Source: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/03/20/happy_independence_day_iraq
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Demonstrators and the media have been reminding us of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This may the beginning of the fifth year of this war, but it is only one skirmish in a conflict with a lengthier past and a long future. Pundits, politicians and protestors who want to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world war, of which it is just one part, suffer from tunnel vision.
This larger war did not begin on March 20, 2003. The first shot may have been fired in 1968 when three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an El Al plane bound for Israel. Or, it might have begun in 1948 when Israel was officially reconstituted in its ancient homeland by the United Nations and recognized by the United States and other countries. The goal of Israel's neighbors is its elimination, a goal that has not changed despite promises, assurances, and several "peace" agreements signed in the diplomatic equivalent of disappearing ink. Maybe the war started when the American Marine barracks in Beirut were hit with a truck bomb in 1983, killing 241 U.S. servicemen.
This war will not end in the next year, in another four years, or perhaps in 100 years, in spite of the meaningless "Out of Iraq Now" signs carried in last Saturday's protest near the Pentagon. The sentiment is meaningless because war opponents never say, nor will they take responsibility for, what would come next, which most assuredly would be disaster and a greater threat to America.
This war is unlike any the world has ever seen. It is without borders, though our enemy operates within and across borders; it is without a state, though al-Qaida would like to make Iraq its headquarters; and it is without reason. No theocrat wishing to impose his or her narrow vision of God and government on everyone ever debates politics and theology with dissenters, they simply slaughter those who disagree, ending debate before it begins.
That the war could have been planned and executed better is without question. More than "mistakes were made." There were serious errors in judgment that have led to needless deaths and injuries. But that is for the historians to sort out. We must win this war, or Islamofascism will win it. There can be no turning back. The only thing the enemy understands is humiliation and defeat. They must be given a double dose of each so that they will abandon violence and oppression for generations to come.
Premature hope can be a dangerous thing, but hope can be like the first signs of spring: a foretaste of more pleasant things to come.
The British media, which have been more critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policy than the American media, are displaying some signs of optimism about the war. Sunday's Times reported the results of an Opinion Research Business Poll of more than 5,000 Iraqis. It said the majority is "optimistic," despite their suffering in sectarian violence. This despite the fact that 26 percent of Iraqis report a family member has been murdered. In Baghdad, 33 percent has had a relative kidnapped and 35 percent said members of their family had fled abroad. And yet, when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam Hussein or elected Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, 49 percent of those polled said they were better off today.
Despite the regular use of the term "civil war" in the media to describe the continuing, but apparently diminishing violence in and near Baghdad, only 27 percent of those polled described it as such; 61 percent did not.
There are other signs of budding optimism. In Karadeh, formerly an affluent shopping area of Baghdad, some shops have started to reopen and murderous sectarian checkpoints have begun to disappear, as Iraqi and American security forces dominate more of the capital.
If this surge continues to work and hopeful buds turn to blossoms of freedom for Iraqis, there will be many American politicians with more than egg on their faces. Congressional war opponents will deserve to lose the next election because of the worst possible display of bad judgment.
If stability is achieved and freedom preserved, March 20, 2003, will no longer be seen as the "beginning" of a war, but as Independence Day for a nation whose renaissance may just turn the tide of this world war in freedom's direction.
Cal Thomas is America's most widely syndicated op-ed columnist and co-author of Blinded by Might.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Happy Independence Day Iraq By Cal Thomas
Posted by Joyce Kavitsky at 5/24/2007 09:49:00 AM
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There are other signs of budding optimism. In Karadeh, formerly an affluent shopping area of Baghdad, some shops have started to reopen and murderous sectarian checkpoints have begun to disappear, as Iraqi and American security forces dominate more of the capital.
If this surge continues to work and hopeful buds turn to blossoms of freedom for Iraqis, there will be many American politicians with more than egg on their faces.
This reminds me of some of the reports from Time Magazine during the Vietnam War.
The May 17, 1963 edition:
How is the war actually going? Measured against the desperate situation that faced General Maxwell Taylor on a fact-finding mission for the President 19 months ago, there is room for qualified optimism. When Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara returned from a conference with service chiefs in Pearl Harbor last week, the Pentagon said "the corner has definitely been turned toward victory."
No one was setting any timetable, but U.S. military chiefs and South Viet Nam's President Ngo Dinh Diem say that the war should be won "within three years." There are many soldiers in South Viet Nam who consider this wildly optimistic; some believe that the war may never be won. But almost everyone agrees that things have improved.
March 31, 1967:
Nonetheless, a note of optimism permeated the conference. "There are many signs that we are at a favorable turning point," the President said at the outset. That theme was elaborated in detail as U.S. and South Vietnamese officials met on Nimitz Hill, the U.S. naval headquarters overlooking the Philippine Sea. . . .
The military situation in Viet Nam gave ample cause for confidence. South Viet Nam's Premier Nguyen Cao Ky said that the Communist forces in his country are "on the run" and pictured the supply system in the North as "in near paralysis."
Friday, March 28, 1969:
"Progress" in Viet Nam is a relative and fragile thing at best. But within limits, a prognosis of progress seems more valid than at any time since the U.S. arrived.
The history of the war is all too painfully graven in false optimism. Again and again, U.S. hopes have been raised by officials armed with gleaming statistics and pollyanna rhetoric. First the U.S. "turned the corner" in Viet Nam; then there was "light at the end of the tunnel," "the enemy was on the run," and the attrition rates, the kill ratios, and all the other jargon of victory rolled on and on.
Since they have been proved wrong so often in the past, U.S. experts are careful not to parade their latest positive assessments; indeed, they almost tend to conceal them. But those currently in charge of the war in the field are convinced that "the curve is up" at last.
From the New York Times:
Doubts Grow as G.I.’s in Iraq Find Allies in Enemy Ranks
By MICHAEL KAMBER
BAGHDAD — Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.
“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Sergeant Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”
His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.
A small minority of Delta Company soldiers — the younger, more recent enlistees in particular — seem to still wholeheartedly support the war. Others are ambivalent, torn between fear of losing more friends in battle, longing for their families and a desire to complete their mission.
With few reliable surveys of soldiers’ attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period with this 83-man unit, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.
They had seen shadowy militia commanders installed as Iraqi Army officers, they said, had come under increasing attack from roadside bombs — planted within sight of Iraqi Army checkpoints — and had fought against Iraqi soldiers whom they thought were their allies.
“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sgt. First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”
It is not a question of loyalty, the soldiers insist. Sergeant Safstrom, for example, comes from a thoroughly military family. His mother and father have served in the armed forces, as have his three sisters, one brother and several uncles. One week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he walked into a recruiter’s office and joined the Army.
“You guys want to start a fight in my backyard, I got something for you,” he recalls thinking at the time.
But in Sergeant Safstrom’s view, the American presence is futile. “If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy,” he said. “It would go straight into a civil war. That’s how it feels, like we’re putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here.”
Their many deployments have added to the strain. After spending six months in Iraq, the soldiers of Delta Company had been home for only 24 hours last December when the news came. “Change your plans,” they recall being told. “We’re going back to Iraq.”
Nineteen days later, just after Christmas, Capt. Douglas Rogers and the men of Delta Company were on their way to Kadhimiya, a Shiite enclave of about 300,000. As part of the so-called surge of American troops, their primary mission was to maintain stability in the area and prepare the Iraqi Army and police to take control of the neighborhood.
“I thought it would not be long before we could just stay on our base and act as a quick-reaction force,” said the barrel-chested Captain Rogers of San Antonio. “The Iraqi security forces would step up.”
It has not worked out that way. Still, Captain Rogers says their mission in Kadhimiya has been “an amazing success.”
“We’ve captured 4 of the top 10 most-wanted guys in this area,” he said. And the streets of Kadhimiya are filled with shoppers and the stores are open, he said, a rarity in Baghdad due partly to Delta Company’s patrols.
Captain Rogers acknowledges the skepticism of many of his soldiers. “Our unit has already sent two soldiers home in a box,” he said. “My soldiers don’t see the same level of commitment from the Iraqi Army units they’re partnered with.”
Yet there is, he insists, no crisis of morale: “My guys are all professionals. I tell them to do something, they do it.” His dictum is proved on patrol, where his soldiers walk the streets for hours in the stifling heat, providing cover for one another with crisp efficiency.
On April 29, a Delta Company patrol was responding to a tip at Al Sadr mosque, a short distance from its base. The soldiers saw men in the distance erecting burning barricades, and the streets emptied out quickly. Then a militia, believed to be the Mahdi Army, which is affiliated with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, began firing at them from rooftops and windows.
Sgt. Kevin O’Flarity, a squad leader, jumped into his Humvee to join his fellow soldiers, racing through abandoned Iraqi Army and police checkpoints to the battle site.
He and his squad maneuvered their Humvees through alleyways and side streets, firing back at an estimated 60 insurgents during a gun battle that raged for two and a half hours. A rocket-propelled grenade glanced off Sergeant O’Flarity’s Humvee, failing to penetrate.
When the battle was over, Delta Company learned that among the enemy dead were at least two Iraqi Army soldiers that American forces had helped train and arm.
“The 29th was a watershed moment in a negative sense, because the Iraqi Army would not fight with us,” Captain Rogers said, adding, “Some actually picked up weapons and fought against us.”
The battle changed the attitude among his soldiers toward the war, he said.
“Before that fight, there were a few true believers.” Captain Rogers said. “After the 29th, I don’t think you’ll find a true believer in this unit. They’re paratroopers. There’s no question they’ll fulfill their mission. But they’re fighting now for pride in their unit, professionalism, loyalty to their fellow soldier and chain of command.”
To Sergeant O’Flarity, the Iraqi security forces are militias beholden to local leaders, not the Iraqi government. “Half of the Iraqi security forces are insurgents,” he said.
As for his views on the war, Sergeant O’Flarity said, “I don’t believe we should be here in the middle of a civil war.”
“We’ve all lost friends over here,” he said. “Most of us don’t know what we’re fighting for anymore. We’re serving our country and friends, but the only reason we go out every day is for each other.”
“I don’t want any more of my guys to get hurt or die. If it was something I felt righteous about, maybe. But for this country and this conflict, no, it’s not worth it.”
Staff Sgt. James Griffin grew up in Troy, N.C., near the Special Operations base at Fort Bragg. His dream was to be a soldier, and growing up he would skip school and volunteer to play the role of the enemy during Special Operations training exercises. When he was 17, he joined the Army.
Now 22, Sergeant Griffin is a Delta Company section leader. On the night of May 5, as he neared an Iraqi police checkpoint with a convoy of Humvees, Sergeant Griffin spotted what looked like a camouflaged cinderblock and immediately halted the convoy. His vigilance may have saved the lives of several soldiers. Under the camouflage was a huge, six-array, explosively formed penetrator — a deadly roadside bomb that cuts through the Humvees’ armor with ease.
The insurgents quickly set off the device, but the Americans were at a safe distance. An explosive ordnance disposal team arrived to check the area. As the ordnance team rolled back to base, they were attacked with a second roadside bomb near another Iraqi checkpoint. One soldier was killed and two were wounded.
No one has been able to explain why two bombs were found near Iraqi checkpoints, bombs that Iraqi soldiers and the police had either failed to notice or helped to plant.
Sergeant Griffin understands the criticism of the Iraqi forces, but he believes they, and the war effort, must be given more time.
“If we throw this problem to the side, it’s not going to fix itself,” he said. “We’ve created the Iraqi forces. We gave them Humvees and equipment. For however long they say they need us here, maybe we need to stay.”
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