What I Learned About Iraq From Losing a Consultant

Recently, our computer programming project ran out of budget for external consultants. At what I particularly felt was a very inopportune time to let them go, we let them go. Interestingly, however, I learned a great deal about myself in the process. That is, when I don't have someone to fall back on, I have the ability to rise the occasion.

Since the consultants left, I have become a markedly better programmer. I have come to several solutions that at first appeared to be very small needles in very giant haystacks. The key realization I came to just yesterday was that had my subject matter experts (the consultants) not left, I would have been content to float along in my relative mediocrity.

It is a very imperfect comparison, I know, but I'd like to illustrate my situation as a microcosm of Iraq. America is the subject-matter expert for Iraq--their crutch. As the situation drags on, Iraqis will be more likely to "float along in [their] relative mediocrity". At some point, coming soon to a theater near you, Iraq needs to get rid of its consultants. I guess I'm glad that President Bush announced last night that he intends to draw the American forces down over the next few months to pre-surge levels, although I don't think he did a good job of explaining why.

Lanny Davis, former member of the Clinton Administration, appeared on Greg Allen's the Right Balance this morning. He made a good point. The Democrats have a good point, which I have just spent the last couple of paragraphs essentially agreeing with. They are not, however, articulating it very well.

Lanny Davis said that we need to have a phased draw down in fairly short order to let the Iraqis know that it's time to realize that their consultants are leaving. Every Democratic candidate for president believes this. So far I think only Barack Obama has done a good job of articulating it. Only one Republican candidate, Ron Paul, believes that the consultants should take their leave. He has articulated very well, too.

I think the surge is working. I think Iraqis are realizing that the Americans (at least the soldiers, if not the politicians) care for them. I think the Americans know that it is a tenuous relationship, i.e. that the Sunnis in Anbar will turn against the Americans if we overstay our current purpose.

Our current purpose, I think, will soon be at an end. Let's give the Iraqis notice that they will soon be on their own, and let's hope and trust that they will be able to shine without their consultants.

It Continues to Work in Ramadi

Despite occasional setbacks, parts of Iraq's Anbar Province are trending toward peace. This occurs as Sunnis in the Anbar heartland realize that al Qaeda does not have Anbar's best interest at heart.

While I was in Ramadi, a change in sentiment began to occur. That sentiment is coming substantially to fruition 18 months later.

More and more Iraqis in the Anbar province have had enough of al Qaeda's crap. Police and military forces are beefing up in Ramadi and other cities and towns, and they're working closely with American forces to "clear, hold and build". It seems, over the past two or three months, to be working.


Here's the story of Saif Sahed

As recently as two months ago, U.S. forces didn't dare stake out the Al Tash neighborhood of this insurgent stronghold in Al Anbar province. Enter 22-year-old Saif Sahed, a go-getter recruit for the Provincial Security Force, a new auxiliary police unit that offers hope for at least a bit of stability in the mean streets of Ramadi.

Sahed lives in Al Tash, the kind of neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and newcomers are immediately noticed — and in recent years often have been insurgents.

"If I find strangers or strange cars, I go to tell my officer. Last week we found some who were insurgents and they were detained," Sahed said matter-of-factly. "The important thing is to make my neighborhood safe."

Because Sahed is young and illiterate, he ordinarily would not qualify for the Iraqi army or police. But for the last several weeks, he and his ragtag cohorts, wearing castoff army fatigues and numbering about 2,200, have filled crucial intelligence-gathering, patrol and checkpoint functions in the new provincial force.

Local residents find people that don't belong there, and get rid of them. In the case of an American soldier who was injured in a bomb blast recently, it didn't take the Ramadians long to ferret out the insurgent who had caused the blast.

"We could have never developed that kind of actionable intelligence that fast," said Lt. Jimm Spannagel with the Army 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade. "The PSF [Provincial Security Force] speaks the same language, establishes rapport with the locals and inspires trust. It's allowing us to extend our reach."

Enlistments have grown, and the number of uniformed Iraqi police officers and provincial troops on Ramadi's streets has multiplied to 6,700 from only 200 in July. Security has improved correspondingly.

From an average of 30 insurgent attacks per day in December, such assaults had fallen to an average of fewer than four by last month,

Politics aside, I dream of the day when I can return to al Anbar in a time of peace. I pray each day that peace and liberty will succeed in Iraq. People like Saif Sahed and his friends are the ones that will make it happen.

The Outcome of Collective Guilt Trips

As examples from America and Israel show, the result of national guilt trips is not good. If we'd stop feeling guilty for everything--by the way, stop and look at who's making us feel guilty in the first place (!)--and stand up for our principles, there'd be a lot less violence in the world.


In his column today, Thomas Sowell had this interesting observation.

During the 1960s, the idea spread like wildfire that whatever you were lacking was someone else's fault — society's fault. If you were poor, whether at home or in some Third World country, you were one of the "dispossessed" — even if you had never possessed anything to dispossess you of.

The urban ghetto riots that swept across the country during the 1960s were all blamed on society. This view was formalized in a much-hailed report on urban violence by a national "blue ribbon" commission headed by Gov. Otto Kerner of Illinois.

This sweeping and heady vision made it unnecessary to stoop to anything so mundane as hard facts — which would have included the fact that urban riots struck most often and most violently when and where this collective guilt vision prevailed.

Southern cities, where at that time discrimination and poverty were more pronounced than in the rest of the country, were not nearly as often or as hard-hit as cities outside the South.

Dore Gold made the following note on page 5 of his recent book, The Fight for Jerusalem.

The Palestinians claimed the violence bgan as a spontaneous reaction to Sharon's visit to the temple mount. But Arafat's minister of communications...freely admitted the planned, organized nature of the campaign... "Whoever thinks the Intifada broke out because of the despised Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque is wrong," he explained. "The intifada was planned in advance, ever since President Arafat's return from the Camp David negotiations."

Palestinians aren't stupid. They can see someone's weakness when they intend on giving away the farm.

Israel in the summer of 2006 fell victim to public opinion, fueled by bought-and-paid-for Islamists like Juan Cole and al Jazeera. Israelis felt not nearly as much guilt as did the Americans, but the minor Israeli and major American guilt was milked for all its propaganda value by the anti-freemen in cheering the Hizballah troops.

Bullies do this. Packs of wolves exhibit this behavior. People who are in the wrong are emboldened by weak behavior from people who are right. My goodness we have a lot of guilty people in this country. It's ironic that when we stop being able to feel guilt for things that are really wrong, we have a craving to replace it with guilt that is misplaced. Another sad thing is that a lot of the rest of Americans, including such organizations as the Council on American Islamic Relations, are preying on our guilt. Is it any wonder poor excuses for human beings continue to target innocent Iraqi civilians? They salivate at our guilt. And we continue to exhibit it. It is not Bush's fault that people are killing each other in Iraq. Nor is it yours!

It's time to get our butts off our stinky couches, turn off our boob tubes, and start finding out what's really going on in the world today. We need to stop feeling guilty for the things we're doing right, especially when those who have destroyed in their own countries everything we hold dear are the ones making the accusations.

There are things to feel guilty for. Supporting a fledgling democracy is not one of them.

Spiking Islamic Democracy

When's the last time you sent in your donation to PBS? Hint for US Citizens: if you haven't filed your tax return, you have until midnight tonight (unless you live in the Northeast).

Update: April 18th How National Public Radio led the charge in the 1990's in dismissing the threat of jihad.

Radical Islamists do not support democracy. From his newest book, The War of Ideas, Walid Phares writes:

Salafists, Wahabis, Takfiris, Tablighis, and other Sunni Islamists reject the concept of pluralism, and radically oppose the rule of the people. Only Allah and his teachings...are the basis for governance. [Shias] installed an Islamic Republic in Iran, but its mandate is believed to be divinely inspired and not subject to the approval of civil society. (p. XVIII)

It appears that Radical Liberalists in the United States want you to think that all Muslims share this sentiment. This is not true. But PBS is doing its best to keep you from knowing that.

Due to pressure from Islamist groups, PBS, who unfortunately owns the rights to the film entitled "Islam vs. Islamists", has shelved it, claiming that the reasoning for the shelving is because "it needs work", and that it might still be shown in the future. Did you just see that pig fly by?

Even more bizarre is the claim that the film would "demonize Islam" when in reality the result is the exact opposite. Many Muslims prefer democracy to the "7th Century" drivel that God makes all the rules and the radical lunatics are to enforce them. How PBS finds this demonizing is beyond me.

"I am incredulous that PBS would invest so much of our tax money into contracting professionals for a documentary on a subject -- the struggle for the soul of Islam -- which is one of the most vital debates of the 21st century and then censor its release," said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the Arizona-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy who is featured in the documentary.

Mr. Jasser visited with Greg Allen on The Right Balance this morning, expressing his dismay that a tax-funded organization would act this way.

I agree. As surprised as I am by the liberal reaction to the attempt to foster democracy in the Middle East, this has to be one of the worst instances of spiking relevant insight into the process. I have come to the conclusion that American liberals think that Muslims are incapable of democracy. What a shallow, self-serving viewpoint.

Please contact the PBS Ombudsman, and let him know you want to see a documentary that shows that many Muslims prefer democracy. What's demonic or divisive about that?

Update April 18th: From his book Future Jihad, Walid Phares explains to us that we haven't been getting our tax money's worth for quite some time now.

More worrisome [than the lack of coverage of jihad strategy by private news networks] would be PBS, C-SPAN, and NPR. Funded by US taxpayers, these gigantic networks have dedicated less than 0.1 percent of content to what would become the main threat to the nation over the years. NPR would outdo every other medium: It actually aired more programs endorsing the apologists--those who denied a jihadi threat--than all other U.S. media combined. The pounding by NPR and the public networks over ten years further disguised the intensity of the Wahabi penetration [into American government and society]. (p. 177)

Here's some more information on the controversy from the CNS News service.

Rhyme and Reason Restored

It seems like the war in Iraq has been somewhat of a generally muddled mess since the thunder runs of early 2003. It appears that that might be changing in one of the most difficult areas of the country--Ramadi in the Anbar province.

When I was in Ramadi, Iraq, it seemed like there was little rhyme or reason to the way we conducted operations. Patrols would go out and patrols would return to the operating base. Observation posts were always manned, but for the most part they were just observation posts--there was very little positive contact with the people. On a higher level there seemed to be progress; battalion and brigade commanders met with sheikhs and mayors and planned for the phased withdrawal of coalition forces.

But the results never seemed permanent.

In Ramadi today there is a different feeling. Coalition troops, including Iraqi military forces, as well as Iraqi police are beginning to see the fruits of labors that have a rhyme and a reason.

"When they told me I have to go to Ramadi, I told myself 'this is not good,' but now I believe it is better here than in Baghdad," said Alaa Mohammed, one of the Iraqi soldiers.

"The battalion is moving east, where the danger comes from. Building observation posts deny freedom of movement for the enemy," said Captain Kyle Sloan, Alpha company commander.

As a result, people within the ever-expanding safe zone are beginning to be able to live lives of increasing normalcy. Iraqi police are now able to operate with a modicum of order and independence. According to proven counter-insurgency tactics, American soldiers are developing relationships of trust with not only Iraqi military and public safety officials, but also with many other Iraqis.

To one side of the post, a school has reopened, and Marines say that more people are daring to venture out into the streets and that their attitude towards the Americans has changed for the better.

"Every squad has a favourite family. When on patrol, they are making a point of going to the house, see if they need anything, give stuff to the kids," said Corporal Joshua Barrett.

Excellent. That is what Serving Iraq is all about.

The Best That America Has to Offer

America was once thought of as "A shining city on a hill" whose values were recognized by all as timeless and appropriate for all mankind. We attempted to broadcast those values to the world and influence them with our words. Now a cacophony of alternative "values" are being transmitted into the Middle East. Values that Americans should be ashamed of, values that make Iraqis distrustful of America, and values that run completely counter to our expressed intentions of achieving liberty for the people of Iraq.

Not long before coalition forces invaded and occupied Iraq, America shut down its Voice of America broadcast in the Arabic language. Shortly thereafter, the Farsi-language broadcast ended as well. In its heyday, Voice of America broadcast American values, democratic values, and deeply meaningful discussions about social and political issues.

In the transition, what remains of VOA broadcasts, according to a former VOA director, is a putrescence of alternative American values. Ones that I'm embarrassed by. Ones that do nothing to endear Arab and Persian Muslims to the American way of life.

In the Spring of 2003, Robert Reilly, a former director of Voice of America, was in Baghdad. A young Iraqi journalist ran up to him and asked:

Why did you stop broadcasting substance and substitute music?

Instead of lessons on civics and social issues, what do people in the Middle East hear on Voice of America?

Britney Spears. Justin Timberlake. Eminem. Snoop Doggety Dog or whatever his name is this week. Iraqis are looking for freedom, not licentiousness.

That kind of filth masquerading as music irritates me to no end, but I live in a society that has been conditioned to accept it. Can you imagine how much distrust such broadcasts engender among the Iraqi people (not to mention others) who have never even heard such drivel, and who once believed that America represented things positive, like charity, public service, strong families, and devotion to God?

Reilly states:

We do not teach civics to American teenagers by asking them to listen to pop music, so why should we expect Arabs and Persians to learn about America or democracy this way? The condescension implicit in this nearly all-music format is not lost on the audience that we should wish to influence the most — those who think.

Some, of course, suspect that the United States is consciously attempting to subvert the morals of Arab youth.

I think there are entertainment forces in America who are subverting the morals of American youth, so the Arabs and Persians are probably not too wrong in their suspicions. The Iraqi people are much smarter and more civilized than we give them credit for. They know what America is supposed to stand for, but they can easily see that great swaths of American culture are decaying.

If we can't even keep our own society from failing on so many fronts, the Iraqis must think, how can we expect to help them? If this is the kind of help we're giving, I suspect they won't want it much longer.

If that's the best America has to offer, then we deserve to fail in Iraq.

Tikrit and ar Rutbah: How To and How Not To Serve Iraq

A lot of members of the military are fighting machines. Not so many of them are understanding of and friendly with the indigenous people among whom they serve. Developing a rapport is, however, a critical facet of a successful counter-insurgency. Here are some examples of how it was done correctly and how it was done miserably in two places--Tikrit and ar Rutbah.

The other day I walked out of my office and found the parking lot encased in a construction fence. No one had given any warning that construction was about to begin, but it was clear that we would not be allowed to park in our parking lot for several months to come. There was a lot of talk the next day at work about how someone had come unannounced onto our turf and barred us from using it in the way that we were used to.

Imagine, if we felt so violated by a simple construction fence, how the Iraqi people felt when the coalition forces not only broke the Hussein regime, but then stayed and occupied their country. Some military leaders understood and sympathized with the indigenous people and encouraged them to invest in their own future, while other military leaders ignored the high dividends that such mutual understanding would engender. One of the most important facets of counter-insurgency tactics is to build a rapport with the people and let them know that you are there to help them achieve peace and living enjoyment. In essentially every case where this has been implemented in Iraq, it has worked marvelously. But then there are those who come in and screw it all up.

Here are two stories of how, at first, large amounts of mutual trust and understanding were built up, and then how after a battle handover, new units in the area ruined pretty much all the goodwill that had been created.

Tikrit

The first Marine Division had occupied Tikrit in 2003. They established a good rapport with the people of the city, particularly its leaders, considering the negative feelings the people were bound to feel for an occupying force. Then the 4th Infantry Division arrived. As the Marines gave the soldiers a tour of the city and were introduced to its leaders, who were working very peacefully with the Marines, they began to get the feeling that the 4th ID people didn't share the same priorities as they did.

The 4th ID initially assumed that the Tikritis were their enemies, and the 4th ID's oppositional tactics formed accordingly. The Marines threw a farewell party for the Tikritis, but the 4th ID representatives who were invited refused to attend. The adversarial perception became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It took a couple of months before the gains the Marines had achieved were completely wiped out in Tikrit. A city that had developed understanding and trust for the Americans now hated them.

Ar Rutbah

Ar Rutbah is a fairly small city of about 25,000 in far western Anbar province. Despite having initially taken some hostile fire from the city, Major Jim Gavrilis approached its leaders in a non-hostile fashion. He tried to understand the feelings of the people, and because of this he was able to build strong relationships. He dined with them and got to know their concerns. He encouraged members of the local police force to take part in local checkpoints. He put sheikhs in charge of monitoring looting and other crimes. He handed relief supplies to the local leaders to be distributed as they saw fit. "The laws and values of their society and culture were just fine," he said. They just needed to be enforced.

The unit that replaced Gavrilis' unit had other ideas as to how to function in Ar Rutbah. No longer were the Iraqis treated as equals. No longer were American troops integrated into the social structure of the city. Quickly the situation deteriorated, and Americans came again to be seen as the occupying enemy.

It is common sense that when an army occupies another country, it will not for long be perceived as liberators. Unless--unless those who occupy make an attempt to understand the people and their history and culture. In those cases where an empathic attempt has been made, it has reaped huge dividends. Where such an approach has either not been tried or has been overturned, it has reaped the whirlwind.

Iraqis Must Stand Tall

Maybe the Democrats are on to a good idea. The Republicans contemptuously call it "cut and run", but there might be more to it. I'd rather advocate a clear transfer of responsibility. The Iraqi people must stand more firmly on their own. The world needs to be patient, but the United States can't be Iraq's protector forever.

It will be interesting, now that the Democrats are in ascendancy in both houses of Congress, how policy in Iraq will change. I hope it does, but not by how much the Democratic rhetoric initially threatened that it would.

When the Americans stormed into Baghdad in 2003, throngs of Iraqis were initially ebullient. Things turned quickly sour, however, as Iraqi police and security forces melted into thin air. Iraqis, who had been used to the strong hand of a dictator who kept order, now expected America to be that strong man. The Bush Administration apparently was not ready to entertain that eventuality, and the looting continued for quite some time. Things eventually evened out a bit, but in the run-up to and aftermath of a Democratic election victory, its been a trend for the worse. Let's hope the Democrats have some positive influence on the course in Iraq, rather than a knee-jerk pullout of troops that will embolden worldwide terrorism.

This past week, I took a computer programming course in New Jersey. One of the course attendees was a New Jersey man who had moved to America a few years ago from Pakistan. Many members of his extended family still live in Pakistan, and he visits them regularly.

One the first day of the class each class member introduced and told a bit about him- or herself. When the Pakistani man discovered that I had recently returned from Iraq, he was interested in my perspective on the issue. Most people's first question is, "Is it really like it says on the news?" (No.) His question was more along the lines of "Do you think the Iraqis are going to be able to stand on their own two feet?"

From his perspective, the Iraqis have not succeeded in the process of liberty as much as the Pakistanis have. But the likely reason for this is that not enough time has passed. Pakistanis have been trying to achieve freedom for a much longer period of time than the Iraqis, and yet their successes are often interrupted by military coups and other problems.

It is to be expected that the Iraqi liberty exercise will take time, like any other attempt at bringing freedom to a formerly despotized land. In retrospect, it looks pretty silly that America helped to build up and support Saddam Hussein, and so as a meager penance perhaps we have an obligation to ensure that the Iraqi freedom train is firmly on the tracks.

Recently, in an agreement with Balad, Iraq, the US military pulled back and gave more responsibility to the Iraqi military. Shortly thereafter, well-organized terrorists attacked and gained the upper hand on the Iraqi security forces. After the attack, the main question on the minds of the people was "Where were the Americans?" Such an attitude must be replaced with one of personal and community resolve.

This is not to say that everything coming from Iraq is bad news. Sunni Shia occasionally band together against the terrorists. All of the provinces except for Baghdad and Anbar are essentially patrolled and controlled by Iraqis. And there's more--it's just that we don't hear much about it, and the news media is not entirely to blame.

Good news is a magnet for terrorists, we have learned. In the past, announcements of completed projects and successful integration of peoples brought acts of terror from the insurgency. In an effort to quell such wanton barbarity, many positive news stories are intentionally suppressed.

Amid the storm of terror, good things are happening. It's important not to jump on the negativity bandwagon. Will Iraq achieve peace? I think they have it in themselves to do so. But my Pakistani friend and I agree, that peace in Iraq will not ultimately be achieved by the Americans. Peace will be achieved only if the Iraqis really want it.

Iraq--it's time to speed up the process by which you are standing tall. Like this family. America can't stay there forever. It's up to you.