Moment of Truth in Iraq
May 19th, 2008 at 12:17am Mark Noonan
A review of Michael Yon’s new book by Michael Totten:
Iraq is where ideologies go to die. Arab nationalism, Baathism, anti-Americanism, al-Qaidism, Donald Rumsfeldism, and Moqtada al-Sadrism have either died there or are dying. Conventional liberal opinion, more or less correct about the foundering American war effort from 2004 to 2006, has been severely bloodied—along with Iraq’s worst insurgent groups and militias—by General David Petraeus’s leadership of the American troop surge. Even post-9/11 fear of Islam has proven unsustainable for those who regularly interact with ordinary Iraqis. Independent journalist Michael Yon, who has spent more time embedded with combat soldiers in Iraq than any other reporter, is a refreshingly unideological analyst of the war. His self-published dispatches have earned him a loyal following around the world, and he has set out to reach even more people with the publication of a terrific new book, Moment of Truth in Iraq…
…Yon’s book isn’t just about explosions and carnage. It’s also about the new counterinsurgency strategy and, more important, the Americans and Iraqis who risk their lives to make it work. When Iraq was degenerating into its worst levels of violence, American soldiers spent too much time behind their bases’ walls, hoping to keep casualties to a minimum and to avoid being seen as occupiers by the Iraqis. Today, they live and work inside Iraq’s cities and neighborhoods, where they tend to be welcomed, if not as liberators then as protectors. Counterinsurgency is as much about nation building and community policing as it is about war making.
“The American soldier is the most dangerous man in the world,” Yon writes, “and the Iraqis had to learn that before they would trust or respect us. But it was when they understood that these great-hearted warriors, who so enjoyed killing the enemy, are even happier helping to build a school or to make a neighborhood safe that we really got their attention.” Images of the despicable abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib have become iconic for many around the world. But anyone who has spent significant time with American troops in Iraq, as I have, will recognize the truth in Yon’s descriptions of U.S. soldiers as usually decent and caring. “There are lots of kitchen accidents in Iraq,” he points out. “Kids get burned. American soldiers can’t take it when they see a kid get burned. If they are in the neighborhood on a mission and they see a burned kid, they will cancel the mission to get the kid to an American aid station, which, technically they shouldn’t be doing.”…
…Yon convincingly argues that the U.S. is winning in Iraq, at least for the moment. “The enemy learned that our people and the Iraqi forces would close in and kill them if they dared stand their ground. This is important: an enemy forced to choose between dying or hiding inevitably loses legitimacy. Legitimacy is essential. Men who must always either run or die are no longer an army and are not going to found a caliphate.” The outcome, though, is still in doubt. If Petraeus’s surge strategy fails or is prematurely short-circuited by Congress, the American and Iraqi forces will almost certainly lose. “Maybe creating a powerful democracy in the Middle East was a foolish reason to go to war,” Yon concludes. “Maybe it was never the reason we went to war. But it is within our grasp now and nearly all the hardest work has been done.” Which makes the present moment the moment of truth in Iraq.
Rumsfeld does get a lot of flack these days for how things went from 2003 until 2006, but he never uttered a truer statement when he opined that you go to war with the army you’ve got, not with the army you wished you had. This has been put down to cruel indifference on Rumsfeld’s part, but the meaning of it is that war comes, some times, very suddenly and you can’t ask the enemy to wait until you’ve constituted your forces for the sort of battle they want to engage in. Not only do we go to war with the army we’ve got, but we also go to war with the generals we’ve got - we went to war in Vietnam with Westmoreland, who made a “body count” hash of it; Abrams took over and very nearly won that war in spite of all efforts to cause defeat on the American political front; we went to war in the Pacific with Kimmel, he was caught with his pants down at Pearl Harbor; Nimitz took over and forged the most splendid naval force in human history. Its like that in war - its a bit of the luck of the draw as to whether your general or admiral will be a man of rare genius…and given that genius is rare, you’re more than likely going to have a man of lesser gifts in charge when the guns go off. The defeated commanders weren’t cowards, and they weren’t fools - they were just men overmatched by their awesome responsibilities; command in war is a function requiring intense mental ability, an gigantic sense of detachment, moral courage of a high order.
The generals we went into Iraq with were all fine men - brave commanders of great skill, but for one reason or another, they were unable to put together the winning combination that Petraeus has developed. The upshot of all this was that there were failures - tactical, political, economic - in the early going (some of these, of course, initiated by the civilian authorities, who were also brave and skilled…but also lacked that rare genius which is often the difference between success and failure during war)…this, in turn, gave grist to a leftwing political mill which was determined that Iraq be a failure prior to the campaign beginning. Coupled with a Democratic party establishment which just wanted something - anything - they could use to hammer President Bush with in the 2004 election, we had the perfect storm of opposition which brought us to our situation today…a war being won, but a public disgusted with the whole thing after 5 years of relentless anti-American and defeatist propaganda about the war.
It is the moment of truth about Iraq - victory is ours, if we just grasp it firmly and refuse to let it go. Obama is pledged to lose. Hillary is, too, but she won’t be the Democratic nominee and, at any rate, it would be completely characteristic of her to break her word and go ahead and allow us to win the war. McCain is pledged to victory. We Americans have fought for years at great cost - and our Iraqi allies have also fought at great price - and only our own action can cause our defeat. We have mastered the enemy; the Iraqis have mastered their internal differences to the point where peace is possible, if not brotherhood; our military has proven itself the most magnificent instrument of war ever forged; the American people are willing to see this thing through, at least for a long enough period of time to secure our gains…
What will we choose?
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, War on Terror
25 Comments
1. Brett Michaels | May 19th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Mark,
The neocons on your blog do not genuinely care about what is going on in Iraq except as a poltical tool.
There have been 25+ posts on other thread and not one single comment on here.
Now that I have posted there will be a deluge from the usual suspects.
One thing I can tell you as a Marine…not all the generals we went to war with were fine men, not by a long shot.
Ask a Marine what they thought of General Pace.
I can tell you he is not well respected here at Quantico.
2. FmrMarine | May 19th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
bm
>>>The neocons on your blog <<<
do tell us brett what are neocons?
I can tell you resented authority, you ooze it I really doubt the Marines hate their generals….Well some of YOU hate everything.I guess you buy into ole wrights G-D damn America.
Now be a good lemming and go vote for BO!
PS
WAH WAH WAH “now that IM here” ya de ya!
look at this vid and try to learn something other than the rancid hate you spew here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5A_fiZvKPc&eurl=http://www.frontpagemag.com/Default.aspx
3. Brett Michaels | May 19th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
FakeMarine,
Just as I suspected you are not a former Marine.
I called you out before and the beginning of your post just confirmed it.
Post a photo of yourself in Class A’s.
I knew you were a fake.
4. Jeremiah | May 19th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who might do us harm. - George Orwell
5. Kahn | May 20th, 2008 at 12:46 am
Brett - (expletive deleted).
But have you noticed that suicide bombers in Iraq are reported and mean - get out. But those in Afghanistan are barely mentioned? Know why? Because Suicide bombs are tools to get press coverage. And our press, wanting us out of Iraq picks up those tools there. But not wanting us out of Afghanistan - they leave those tools alone.
We can not pull out. Not after Viet Nam. Not after Somalia. If we pull out, we might as well disband the Corps. It will never be taken seriously again. Just like we destroyed the Viet Cong during Tet and destroyed all those troops around Khe Sahn - it will be for naught. We will have lost the war at home due to weak kneed liberals and an enemy cooperating press.
If we pull out, there may or may not be regional war. I think Iran will move on the southern oil fields and Turkey will move in on the North. I don’t know who would oppose them. The Saudi’s may not. Not much spine there. And if Obama pulls us out of the whole region (which makes more sense than just out of Iraq) what would we do? No way in hell would we redeploy into that region. We didn’t go back into Southeast Asia as Pol Pol slaughtered millions.
Pulling out - will equal defeat. Pure and simple. We will be seen as losers. And we will be losers. Our military might as well come home and disband. We really wouldn’t need anything other than the National Guard.
Semper Fi
6. Danish Artist | May 20th, 2008 at 9:27 am
A recent Rasmussen poll shows that 49% of voters believe we will win the War in Iraq (it should be the war against Islamofascism) if McCain is elected, verses only 20% believe we can win if Obama is elected. If Americans truly love winners then this should be worrisome to Obama.
I normally don’t take stock in polls, but libs use them quite frequently here. Obama’s not the guy for victory in Iraq. So, libs are you going to vote according to a poll (vote for victory), or Obama’s (vote for defeat)?
7. Danish Artist | May 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am
ACLU & Liberal Fantasy Land vs. Reality…..
ACLU….
NEW YORK (AP) - The U.S. military is holding about 500 juveniles suspected of being “unlawful enemy combatants” in detention centers in Iraq.
A total of 2,500 youths under the age of 18 have been detained for periods of up to a year or more since President Bush’s anti-terrorism campaign began in 2002. Almost all those who have been detained are in Iraq. About 10 are currently being held in Afghanistan.
The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have denounced the practice as abhorrent. And they say it’s in violation of U.S. treaty obligations.
Reality….
BAGHDAD (AFP) — An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention centres despite being eligible for release because they want to complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.
“In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies,” Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.
The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees — adults and juveniles — being held at its two detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad’s international airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.
Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone, the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.
8. Brett Michaels | May 20th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Kahn,
Im not sure why you are swearing at me. I have said time and again I support Gen Petraeus.
Why is it any time someone disagrees with you, you automatically assume they are liberal or against the war, etc?
Gen Pace, is not respected by any Marine..active or retired. We respected his rank, but that was it.
9. Brett Michaels | May 20th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Once again defeaning silence from FakeMarine.
For those not in the loop this is why I know (among several other instances) his real name if FakeMarine:
“I really doubt the Marines hate their generals….Well some of YOU hate everything”
No Marine would ever make a statement like that.
Someone who had served in the Corp. would have said “We Marines do not hate our Generals”
He made a Freudian slip.
FakeMarine, I posted a pic of me in my Class A’s. why dont you do the same? hahahahah!
10. FmrMarine | May 20th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
BM=bowl movement
>>>FakeMarine, I posted a pic of me in my Class A’s. why dont you do the same? hahahahah!<<<
I also was at Quantico, also HUE, DongHa, Khe Sanh.
I dont have to post pics for all to see. I know who I am and where and how I served.
As for you, you are a typical black racist with the usual big mouth.
11. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | May 20th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
10. FmrMarine | May 20th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
So, what mate, you feel like Big Sammy turned his back on you after the ‘Nam? If that’s the case how can you support an administration that turns its back on Vets that come home with PTSD, traumatic brain injury and limb loss?
No US marine that I have ever known would take sides with Big Oil over the USMC. Ever.
12. FmrMarine | May 20th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
CE..= Editorials from Hell’s leading daily newspaper
>>>No US marine that I have ever known would take sides with Big Oil over the USMC.<<<
Hmmm let me see… OIL The very lifeblood of our country, of our freedom, of all the wonders of our modern world.
and im for it?
but somehow against the USMC??
go back to the porno kitchen and smoke some more crack
To.. BM
id gladly post one ….IF i knew how.
13. FmrMarine | May 20th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
PSSSSSS BM
>>>Someone who had served in the Corp. <<<
It’s CORPS….not corp.
“ha ha ha ha ha!”
14. Brett Michaels | May 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
FakeMarine
Post your Class A’s. I did..why cant you? Not proud anymore? and I freely posted my name, rank, etc. Not sure why you are hiding.
How to post it…go to www.imageshack.us and host it there.
I know it bugs you that negro is getting all uppity on you. This aint the 60’s anymore.
15. Danish Artist | May 21st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
BM,
YOu keep saying that you posted your picture, then where is it?
Link?
How do we know it is you and not some friend/relative? I mean you do post under a fake name - you have said so.
If you posted your picture with such ease, provide a link to that picture. I mean you have posted several times that you have uploaded your picture but never have you posted a link.
Post a link and proof that it is you.
I am not a Marine, but I know that the proper usage is “Corps” and not “corp”.
Freudian slip?
16. FmrMarine | May 21st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
BM
How is this
17. FmrMarine | May 21st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
[URL=http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=kensandmeondmz1967psdwi9.jpg][IMG]http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/918/kensandmeondmz1967psdwi9.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
18. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:20 am
Bill,
I take back everything bad I said about you. We disagree on politics, but not on being a Marine.
My grandfather was Edgar Huff….you mighta heard of him.
Here is a pic of me..I was 111 or 12 at the time
http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pentagon998yt3.jpg
Lasix took care of the those glasses.
Semper Fi
19. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 am
Deleted - complains about comment policy.
20. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:27 am
Danish Artist | May 21st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I am not a Marine, but I know that the proper usage is “Corps” and not “corp”.
You dont get why I type Corp. and not Corps do you?
lol! Neither did Mark but he eventually figured it out.
21. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:30 am
Deleted - complains about comment policy.
22. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 am
Deleted - complains about comment policy.
23. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 am
Deleted - off topic.
24. Brett Michaels | May 22nd, 2008 at 8:52 am
DA,
I would tell you about the post I made with my Class A’s unfortunately I am not allowed to. I will email FrmMarine with a screen shot and perhaps he will post it.
25. building a grist mill&hellip | May 26th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
[…] Rumsfeldism, and Moqtada al-Sadrism have either died there or are dying. Conventional liberal ohttp://blogsforvictory.com/2008/05/19/moment-of-truth-in-iraq/Artists to participate in Art at the Mill York Daily RecordArtists who specialize in nature and […]