unprecedented promise of unconditional presidential negotiations -- and then having compounded the problem by elevating it to a principle -- Obama keeps trying to explain. On Sunday, he declared in Pendleton, Ore., that by Soviet standards Iran and others "don't pose a serious threat to us." (On the contrary. Islamic Iran is dangerously apocalyptic. Soviet Russia was not.) The next day in Billings, Mont.: "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."
That's the very next day, mind you. Such rhetorical flailing has done more than create an intellectual mess. It has given rise to a new political phenomenon: the metastatic gaffe. The one begets another, begets another, begets ...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
May 20, 2008
Appeasement and Its Discontents
Obama & Dubya.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
So spoke President’s Bush to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Jewish state last week. Ostensibly the president’s historical references made perfect sense for a variety of reasons. First, the state of Israel is inextricably a result of the Holocaust — a genocide that was in itself the logical consequence of an ascendant Nazi state, whose industry of death might could been circumvented by concerted action earlier in the late 1930s by the then stronger liberal democracies.
Bush was assuring the Israelis that the United States would not, in contrast to liberal democracies of the past, appease states and organizations intent on killing Jews by the millions.
Second, Bush’s warning came in a climate of fear and weariness in the West, in which calls to meet without preconditions with both Iran and Hamas — the former state whose president has forecast the impending destruction of Israel, the latter terrorist organization whose charter hinges on the end of the Jewish state — have been voiced by several public figures, most prominently in recent days by former President Carter.
Third, the warning about appeasement comes not just after, and in implied defense of, military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the case of the United States, also after the September 11 catastrophe, which itself followed a decade of bipartisan inability to confront and respond to a number of al Qaeda serial provocations.
The speech caused outrage among Democrats who insisted that it was “appalling” and a “smear” on Barack Obama, who has advocated talks, without preconditions, with Iran, and who had been informally endorsed by a Hamas official, and who had recently fired a Middle Eastern adviser, Robert Malley, for meeting with Hamas leaders. Obama fired off the following reply:
It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack...It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel…George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.
Three questions are raised by this controversy. First: What constitutes appeasement in the 21st-century age of globalization? Second: If President Bush had wished to imply a connection with the unnamed Barack Obama, how fair would such a charge have been? Third: Has President Bush himself followed his own advice and shunned the appeasement of “with terrorists and radicals”?
Most define appeasement not by the mere willingness on occasion to negotiate with enemies (i.e., the heads of nation states rather than criminal terrorist cliques). Rather, appeasement is an overriding desire to avoid war or confrontation to such a degree so as to engage in a serial pattern of behavior that results in an accommodation of an enemy’s demands — and ultimately the inadvertent enhancement of its agendas. Key here is the caveat that there must muscular alternatives to appeasement, as was true with a rather weak 1936 Nazi Germany or a non-nuclear theocratic Iran.
Talking with an Iranian theocrat like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad per se might not necessarily constitute appeasement. But continuing such talks without preconditions that made no progress in curbing Iranian nuclear agendas, or support for Hezbollah terrorists and Shiite militias in Iraq would not only be futile, but encourage further Iranian adventurism — by the assurance that negotiations were infinite and there would be few lines in the sand and little chance of military opposition to follow. In our era, the locus classicus of appeasement is the near decade of negotiations, empty threats, and drawnout diplomacy with Slobodan Milosevic, in which with virtual impunity he butchered thousands of Croats, Kosovars, and Bosnians — until a belated bombing war forced him to capitulate.
Bush in his Knesset address may have acknowledged that expansive notion of appeasement when he elaborated on his “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” line, with the proviso of futility — namely that such talking assumed an “ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” In addition, Bush’s example — that when “Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided” — suggests that his reference to appeasement meant not just one-time talking, but delusional and persistent engagement that is oblivious to facts on the ground.
If the president also meant to include Obama among those who would engage in such appeasement, would there be any evidence for such a view? Obama himself has never been in a position of exercising executive judgments, so we have only his campaign statements from which to surmise. In this regard, we certainly know that Obama is willing to meet any and all our enemies without preconditions. During a televised debate he was asked directly whether he would agree “to meet separately, without precondition . . . with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea,” Obama replied: “I would.”
His website amplifies that answer with the boast that “Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.” The problem here would not be in theory talking with an Iran or Syria — Sec. of Defense Gates on numerous occasions has advocated negotiations with Teheran — but in a priori signaling to tyrants such an eagerness to elevate their grievances to head-of-state diplomacy. Under what conditions, how long, and to what degree Obama would be willing to exercise non-diplomatic options when talks proved futile would adjudicate whether his preference for unconditional talks devolved from diplomacy to appeasement.
If a President Obama were to enter into multiple negotiations with Iran, and if Iran were to continue to subvert the Lebanese government and threaten Israel through its surrogate Hezbollah, and continue to develop a nuclear arsenal while promising the destruction of Israel, at what point would he be willing not merely to cease talking, but to accept that his negotiations had done more harm than good and thus required a radical change of course — and would it be in time?
Given President Bush’s admonitions about appeasement, does the president practice what he preaches?
That depends on a variety of factors such as whether enemies are nuclear or not, whom exactly we define as adversaries — Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Sudan, Libya? — and to what degree our existing negotiations are proving not only futile, but emboldening our enemies by the assurance that we will neither cease diplomacy nor threaten the use of force.
Both the president and Obama, in arguing abstractly over appeasement, do not factor in such realist concerns of leverage that govern decisions to negotiate, such as exporting ten million barrels a day of scarce oil (Saudi Arabia), the possession of nuclear weapons in the hands of an unstable government (Pakistan and North Korea), or the unwillingness of American public opinion to support an armed intervention (Darfur).
In that regard, Barack Obama shows his own inexperience when he evokes past summits that a John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan conducted with the nuclear Soviets — contemporary rivalries in which escalation to nuclear annihilation was a real worry, and at the time Soviet combatants (as is true in Iraq) were not killing our own soldiers.
In short, nothing in the president’s speech was inaccurate, inflammatory, or hypocritical. Whether Barack Obama believes he was a target of the president’s rhetoric, or whether he would engage in appeasement, hinges on whether his overeagerness to talk without preconditions to the world’s thugs and rogues would persist in the face of unpleasant facts — and so make the likelihood of eventual military action more, rather than less, likely.
©2008 Victor Davis Hanson
Appeasement and Its Discontents
Obama & Dubya.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
So spoke President’s Bush to the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Jewish state last week. Ostensibly the president’s historical references made perfect sense for a variety of reasons. First, the state of Israel is inextricably a result of the Holocaust — a genocide that was in itself the logical consequence of an ascendant Nazi state, whose industry of death might could been circumvented by concerted action earlier in the late 1930s by the then stronger liberal democracies.
Bush was assuring the Israelis that the United States would not, in contrast to liberal democracies of the past, appease states and organizations intent on killing Jews by the millions.
Second, Bush’s warning came in a climate of fear and weariness in the West, in which calls to meet without preconditions with both Iran and Hamas — the former state whose president has forecast the impending destruction of Israel, the latter terrorist organization whose charter hinges on the end of the Jewish state — have been voiced by several public figures, most prominently in recent days by former President Carter.
Third, the warning about appeasement comes not just after, and in implied defense of, military action in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the case of the United States, also after the September 11 catastrophe, which itself followed a decade of bipartisan inability to confront and respond to a number of al Qaeda serial provocations.
The speech caused outrage among Democrats who insisted that it was “appalling” and a “smear” on Barack Obama, who has advocated talks, without preconditions, with Iran, and who had been informally endorsed by a Hamas official, and who had recently fired a Middle Eastern adviser, Robert Malley, for meeting with Hamas leaders. Obama fired off the following reply:
It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack...It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel…George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.
Three questions are raised by this controversy. First: What constitutes appeasement in the 21st-century age of globalization? Second: If President Bush had wished to imply a connection with the unnamed Barack Obama, how fair would such a charge have been? Third: Has President Bush himself followed his own advice and shunned the appeasement of “with terrorists and radicals”?
Most define appeasement not by the mere willingness on occasion to negotiate with enemies (i.e., the heads of nation states rather than criminal terrorist cliques). Rather, appeasement is an overriding desire to avoid war or confrontation to such a degree so as to engage in a serial pattern of behavior that results in an accommodation of an enemy’s demands — and ultimately the inadvertent enhancement of its agendas. Key here is the caveat that there must muscular alternatives to appeasement, as was true with a rather weak 1936 Nazi Germany or a non-nuclear theocratic Iran.
Talking with an Iranian theocrat like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad per se might not necessarily constitute appeasement. But continuing such talks without preconditions that made no progress in curbing Iranian nuclear agendas, or support for Hezbollah terrorists and Shiite militias in Iraq would not only be futile, but encourage further Iranian adventurism — by the assurance that negotiations were infinite and there would be few lines in the sand and little chance of military opposition to follow. In our era, the locus classicus of appeasement is the near decade of negotiations, empty threats, and drawnout diplomacy with Slobodan Milosevic, in which with virtual impunity he butchered thousands of Croats, Kosovars, and Bosnians — until a belated bombing war forced him to capitulate.
Bush in his Knesset address may have acknowledged that expansive notion of appeasement when he elaborated on his “negotiate with terrorists and radicals” line, with the proviso of futility — namely that such talking assumed an “ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.” In addition, Bush’s example — that when “Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided” — suggests that his reference to appeasement meant not just one-time talking, but delusional and persistent engagement that is oblivious to facts on the ground.
If the president also meant to include Obama among those who would engage in such appeasement, would there be any evidence for such a view? Obama himself has never been in a position of exercising executive judgments, so we have only his campaign statements from which to surmise. In this regard, we certainly know that Obama is willing to meet any and all our enemies without preconditions. During a televised debate he was asked directly whether he would agree “to meet separately, without precondition . . . with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea,” Obama replied: “I would.”
His website amplifies that answer with the boast that “Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.” The problem here would not be in theory talking with an Iran or Syria — Sec. of Defense Gates on numerous occasions has advocated negotiations with Teheran — but in a priori signaling to tyrants such an eagerness to elevate their grievances to head-of-state diplomacy. Under what conditions, how long, and to what degree Obama would be willing to exercise non-diplomatic options when talks proved futile would adjudicate whether his preference for unconditional talks devolved from diplomacy to appeasement.
If a President Obama were to enter into multiple negotiations with Iran, and if Iran were to continue to subvert the Lebanese government and threaten Israel through its surrogate Hezbollah, and continue to develop a nuclear arsenal while promising the destruction of Israel, at what point would he be willing not merely to cease talking, but to accept that his negotiations had done more harm than good and thus required a radical change of course — and would it be in time?
Given President Bush’s admonitions about appeasement, does the president practice what he preaches?
That depends on a variety of factors such as whether enemies are nuclear or not, whom exactly we define as adversaries — Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Sudan, Libya? — and to what degree our existing negotiations are proving not only futile, but emboldening our enemies by the assurance that we will neither cease diplomacy nor threaten the use of force.
Both the president and Obama, in arguing abstractly over appeasement, do not factor in such realist concerns of leverage that govern decisions to negotiate, such as exporting ten million barrels a day of scarce oil (Saudi Arabia), the possession of nuclear weapons in the hands of an unstable government (Pakistan and North Korea), or the unwillingness of American public opinion to support an armed intervention (Darfur).
In that regard, Barack Obama shows his own inexperience when he evokes past summits that a John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan conducted with the nuclear Soviets — contemporary rivalries in which escalation to nuclear annihilation was a real worry, and at the time Soviet combatants (as is true in Iraq) were not killing our own soldiers.
In short, nothing in the president’s speech was inaccurate, inflammatory, or hypocritical. Whether Barack Obama believes he was a target of the president’s rhetoric, or whether he would engage in appeasement, hinges on whether his overeagerness to talk without preconditions to the world’s thugs and rogues would persist in the face of unpleasant facts — and so make the likelihood of eventual military action more, rather than less, likely.
©2008 Victor Davis Hanson
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Terror Terminology
by Oliver north
Townhall.com
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The term "politically correct" is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary thus: "Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation." Add to that litany of "historical injustices" the title of my New York Times best-seller: "American Heroes in the Fight Against Radical Islam."
In recent weeks, the vocabulary police opened a new front in the war on terror by issuing a list of do's and don'ts for terrorism terminology. In an effort to fight a kinder, gentler war on Islamic radicals, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, in consultation with unnamed Islamic interest groups, has issued a paper titled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations From American Muslims."
This policy document warns U.S. government officials against "using theological terms, particularly those in Arabic, even if such usage is benign or overtly positive. Islamic law and terms come with a particular context, which may not always be apparent." The paper goes on to counsel: "It is one thing for a Muslim leader to use a particular term; an American official may simply not have the religious authority to be taken seriously, even when using terms appropriately." In other words, we infidels have no street cred in the Islamic world.
We are told that we should no longer use words and phrases such as "jihadist," "Islamic terrorist" or "Islamist." Using the word "Islamic," the experts have advised us, may "concede the terrorists' claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam."
At best, this advice is seriously flawed. At worst, it is an ominous recipe that invites defeat, for it begs us to ignore the identity of those who have declared war against the West in general -- and the U.S. in particular. The authors urge us to disregard the first axiom of war: If you don't know your enemy, you will lose.
In an interview for Fox News' "War Stories," Bernard Lewis (the dean of Mideast scholars) contrasted the way we fought fascism during World War II with the current conflict: "Then we knew who the enemy was. We knew who we were. Nowadays we have great difficulty in defining the enemy. We have to be careful not to offend anybody. We don't even seem to be able to define our own cause, let alone the enemy's. This kind of uncertainty makes it very difficult to carry on any sort of struggle."
Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security policy paper -- drafted with the help of anonymous "influential Muslim Americans" -- not only makes the current struggle more difficult but also is riddled with outright falsehoods. The document states, "The civilized world is facing a 'global' challenge, which transcends geography, culture, and religion." That statement defies reality. We didn't label al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jemaah Islamiyah and Mahdi Army murderers (to name just a few of the groups I have seen in action) Muslim holy warriors; they did. We didn't call their savage suicidal bombing campaign an Islamic jihad; they did.
The Department of Homeland Security document insists that "Islam and secular democracy are fully compatible -- in fact, they can make each other stronger. Senior officials should emphasize this positive fact." That "positive fact" simply isn't. Save for Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have become the protectors of Muslim women and nascent representative political institutions, there is no Islamic majority country where "secular democracy" flourishes. We didn't create these realities; Muslim leaders did.
Reality has little to do with this new wave of political correctness, and it goes well beyond this new DHS policy document. Muneer Fareed of the Islamic Society of North America told The Washington Times that he has contacted Sen. John McCain's office to urge him to "rethink word usage that is more acceptable to the Muslim community." Fareed is upset that McCain consistently refers to "radical Islamic extremism."
In London, the British government's Home Office has advised government officials that they should use words such as "violent extremism" instead of "terrorism." When fanatics carry out horrific attacks on innocent civilians in the name of Islam, the perpetrators should be referred to as "criminals" instead of "terrorists."
Not to be outdone in the political correctness department, the European Union has come up with guidelines on how to talk about terrorists who literally are dying to kill us. It warns, "Unintended stigmatization resulting from an ill-considered choice of words may have serious negative psychological effects and thus contribute to the process of radicalization." In other words, it's all our fault.
If we succumb to this kind of mindless mumbo jumbo and doublespeak to describe the Islamic radicals who are trying to kill us, we're courting uncertainty and defeat. Or as one very politically incorrect soldier put it plainly during a book signing this afternoon, we're screwed.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Investor's Business Daily political cartoonist and Senior Editor Michael Ramirez was yesterday awarded a Pulitzer Prize, his second and the newspaper's first. In awarding Ramirez, the Pulitzer panel lauded his "provocative cartoons that rely on originality, humor and detailed artistry." Michael Ramirez was a 2004 Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute.
An example.....worth a thousand words?
Lincoln Fellow Michael Ramirez Wins Second Pulitzer
An example.....worth a thousand words?
Lincoln Fellow Michael Ramirez Wins Second Pulitzer
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Interesting opening shots...Go John!
Senators Obama and Clinton have very different ideas from my own. They are both lawyers themselves, and don't seem to mind at all when fundamental questions of social policy are preemptively decided by judges instead of by the people and their elected representatives. Nor have they raised objections to the unfair treatment of judicial nominees. For both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, it turned out that not even John Roberts was quite good enough for them. Senator Obama in particular likes to talk up his background as a lecturer on law, and also as someone who can work across the aisle to get things done. But when Judge Roberts was nominated, it seemed to bring out more the lecturer in Senator Obama than it did the guy who can get things done. He went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee. And just where did John Roberts fall short, by the Senator's measure? Well, a justice of the court, as Senator Obama explained it -- and I quote -- should share "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy."
These vague words attempt to justify judicial activism -- come to think of it, they sound like an activist judge wrote them. And whatever they mean exactly, somehow Senator Obama's standards proved too lofty a standard for a nominee who was brilliant, fair-minded, and learned in the law, a nominee of clear rectitude who had proved more than the equal of any lawyer on the Judiciary Committee, and who today is respected by all as the Chief Justice of the United States. Somehow, by Senator Obama's standard, even Judge Roberts didn't measure up. And neither did Justice Samuel Alito. Apparently, nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers, and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it -- and they see it only in each other.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Letter written by Col. Mike Walker, USMC (retired)
Generals Odom and Petraeus
Let me preface with the remark that I am both
disappointed and, in no small part, ashamed of the
personal partisan attacks on our military
professionals, past and present. Now it is General
Odom turn to be in this dishonorable line of fire and
next it will be General Petraeus.
There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with what
someone has said or written. It is wrong to attack
their character and integrity because you cannot take
having your edicts challenged. General Odom is a
great American. General Petraeus is a great American.
To pose otherwise is moral wrong.
The party zealots just do not get it. Let me see if I
can help to clearly define this issue. About a
century and half ago, during the bloodiest and most
divisive war in our history, General Winfield Scott
Hancock wrote:
“We are serving no one man; we are serving our
country.”
Too many politicians, living in the safe comfort
dearly bought by our citizens in uniform, seem unable
to accept this reality. Worse yet, some unabashedly
pat themselves on the back for the too frequent
disservice of putting partisan political gain ahead of
service to the nation. We, who are serving or have
served in uniform as Hancock did all those many years
ago, do not and will not. It is worth repeating:
“We are serving no one man; we are serving our
country.”
Now, on to my inadequate opining on General Odom’s
comments of 2 April 2008.
My major difficulty with the General’s comments is the
simplification of the people who live in Iraq into
single-word groupings such as the Sunni, the Shi’a,
the Kurds, etc. This strips away the essential
texture and complexity of the situation in Iraq and
the region making meaningful analysis too difficult.
It is reminiscent of the Cold War excesses about the
communist monolith or indivisible solidarity of the
USSR. Unqualified use of similar overreaching terms
hinders rather than help in our understanding of the
ground truth in Iraq.
The Sunni Arabs are not a single bloc. They share a
common religious and ethnic heritage but are more
diverse than is commonly understood. Part of this is
tribal; part is regional; part is political. Whether
they were raised in an urban or rural setting plays a
role. Their relative position within the Ba’athists
party and the defunct Saddam regime plays a part as
does the role of religion in their life. This is as
true for the insurgents who fought against us as for
those who fought with us. Similar arguments can be
made in regards to the Shi’a and Kurds.
Similarly, the actions that led to reaching the
“tipping point” in our favor al Anbar cannot be
described in terms of “the Sunnis did this” or “the
Sunnis did that.” The General is right when he states
that al Qaeda in Iraq, our most ruthless opponent,
only became a real threat when it became part of the
Saddamist’s plan to defeat the Coalition. That
decision turned into a strategic miscalculation on
their part.
We were only able to exploit that mistake because the
Coalition worked tirelessly to present a superior
alternative, a vision of a better Iraq, a brighter
future. He is also correct to point out that turning
point when the Saddamist’s broke with al Qaeda and
allied themselves with the Marines was a result of
actions that began years before the surge. The
process followed in al Anbar offers a way forward in
winning the fight in Iraq. The keys are the
development of Iraqi security services, outreach to
all Iraqis (friend and foe alike), strengthening the
government through elections, and economic
empowerment.
A purely tribal engagement model is problematic as the
General states. There are indeed cases of tribal
groups simply being temporarily bought off with no
long-term solution in the offing. But those cases are
exception, not the rule in al Anbar. The complexity
stems from the difficulty many Americans had with the
ease in which Iraqi leaders transitioned between roles
of tribal sheiks and western-style secular businessmen
and professionals. I recall hearing fellow Marines
refer to so-and-so as a Sheik to accentuate the tribal
influence on events. I also recall these same Iraqis
as referring to themselves as Engineer so-and-so,
Doctor So-and-so, etc. There were some who did
primarily use the title of sheik but there were more
cases of Americans misapplying or misunderstanding the
term in their dealings with Iraqi leaders in al Anbar.
The critical point in regards to al Anbar is not that
we risk losing the progress made there by continuing
to buy off local sheiks, however fleeting the gains
from that policy are. What is important is the
scheduling of local elections this October will go a
long way in healing the political divide with the
government in Baghdad.
Where we really risk losing our gains in al Anbar is
in the failure to ignite the private sector economy.
Without economic freedom there can never political
freedom. Without economic security, there can never
be military security in al Anbar. Where are the
returning detainees to go if there is no hope of a job
that provides a chance to build a career or support a
family?
Perhaps most unsettling is General Odem’s view on the
actions taken a few days ago by the Iraqi security
forces to rein in Sadr’s army. He characterized them
as disturbing. In this, I believe he is just plain
wrong. They were essential. Muqtada Sadr is Iran’s
last best hope for establishing suzerainty over Iraq.
The model is a variation of Iran’s efforts in Lebanon.
Sadr’s recent actions during the fighting Basrah are
an attempt at a replay of his past confrontations with
Coalition and Iraqi security forces. He gets a bloody
nose militarily but comes out stronger politically.
His forces are always outmatched but not a complete
rollover for his opponents. When the situation on the
battlefield inevitably turns against him, he calls for
ceasefire to escape an untenable military position in
order to rebuild his militia, the Madhi army.
What is different now is that Sadr’s political
position, rather than being strengthened, as in the
past, is now more perilous after the recent military
setback. This time, as the AP reported, “the major
political parties have closed ranks” against Sadr.
The LA Times quoted a Maliki supporter in Parliament,
Sami Askari as saying that although the action
directed that all parties disarm their militias,
“everyone understands this means mainly the Mahdi
Army.” One of Sadr’s legislators, al Rubaie was
quoted by the AP as saying that “Even the blocs that
in the past had supported us are now against us and we
cannot stop them from taking action in parliament.”
The major difficulty for Muqtada Sadr is that he is
not recognized as leading Shi’a cleric. He is a
strongman. He does have a following. But he is seen
as an illegitimate religious leader by the majority of
the Shi’a in Iraq and this is a fatal shortcoming for
anyone hoping to become their leader. That he has
sought refuge in Iran for the last year makes the
claim that he is a stooge of extremist Iranian mullahs
all the more damaging to his hopes of gaining support
amongst the Iraqi people.
In the past, the Shi’a political parties backed Sadr
because they saw his militia as a counterweight to al
Qaeda and its radical Sunni supporters. Now with al
Qaeda power ebbing, they no longer see the Madhi army
as such a good thing. Sadr has been forced to offer
up the disbandment of his militia.
General Odom points out that the most significant
obstacle to the plans of Muqtada and the Iranians is
the decision of Iraq’s Shi’a to look to their own
clerics rather than Persian surrogates. When the
deep distrust of Iran by many of Sunni is added to the
equation, the possibility of defeating Sadr’s army
becomes a realizable goal.
As Askari added in the LA Times article: “You can’t
put one foot in the political process and with the
other act in an army against the national government.
No one can accept this.” This is a clear declaration
that the “Hezballah/Hamas” model that follows Iran’s
game plan, is not only unacceptable to the Sunni
minority but the Shi’a majority as well.
This also brings into play the role of the Kurds. The
Kurds are the best practitioners of real politik in
Iraq. I sat in on several meetings with some of the
leading Kurdish politicians in Irbil during my first
tour in Iraq and they were the most united (by Iraqi
standards), sensible and calculating of the major
ethnic groups in Iraq. They will protect what is in
their best interests and are more willing than any
other political block in Iraq to compromise to attain
them.
They effectively contained then deescalated the 2008
Turkish-KKP military clashes in northern Iraq by
working within the Iraqi political system. Further,
they are supportive of the role the United States has
played in Iraq but are also willing to work
independently to further their goals to include
working with the Iranians.
This raises General Odom’s point regarding engaging
Iran. If any group could serve the role as an honest
broker between the United States and the Iranians, it
may well be the Iraqi Kurdish leadership.
Nonetheless, I harbor no illusions about the violent
revolutionary role Iran is playing within the region
and the Muslim world in general and cognizant of the
failures of past administrations to find any manner of
viable modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic.
Iranian actions beginning in 1979 and continuing on
through today have been the single greatest cause for
violence and instability in the region.
There is nothing in General Odom’s arguments to lead
me to believe otherwise. For those reason, I am very
pessimistic that anything, other than grief, will come
from any outreach to Iran for the foreseeable future.
The war in Iraq is the Coalition’s to win or lose. We
control our destiny there. It will be a long war as I
have been arguing for a number of years now but long
does not equate with defeat. And quickness, to
include any proposal for rapid withdrawal, does not
equate with victory.
Semper Fi,
Mike
Generals Odom and Petraeus
Let me preface with the remark that I am both
disappointed and, in no small part, ashamed of the
personal partisan attacks on our military
professionals, past and present. Now it is General
Odom turn to be in this dishonorable line of fire and
next it will be General Petraeus.
There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with what
someone has said or written. It is wrong to attack
their character and integrity because you cannot take
having your edicts challenged. General Odom is a
great American. General Petraeus is a great American.
To pose otherwise is moral wrong.
The party zealots just do not get it. Let me see if I
can help to clearly define this issue. About a
century and half ago, during the bloodiest and most
divisive war in our history, General Winfield Scott
Hancock wrote:
“We are serving no one man; we are serving our
country.”
Too many politicians, living in the safe comfort
dearly bought by our citizens in uniform, seem unable
to accept this reality. Worse yet, some unabashedly
pat themselves on the back for the too frequent
disservice of putting partisan political gain ahead of
service to the nation. We, who are serving or have
served in uniform as Hancock did all those many years
ago, do not and will not. It is worth repeating:
“We are serving no one man; we are serving our
country.”
Now, on to my inadequate opining on General Odom’s
comments of 2 April 2008.
My major difficulty with the General’s comments is the
simplification of the people who live in Iraq into
single-word groupings such as the Sunni, the Shi’a,
the Kurds, etc. This strips away the essential
texture and complexity of the situation in Iraq and
the region making meaningful analysis too difficult.
It is reminiscent of the Cold War excesses about the
communist monolith or indivisible solidarity of the
USSR. Unqualified use of similar overreaching terms
hinders rather than help in our understanding of the
ground truth in Iraq.
The Sunni Arabs are not a single bloc. They share a
common religious and ethnic heritage but are more
diverse than is commonly understood. Part of this is
tribal; part is regional; part is political. Whether
they were raised in an urban or rural setting plays a
role. Their relative position within the Ba’athists
party and the defunct Saddam regime plays a part as
does the role of religion in their life. This is as
true for the insurgents who fought against us as for
those who fought with us. Similar arguments can be
made in regards to the Shi’a and Kurds.
Similarly, the actions that led to reaching the
“tipping point” in our favor al Anbar cannot be
described in terms of “the Sunnis did this” or “the
Sunnis did that.” The General is right when he states
that al Qaeda in Iraq, our most ruthless opponent,
only became a real threat when it became part of the
Saddamist’s plan to defeat the Coalition. That
decision turned into a strategic miscalculation on
their part.
We were only able to exploit that mistake because the
Coalition worked tirelessly to present a superior
alternative, a vision of a better Iraq, a brighter
future. He is also correct to point out that turning
point when the Saddamist’s broke with al Qaeda and
allied themselves with the Marines was a result of
actions that began years before the surge. The
process followed in al Anbar offers a way forward in
winning the fight in Iraq. The keys are the
development of Iraqi security services, outreach to
all Iraqis (friend and foe alike), strengthening the
government through elections, and economic
empowerment.
A purely tribal engagement model is problematic as the
General states. There are indeed cases of tribal
groups simply being temporarily bought off with no
long-term solution in the offing. But those cases are
exception, not the rule in al Anbar. The complexity
stems from the difficulty many Americans had with the
ease in which Iraqi leaders transitioned between roles
of tribal sheiks and western-style secular businessmen
and professionals. I recall hearing fellow Marines
refer to so-and-so as a Sheik to accentuate the tribal
influence on events. I also recall these same Iraqis
as referring to themselves as Engineer so-and-so,
Doctor So-and-so, etc. There were some who did
primarily use the title of sheik but there were more
cases of Americans misapplying or misunderstanding the
term in their dealings with Iraqi leaders in al Anbar.
The critical point in regards to al Anbar is not that
we risk losing the progress made there by continuing
to buy off local sheiks, however fleeting the gains
from that policy are. What is important is the
scheduling of local elections this October will go a
long way in healing the political divide with the
government in Baghdad.
Where we really risk losing our gains in al Anbar is
in the failure to ignite the private sector economy.
Without economic freedom there can never political
freedom. Without economic security, there can never
be military security in al Anbar. Where are the
returning detainees to go if there is no hope of a job
that provides a chance to build a career or support a
family?
Perhaps most unsettling is General Odem’s view on the
actions taken a few days ago by the Iraqi security
forces to rein in Sadr’s army. He characterized them
as disturbing. In this, I believe he is just plain
wrong. They were essential. Muqtada Sadr is Iran’s
last best hope for establishing suzerainty over Iraq.
The model is a variation of Iran’s efforts in Lebanon.
Sadr’s recent actions during the fighting Basrah are
an attempt at a replay of his past confrontations with
Coalition and Iraqi security forces. He gets a bloody
nose militarily but comes out stronger politically.
His forces are always outmatched but not a complete
rollover for his opponents. When the situation on the
battlefield inevitably turns against him, he calls for
ceasefire to escape an untenable military position in
order to rebuild his militia, the Madhi army.
What is different now is that Sadr’s political
position, rather than being strengthened, as in the
past, is now more perilous after the recent military
setback. This time, as the AP reported, “the major
political parties have closed ranks” against Sadr.
The LA Times quoted a Maliki supporter in Parliament,
Sami Askari as saying that although the action
directed that all parties disarm their militias,
“everyone understands this means mainly the Mahdi
Army.” One of Sadr’s legislators, al Rubaie was
quoted by the AP as saying that “Even the blocs that
in the past had supported us are now against us and we
cannot stop them from taking action in parliament.”
The major difficulty for Muqtada Sadr is that he is
not recognized as leading Shi’a cleric. He is a
strongman. He does have a following. But he is seen
as an illegitimate religious leader by the majority of
the Shi’a in Iraq and this is a fatal shortcoming for
anyone hoping to become their leader. That he has
sought refuge in Iran for the last year makes the
claim that he is a stooge of extremist Iranian mullahs
all the more damaging to his hopes of gaining support
amongst the Iraqi people.
In the past, the Shi’a political parties backed Sadr
because they saw his militia as a counterweight to al
Qaeda and its radical Sunni supporters. Now with al
Qaeda power ebbing, they no longer see the Madhi army
as such a good thing. Sadr has been forced to offer
up the disbandment of his militia.
General Odom points out that the most significant
obstacle to the plans of Muqtada and the Iranians is
the decision of Iraq’s Shi’a to look to their own
clerics rather than Persian surrogates. When the
deep distrust of Iran by many of Sunni is added to the
equation, the possibility of defeating Sadr’s army
becomes a realizable goal.
As Askari added in the LA Times article: “You can’t
put one foot in the political process and with the
other act in an army against the national government.
No one can accept this.” This is a clear declaration
that the “Hezballah/Hamas” model that follows Iran’s
game plan, is not only unacceptable to the Sunni
minority but the Shi’a majority as well.
This also brings into play the role of the Kurds. The
Kurds are the best practitioners of real politik in
Iraq. I sat in on several meetings with some of the
leading Kurdish politicians in Irbil during my first
tour in Iraq and they were the most united (by Iraqi
standards), sensible and calculating of the major
ethnic groups in Iraq. They will protect what is in
their best interests and are more willing than any
other political block in Iraq to compromise to attain
them.
They effectively contained then deescalated the 2008
Turkish-KKP military clashes in northern Iraq by
working within the Iraqi political system. Further,
they are supportive of the role the United States has
played in Iraq but are also willing to work
independently to further their goals to include
working with the Iranians.
This raises General Odom’s point regarding engaging
Iran. If any group could serve the role as an honest
broker between the United States and the Iranians, it
may well be the Iraqi Kurdish leadership.
Nonetheless, I harbor no illusions about the violent
revolutionary role Iran is playing within the region
and the Muslim world in general and cognizant of the
failures of past administrations to find any manner of
viable modus vivendi with the Islamic Republic.
Iranian actions beginning in 1979 and continuing on
through today have been the single greatest cause for
violence and instability in the region.
There is nothing in General Odom’s arguments to lead
me to believe otherwise. For those reason, I am very
pessimistic that anything, other than grief, will come
from any outreach to Iran for the foreseeable future.
The war in Iraq is the Coalition’s to win or lose. We
control our destiny there. It will be a long war as I
have been arguing for a number of years now but long
does not equate with defeat. And quickness, to
include any proposal for rapid withdrawal, does not
equate with victory.
Semper Fi,
Mike
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A note from Col Mike Walker, USMC (retired)
Marines,
Here is the concluding piece of a three part series of articles published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
This is interesting look into how the war is protrayed in the midwest.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=729166
Semper Fi,
Mike
Enmity has evaporated
Marines return to calm in Iraq's Sunni Triangle
By MEG JONES mjones@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 17, 2008
Third of three parts
Hamimiyah, Iraq - It's midday as the Marines of Fox Company move out on a foot patrol under a sun obscured by swirling dust.
Clad in body armor and carrying M-16 rifles, they fan out to look for bombs and other weapons that insurgents may have buried in the countryside skirting the Euphrates River, which breathes life into the neighboring farm fields and olive groves.
Cpl. Jose Gonzalez, a 24-year-old carpenter from Kenosha, motions for his men to spread out and wait. On this day and this deployment, they're following a contingent of Iraqi police officers. One day very soon, the Americans hope, these men with their blue uniforms and AK-47s will take over security of their war-torn nation.
For the Marines of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, the Iraq of their first deployment four years ago is not the Iraq they know today.
Here in the Sunni Triangle, Fox Company was attacked several times a day pretty much every day of its first deployment - by mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, small-weapons fire and random potshots.
Four civilian American contractors were pulled from their vehicle not far from here and beaten to death by a mob, their burned corpses hung from a bridge. Not far from here, Fox Company lost five of its own to bombs and firefights.
Today the men of the Milwaukee-based Marine Reserve unit are surprised by the relative peace. They haven't been mortared. They haven't been shot at. Except to sight in on a firing range, they haven't fired their rifles. They've been hit by a few improvised explosive devices, but no one has been injured.
They're surprised by an Iraqi security force - one they knew in 2004 as mostly ineffective, lazy, clueless and corrupt - that appears to have its act together. Instead of leading the fight, the Marines are following and mentoring the Iraqis.
About one-third of the couple hundred Marines in Fox Company served a seven-month deployment in 2004-'05. Gonzalez was one of them.
"It's uplifting that our work is showing. Violence is down and the IPs (Iraqi police) are doing what they're supposed to be doing," said Gonzalez, who has been in the Marine Reserve five years and has two sons, 4 months and 2 1/2 years old, back home with his fiancée, Janette.
As Gonzalez keeps an eye on his Marines, the Iraqi police officers walk ahead of the Americans through farm fields and along the tops of irrigation ditches. They dig their toes into freshly turned dirt as they walk through the blackened remains of weeds and bulrushes burned by farmers. They check buildings and slowly pass metal detectors over the soil.
Every few minutes the metal detectors ring like circa mid-'90s cell phones, and the Iraqi officers use sharp knives to dig into the earth. The rusted, bent hulk of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is found on a slope leading down to the Euphrates.
A Texas National Guard soldier points out to Gonzalez a house where three weapons caches have been found recently. Among the discoveries: grenades, rockets, 155mm mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and large, lethal Molotov cocktails made from 5-gallon fuel cans primed with blasting caps.
Relatively few bombs are exploding and hurting people in Anbar Province, where violence has dropped significantly in the last year. Though suicide bombers and the deaths of innocents such as those in Karbala last month continue to make news, overall Iraq is a safer place, a fact borne out by the monthly drop in the number of terrorist attacks.
U.S. commanders say the surge of American troops and efforts to persuade former insurgents to fight with and not against coalition forces are working, and that years of training Iraqi police and soldiers are paying off.
Weary of terrorism
Most importantly, they say, the Iraqi people appear to have had enough of terrorism. Insurgents are losing the anonymity and safe havens they need to carry out attacks and build car bombs because residents, for the most part, no longer worry about men in black masks showing up at their homes at night and aren't afraid to report terrorist activity, said Lt. Col. Frank Charlonis, commander of 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines.
"I think al-Qaida overplayed its hand," Charlonis said. "There were a lot of nationalists and patriots who didn't want an occupying army, but al-Qaida hurt the people it was seeking for support. I think that's when many realized al-Qaida was a much worse option than us."
An Iraqi police supervisor identified only as Capt. Jamal, speaking through an interpreter at a police station in the Jazeera region, said that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein but that many Iraqis don't trust the government.
"The United States is helping us," he said of the training effort. "Without the U.S. Army, we would have nothing here."
Though the Fox Company Marines realize a quiet Anbar Province is good for Iraq, it has been a bit of a letdown since they arrived in late January, particularly for the guys on their first deployment who heard the war stories of the veterans and were expecting the worst.
"I was ready for it to be what it was like four years ago. Last time, we didn't have time to think, we just did," said Lance Cpl. Alan Breger, 22, a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh business student. "In five weeks I've seen less than I saw in two days the last time."
Breger knew two of the Fox Company Marines who were killed in the first deployment, and a third was from his hometown of Oshkosh. He knows their killers were never caught.
"I try not to think of them while out here, because it just pisses me off," Breger said.
He wears a dark green braided bracelet in honor of the five fallen Fox Marines and has a tattoo on his leg of the rifle and helmet that's common at military funerals.
"It's a different ball game than it was the last time," Breger said. "We haven't done much of what people think Marines do out here - the hard-charging thing. We've almost become beat cops."
Added Cpl. Ryan Lackey, 22, of Milwaukee: "We got them all pumped up by our stories, and now it's slow."
Hot showers, better armor
Living conditions have improved. The Marines have hot showers, good chow, regular mail delivery, Internet access. Last time they ate prepackaged MREs and drank warm bottled water, and the wait for a shower could be 50 days or more.
Some of their gear has improved as well. Fox Company platoons roll out in the new MRAP armored vehicles, which are designed to better withstand bomb blasts. They wear flame-retardant jumpsuits and shirts. Their new body armor is more cumbersome but includes side plates to prevent shrapnel from piercing rib cages.
Memories of the five Fox Company Marines killed on the last deployment haven't faded. The Marines know that some of the former insurgents they're now working with could be responsible for their buddies' deaths.
"That's where professionalism has to come in. It's something that burns our asses. But there's nothing you can do," said Lackey, a UW-Milwaukee student.
Back on the weapons sweep patrol, Gonzalez stops and tells Lance Cpl. Terry Medema, 24, of Waupun to radio in a position report to other Fox Company members back at an Iraqi police station. As Gonzalez waits, he hears a cow mooing.
"Kind of makes me think of home," Gonzalez says.
Soon the patrol comes upon a two-room mud brick building that had once been a terrorist stronghold. On the filthy floor lie glass shards, crushed soda bottles and other debris. Sunlight shines through holes in the thatched roof. On one wall, about head-high, dangle knotted ropes.
Gonzalez is told the rope was used to tie the hands of hostages as they were tortured. Spray-painted in black on an outside wall is the name in Arabic of a well-known terrorist who formerly used this area, an interpreter says. A building nearby has a ceiling fan spattered with blood from hostages who were tied to it.
Gonzalez silently looks at the frayed ropes for a few moments, shakes his head.
"Crazy," he says quietly as he walks out.
Lance Cpl. Matthew Rittner, 25, a Milwaukee police officer, kneels in the dust close by, cradling his M-16 and scanning the countryside. The last time he was in Iraq, Rittner was in vehicles hit by improvised explosive devices three times. He also was involved in the 4 1/2 -hour firefight on Nov. 12, 2004, that killed Brian Prening, 24, a Plymouth High School graduate who had been in Iraq for two months.
'Everyone was against us'
"Last time it was more like we were fighting the enemy. It felt like everyone was against us," says Rittner, a 2001 Greenfield High School graduate.
On this deployment "I expected there to be more to do, more enemies. I don't want to say we're not doing anything, but sometimes it feels we aren't at war anymore," Rittner said.
An Iraqi police officer shouts, and Gonzalez and a few others slide down an embankment into mud and high weeds next to the river. The Iraqis dig up two 67mm rockets and carry them to a car. An Iraqi demolition team will dispose of them later.
"Something like that would probably be used for an IED," Gonzalez says.
The group starts walking again through the fields, passing sheep, chickens and cows, on the three-hour patrol. Families with small children smile and wave to the Iraqi police officers in front and the Marines bringing up the rear.
Marines,
Here is the concluding piece of a three part series of articles published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
This is interesting look into how the war is protrayed in the midwest.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=729166
Semper Fi,
Mike
Enmity has evaporated
Marines return to calm in Iraq's Sunni Triangle
By MEG JONES mjones@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 17, 2008
Third of three parts
Hamimiyah, Iraq - It's midday as the Marines of Fox Company move out on a foot patrol under a sun obscured by swirling dust.
Clad in body armor and carrying M-16 rifles, they fan out to look for bombs and other weapons that insurgents may have buried in the countryside skirting the Euphrates River, which breathes life into the neighboring farm fields and olive groves.
Cpl. Jose Gonzalez, a 24-year-old carpenter from Kenosha, motions for his men to spread out and wait. On this day and this deployment, they're following a contingent of Iraqi police officers. One day very soon, the Americans hope, these men with their blue uniforms and AK-47s will take over security of their war-torn nation.
For the Marines of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, the Iraq of their first deployment four years ago is not the Iraq they know today.
Here in the Sunni Triangle, Fox Company was attacked several times a day pretty much every day of its first deployment - by mortars, rockets, improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, car bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, small-weapons fire and random potshots.
Four civilian American contractors were pulled from their vehicle not far from here and beaten to death by a mob, their burned corpses hung from a bridge. Not far from here, Fox Company lost five of its own to bombs and firefights.
Today the men of the Milwaukee-based Marine Reserve unit are surprised by the relative peace. They haven't been mortared. They haven't been shot at. Except to sight in on a firing range, they haven't fired their rifles. They've been hit by a few improvised explosive devices, but no one has been injured.
They're surprised by an Iraqi security force - one they knew in 2004 as mostly ineffective, lazy, clueless and corrupt - that appears to have its act together. Instead of leading the fight, the Marines are following and mentoring the Iraqis.
About one-third of the couple hundred Marines in Fox Company served a seven-month deployment in 2004-'05. Gonzalez was one of them.
"It's uplifting that our work is showing. Violence is down and the IPs (Iraqi police) are doing what they're supposed to be doing," said Gonzalez, who has been in the Marine Reserve five years and has two sons, 4 months and 2 1/2 years old, back home with his fiancée, Janette.
As Gonzalez keeps an eye on his Marines, the Iraqi police officers walk ahead of the Americans through farm fields and along the tops of irrigation ditches. They dig their toes into freshly turned dirt as they walk through the blackened remains of weeds and bulrushes burned by farmers. They check buildings and slowly pass metal detectors over the soil.
Every few minutes the metal detectors ring like circa mid-'90s cell phones, and the Iraqi officers use sharp knives to dig into the earth. The rusted, bent hulk of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is found on a slope leading down to the Euphrates.
A Texas National Guard soldier points out to Gonzalez a house where three weapons caches have been found recently. Among the discoveries: grenades, rockets, 155mm mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and large, lethal Molotov cocktails made from 5-gallon fuel cans primed with blasting caps.
Relatively few bombs are exploding and hurting people in Anbar Province, where violence has dropped significantly in the last year. Though suicide bombers and the deaths of innocents such as those in Karbala last month continue to make news, overall Iraq is a safer place, a fact borne out by the monthly drop in the number of terrorist attacks.
U.S. commanders say the surge of American troops and efforts to persuade former insurgents to fight with and not against coalition forces are working, and that years of training Iraqi police and soldiers are paying off.
Weary of terrorism
Most importantly, they say, the Iraqi people appear to have had enough of terrorism. Insurgents are losing the anonymity and safe havens they need to carry out attacks and build car bombs because residents, for the most part, no longer worry about men in black masks showing up at their homes at night and aren't afraid to report terrorist activity, said Lt. Col. Frank Charlonis, commander of 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines.
"I think al-Qaida overplayed its hand," Charlonis said. "There were a lot of nationalists and patriots who didn't want an occupying army, but al-Qaida hurt the people it was seeking for support. I think that's when many realized al-Qaida was a much worse option than us."
An Iraqi police supervisor identified only as Capt. Jamal, speaking through an interpreter at a police station in the Jazeera region, said that Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein but that many Iraqis don't trust the government.
"The United States is helping us," he said of the training effort. "Without the U.S. Army, we would have nothing here."
Though the Fox Company Marines realize a quiet Anbar Province is good for Iraq, it has been a bit of a letdown since they arrived in late January, particularly for the guys on their first deployment who heard the war stories of the veterans and were expecting the worst.
"I was ready for it to be what it was like four years ago. Last time, we didn't have time to think, we just did," said Lance Cpl. Alan Breger, 22, a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh business student. "In five weeks I've seen less than I saw in two days the last time."
Breger knew two of the Fox Company Marines who were killed in the first deployment, and a third was from his hometown of Oshkosh. He knows their killers were never caught.
"I try not to think of them while out here, because it just pisses me off," Breger said.
He wears a dark green braided bracelet in honor of the five fallen Fox Marines and has a tattoo on his leg of the rifle and helmet that's common at military funerals.
"It's a different ball game than it was the last time," Breger said. "We haven't done much of what people think Marines do out here - the hard-charging thing. We've almost become beat cops."
Added Cpl. Ryan Lackey, 22, of Milwaukee: "We got them all pumped up by our stories, and now it's slow."
Hot showers, better armor
Living conditions have improved. The Marines have hot showers, good chow, regular mail delivery, Internet access. Last time they ate prepackaged MREs and drank warm bottled water, and the wait for a shower could be 50 days or more.
Some of their gear has improved as well. Fox Company platoons roll out in the new MRAP armored vehicles, which are designed to better withstand bomb blasts. They wear flame-retardant jumpsuits and shirts. Their new body armor is more cumbersome but includes side plates to prevent shrapnel from piercing rib cages.
Memories of the five Fox Company Marines killed on the last deployment haven't faded. The Marines know that some of the former insurgents they're now working with could be responsible for their buddies' deaths.
"That's where professionalism has to come in. It's something that burns our asses. But there's nothing you can do," said Lackey, a UW-Milwaukee student.
Back on the weapons sweep patrol, Gonzalez stops and tells Lance Cpl. Terry Medema, 24, of Waupun to radio in a position report to other Fox Company members back at an Iraqi police station. As Gonzalez waits, he hears a cow mooing.
"Kind of makes me think of home," Gonzalez says.
Soon the patrol comes upon a two-room mud brick building that had once been a terrorist stronghold. On the filthy floor lie glass shards, crushed soda bottles and other debris. Sunlight shines through holes in the thatched roof. On one wall, about head-high, dangle knotted ropes.
Gonzalez is told the rope was used to tie the hands of hostages as they were tortured. Spray-painted in black on an outside wall is the name in Arabic of a well-known terrorist who formerly used this area, an interpreter says. A building nearby has a ceiling fan spattered with blood from hostages who were tied to it.
Gonzalez silently looks at the frayed ropes for a few moments, shakes his head.
"Crazy," he says quietly as he walks out.
Lance Cpl. Matthew Rittner, 25, a Milwaukee police officer, kneels in the dust close by, cradling his M-16 and scanning the countryside. The last time he was in Iraq, Rittner was in vehicles hit by improvised explosive devices three times. He also was involved in the 4 1/2 -hour firefight on Nov. 12, 2004, that killed Brian Prening, 24, a Plymouth High School graduate who had been in Iraq for two months.
'Everyone was against us'
"Last time it was more like we were fighting the enemy. It felt like everyone was against us," says Rittner, a 2001 Greenfield High School graduate.
On this deployment "I expected there to be more to do, more enemies. I don't want to say we're not doing anything, but sometimes it feels we aren't at war anymore," Rittner said.
An Iraqi police officer shouts, and Gonzalez and a few others slide down an embankment into mud and high weeds next to the river. The Iraqis dig up two 67mm rockets and carry them to a car. An Iraqi demolition team will dispose of them later.
"Something like that would probably be used for an IED," Gonzalez says.
The group starts walking again through the fields, passing sheep, chickens and cows, on the three-hour patrol. Families with small children smile and wave to the Iraqi police officers in front and the Marines bringing up the rear.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
( From Mike Walker, Col. USMC, retired)
All,
From what I know, Senator Obama is a likeable and honorable man. He is intelligent, eloquent, and has the gift of a real leader in his ability to connect personally with his followers. But for all these strengths, I cannot support his candidacy for I am Marine veteran of the Iraq war and that makes all the difference.
My experience in the war in Iraq has left bad memories, tragic memories, and even horrific memories. This is to be expected as war is always a terrible thing. But they are neither the only memories nor the most important.
I will never forget arriving at the outskirts of Irbil in August 2003 after leaving Baghdad earlier in the day. It was just as the sun was setting and we pulled off onto an open field to finalize the link-up with our unit there.
Suddenly the children who had been playing soccer began to come our way. Soon we were mobbed by these Iraqi children. They were shouting and laughing and running about yelling “Americans, Americans!” We needed the parents to make a way for us through the waving crowd so we could get back on the road. It was a moving experience and one of those moments that changes your life forever.
I also vividly remember meeting with a large group of Iraqis who were trying to partner with a number of NGO’s in the late spring of 2004 to take the first steps towards building the new Iraq. They had come from all over the nation. They were Sunni and Shi’a, Arab and Kurd. The term they universally used to describe the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was “The Liberation.”
And I remember dining with a senior government official from al Anbar province in July 2004. He was a former Ba’athist and Sunni Arab. He described how he had been arrested by Saddam’s security forces and then savagely beaten and forced to live for six months in a bare concrete cell, in total darkness, that was so designed as to ensure that one could never stand up completely or stretch out when lying down to an uneasy rest.
But he did not dwell on the past. That night, his eyes were aglow with energy and vitality as he spoke to us with real passion of about the future of al Anbar. We had given back to him, and to hundreds of thousands like him, something that Saddam had taken away. We had given him back an indispensable and priceless commodity. We had given him back hope.
If you ask the Senator and his code-pink adherents whether or not they expect to erase my personal history of the war in Iraq, my memories of the smiling children, of liberation and of hope for Iraq, by supplanting them with a message of failure and despair, of cutting and running, their answer is a resounding chorus of:
YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE CAN!
Well Senator, for this Marine, the answer is and will always be:
NO, YOU CAN’T.
Semper Fi,
Mike
All,
From what I know, Senator Obama is a likeable and honorable man. He is intelligent, eloquent, and has the gift of a real leader in his ability to connect personally with his followers. But for all these strengths, I cannot support his candidacy for I am Marine veteran of the Iraq war and that makes all the difference.
My experience in the war in Iraq has left bad memories, tragic memories, and even horrific memories. This is to be expected as war is always a terrible thing. But they are neither the only memories nor the most important.
I will never forget arriving at the outskirts of Irbil in August 2003 after leaving Baghdad earlier in the day. It was just as the sun was setting and we pulled off onto an open field to finalize the link-up with our unit there.
Suddenly the children who had been playing soccer began to come our way. Soon we were mobbed by these Iraqi children. They were shouting and laughing and running about yelling “Americans, Americans!” We needed the parents to make a way for us through the waving crowd so we could get back on the road. It was a moving experience and one of those moments that changes your life forever.
I also vividly remember meeting with a large group of Iraqis who were trying to partner with a number of NGO’s in the late spring of 2004 to take the first steps towards building the new Iraq. They had come from all over the nation. They were Sunni and Shi’a, Arab and Kurd. The term they universally used to describe the March 2003 invasion of Iraq was “The Liberation.”
And I remember dining with a senior government official from al Anbar province in July 2004. He was a former Ba’athist and Sunni Arab. He described how he had been arrested by Saddam’s security forces and then savagely beaten and forced to live for six months in a bare concrete cell, in total darkness, that was so designed as to ensure that one could never stand up completely or stretch out when lying down to an uneasy rest.
But he did not dwell on the past. That night, his eyes were aglow with energy and vitality as he spoke to us with real passion of about the future of al Anbar. We had given back to him, and to hundreds of thousands like him, something that Saddam had taken away. We had given him back an indispensable and priceless commodity. We had given him back hope.
If you ask the Senator and his code-pink adherents whether or not they expect to erase my personal history of the war in Iraq, my memories of the smiling children, of liberation and of hope for Iraq, by supplanting them with a message of failure and despair, of cutting and running, their answer is a resounding chorus of:
YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE CAN!
Well Senator, for this Marine, the answer is and will always be:
NO, YOU CAN’T.
Semper Fi,
Mike
Friday, February 15, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
"If a tree fell in Manhattan and no one was there to hear it did it's fall make a sound?"
It's been a year since the President announced the troop surge. Where is the "real" media coverage? It isn't with the MSM, they are only interested in sound bytes from cranky Dems and their general condemnation of the efforts. The real stuff is flowing from the "new media". Patraeus's plan is unfolding and Iraq is stabilising. There is a wealth of material that a "blind-folded" MSM passes daily in favor of reporting whatever it takes for a designated party to win an election. Shame on them, can a boycott be organized against the MSM for a day/week/month.... a protest to demand that their reporting align itself with the realities of our nation?
Friday, December 28, 2007
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
Sunday, December 09, 2007
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
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