Villainous Company

It would appear Mr. Brooks has read John Robb's book "Brave New War." Not being a Select member of the NYT's readership, I can only hope he acknowledged same...

I sent it to you :) And yes, he has.

Putting aside our disparate takes on the message in David Brook's article, I'm curious about the source of your comment:

If we focus only on exploding car bombs, and ignore the fact that families are moving back to Baghdad neighborhoods in droves....".

My firm recently represented an Iraqi translator who was shot working in Baghdad in his bid to gain asylum in the US (it was granted to him in early May) so I've had a chance to read up on the enormous plight confronting the estimated 4 million Iraqi refugees. (2 million who have fled the country, and another estimated two million who have been displaced from from their homes). Egypt, Syria and Jordan have restricted the entry of Iraqis, if not closed their doors. Saudi Arabia is spending billions on a high-tech fence on its border with Iraq. The US recently agreed to take in 7,000 Iraqis refugees (since the war began, the US has allowed 500 Iraqis to settle here) but there is a 6-year waiting list for visas. It's estimated 50,000 plus Iraqis are fleeing their homes every month.

Yes, I've read that a few desparate families have accepted the Iraqi's government monetary offer to return to Baghdad (which it should be noted is counter to the advise of the US Military in Baghdad) but to state they are returning "in droves" is a reach that even supporters of the surge should have trouble swallowing.

To be honest Cheetah, I'm relying entirely on recent accounts I've read since the surge began that do NOT take into account the number of people who have left, so you're entirely correct on that score - I could very well not have a balanced picture.

It seems to me that taking numbers gathered since the war began and comparing them to numbers taken only since the surge began (because they're only being used as one indicator of whether things are getting better or not) is hardly a fair measure, is it?

I am reading and hearing that homes are being reoccupied and shops and businesses are reopening. Does this normally happen when things are getting better or when things are getting worse?

Gunfire is another. My husband just got home from a trip. He didn't hear any the whole time until his last day. He's hardly the only person who has made this observation - many have had similar experiences and have been similarly surprised.

The 64 thousand dollar question is whether any of this is sustainable. If we pull out, as we did before, the insurgents will just move back in again and everyone who died making this happen will have died for no reason. So what do we tell their families?

What are we supposed to tell new recruits when they sign up - "Hey - join the Corps! Maybe Congress won't get bored halfway through the next war. Sure it's a crap shoot but go ahead and put your life on the line anyway - only children believe in promises."

And by the way, if things are so bad that this many people are leaving now, just what do you think will happen when we leave?

*crickets chirping*

Or don't you care?

Unlike some people, I do. That's why I think we need to stay until the Iraqis can defend themselves. I have not said that things were hunky dory over there. Obviously they are not. We are getting killed too. If things were safe over there then we wouldn't need to be there at all.

What I have been saying is that what we're doing is finally having a positive effect and we need to stay there until it can take hold, or this will all have been for nothing.

I didn't drop by to debate the bona fides of the surge, or our presence in Iraq. There are enough "experts" out there who will engage in that with you 24/7 if that's what you want.

I think the dilemna facing the burgeoning number of Iraqi refugees is a serious one, and in my opinion doesn't get nearly enough ink.

A few weeks back, the NYT Magazine carried a deeply troubling expose on the conflict that these displaced Iraqis face. It's a worthwhile read if you have the time.

One of the most disillusioning statistics is that more than 40% of the professional work force in Iraq, and the one whose talent and resources is needed if Iraq is ever to rebuild itself, have fled their country to build new lives elsewhere. Makes you wonder which families are moving "back" to Baghdad.

There is a gimmer of hope on the horizon: The Commission on Refugees held a two day conference last month, which was attended by reps from more than 60 countries. Secretary Rice has pledged $18 million [sigh] to help with the worldwide relocation program while urging asking Iraqi's neighbors to allow them to resettle within their borders.

Obviously, it's a particularly thorny issue for the US: not wanting to encourage more Iraqis to leave by helping them relocate (and to countries questionable at best) yet facing mounting pressure to deal with the 4 million plus displaced and disenfranchised Iraqis.

Now that is what some may call a quagmire.

I have no particular desire to 'debate' the surge. I only brought that up because there was an obvious disparity between my figures and the ones you were quoting.

The exodus of the Iraqi professional class is something the Mesopotamian has written about several times. In his opinion the insurgents have deliberately tried to drive them away, or maybe they just have the resources to leave or are less likely to want to stay and put up with the violence. I don't know. In any event, you're right - it makes it that much harder to rebuild.

The same thing happened in New Orleans. And in Yucca Valley after the Landers quake, where I used to live - many people just left and didn't come back and the economy faltered.

But what inevitably happens after a period of years is that people do come back. Not always the same ones. But people will move in because there is opportunity.

What we don't want to do is leave a vaccuum there to be filled by the wrong people. I listened to a piece on NPR not long ago about a guy from Iraq who had settled in Chicago. He intends to go back, but he can't go now because he's afraid of being killed (and rightly so). So we're clearly not there yet. This is why I want us to stay. I'm not thrilled about having my husband gone for a year, or possibly longer. I don't think anyone looks forward to that prospect.

But I don't see a viable (or moral) alternative.

Cassie, but I do remember what happened the last time we tried 'Retreat with honor'. I lived and grew up amoungst the people who came here fleeing that nightmare. I'm well acquainted with it. And I know I don't want to have that repeated. I have too many friends with recuring nightmares from their escapes as it is, not to mention friends with chunks missing from their leg or arm or torso where a bullet or landmine took its demanded toll to pass from them.

But I think you're DEAD WRONG that time and numbers are on our side. There isn't some magic number that if we just killed to meet it's all okay. We shouldn't be letting Congresscritters turn into scardey cats, but it isn't because we know we'll rack up enough KIA to meet that magic number. It is things like creating working gov't and economic infrastructure while providing security.

Sometimes that bullet that misses its target does do harm. Like provide the enemy a grande opp for media manipulation. Or giving a family reason to not rat out a wastard, who then goes out and takes down the electric grid for the village which then causes the village to complain that those damn American's can't even supply electricity as well as Sadam(spit) did those liars.

So step outside the box. Don't play the insurgents game. Make the game not killing him, since he's willing to do die in vast numbers, but instead something else. Like in Malaya where they moved people off their land into easily defended hamlets with running water, electricity, nearby fields to work, markets, oh, and troops on the frontier making sure communists couldn't raid the hamlet. which when done meant those living inside ratted out each and every commie who tried to clandestinely infiltrate because he threatened their prosperity.

Honestly, dear woman, you're sounding very much like MacNamera here, or Foch(war of attrition we can win if we can bring our cannon into play often enough). Kill enough and we win, if we're patient. But we aren't, collectively, that patient. So play the game while changing the rules you CAN change instead of those you can't. YOu aren't going to undo society, not in the time enough to matter for Iraq and Afghanistan.

That means quitting a focus on dead bodies, as Patreus and his COIN manual does. You focus on killing in this game you're bound to find yourself in the modern equivalemt of the Col Summers party story(Summers:'We won all the battles.' Vietnamese counterpart:'Like they mattered.' or words to that effect.) It isn't about the number of them we kill. It's about the number the indigenous rat out to us, trust in the future we promise to build and in us. Which you don't get with big explosions and firepower heavy approaches(5 years, little results. Vietnam, 10 years and little or counterproductive results. The Welsh suppression campaigns by William he Conquerer and the Romans in Judea, backfired, and forced a slow grind of assimilation campaign in both instances, which then worked.). You stick to counting KIA and you'll be sticking to a losing strategy. We'll have a Little Baghdad right next to Little Saigon in Orange County, CA.

We don't toss in the towel and lose our nerve now, but not because we can kill enough. We don't do that because we can generate enough trust and a bright enough future to win. It's the fertile six inches between the ears we need to control(x 30million), not six hundred square miles of desert. That's what Robb is saying---even if I don't like his quasi-anarchist, quas-socialist sol'n. That's what he's defining the problem as: how to gain those 30 million minds that's the key instead of simple territory.

You say that at times, but you come back to body counts. It isn't body counts. It's hope and trust in the Iraqis fast enough that the American vacilators don't get their way(resulting in a Little Baghdad next door to Little Saigon).

Well first of all, the conventional wisdom seems to be that we had the Vietnamese on the ropes when we decided to throw in the towel, so its not that the strategy didn't work. It's that we gave up, and that pattern seems to be repeating itself. We never learn.

And I don't think the surge is really about "big explosions and firepower heavy approaches" at all. It's about exactly what you are saying; us living among the Iraqis and gaining their trust, so I'm not really sure what is going on there. That's been the whole reason this is a different approach. I think you are reading something into my use of 'attrition' that I didn't intend. Attrition is not always solely a function of killing off the enemy. I meant it more in the sense of wearing them down, damaging their credibility, siphoning away their recruits, killing or capturing their leaders one by one until there is nothing left for them to rebuild from.

I only mention body counts because WE seem to be fixated on our own body counts. Not theirs. No one over here is counting enemy KIA. And how do you tell Congress "Oh we won X hearts and minds today?" Though I agree with you, how do we count that? It's not a terribly visible metric, and it's not likely to change minds on Capitol Hill.

People want numbers. They want status reports. They don't care if they're the right numbers, or even if they mean anything. They just want to put a number around something - believe me, this is what I do for a living and it drives me batsh*t. Innumeracy rules.

Lastly, I didn't SAY time and numbers were on our side. I said resources and numbers were on our side if we didn't give up. Time, IMO, seems to be working against us over here, but for us over there where the Iraqis are finally realizing that the insurgents don't have their best interests at heart.

Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds should all have a stake in government - each their own government that is.

Though a large majority of Americans disapprove of the conduct of the war in Iraq, we cannot simple stop a war that Congress has approved and demand a total withdrawal of our troops that could precipitate a humanitarian disaster. Both Republicans and Democrats should certainly agree that for Iraq not to lose itself, it would be best for it to divide itself into two governments.

With the main problem being sectarian violence, a government made up of Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis can be nothing more than ineffective. It is surely meaningless to try to integrate a disintegrating society. The general insurgency (civil war) in Iraq imperils our national interest and our world standing, but most important of all - the Iraqi people.

The administration's war strategy can do nothing to defuse sectarianism or contribute to a complete Sunni - Shia/Kurdish reconciliation, See Iraq Analysis PDF . The past four years of unending violence has destroyed any hope of Iraq inspiring love of all its citizens, beyond religious and ethnic lines has completely vanished. The United States can no longer continue to pursue the intended idea of bringing “democracy” to the region. It is now our responsibility to pursue and bring "peace" to the region.

In an article by Madeleine Albright; “Don't get Sectarian”, NYTimes, December, 2006. She mentions that America will not take sides in the millennium-old Sunni-Shiite split. The irony is that that is exactly what must transpire in order to end this war once and for all. Split them up as two separate states.

The best and most urgent stance is to divide the country from north and south with the Shiite/Kurdish government occupying the northern territories and the Sunni government occupying the southern territories. Saudi Arabia and Syria should be willing to help as well as support the establishment of the new Sunni government and Iran supporting the establishment of the Shiite/Kurdish governance.

Already there have been a few Middle East regional meetings that primarily focused on what Iraq’s neighbors and “interested parties” could do to help quell the relentless violence in Iraq. Foreign ministers from Iraq’s neighbors, including Syria, as well as Egypt, Bahrain and members of the United Nations Security Council have attended these meetings. These regional meetings should include an opportunity for discussion of Iraq as two separate governments. To quote T.E. Lawrence who understood the Arab world. “Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly,” wrote Lawrence.

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) argues for drawing down troops, engaging Saudis, Jordanians and Egyptians and working directly with Iran and Syria to help bring political stability to Iraq. His view is that neither Iran nor Syria wants millions of refugees streaming across its borders. If we engage even those with whom we do not now have close relations, the Arab world will help to stabilize Iraq for reasons of self-preservation if nothing else, Edwards said.

Another alternative would be to annex Iraq to create two separate Iraqi provinces, but yet owned by neighboring countries. This would certainly bring much needed stability to the region. In addition to that, it would make for political, domestic as well as religious and ethnic sense to give Iran possession of the northern territories and Saudi Arabia the southern territories. This would give the Iraqi Sunnis possession of the south under Saudi control and known as the Iraq Southern Providence of Saudi Arabia. While even more important, the Shiites and Kurds under Iranian control in the north would be recognized as the Iraq Northern Providence of Iran. The latter being of course on the agreement with the United States that Iran ceases its nuclear program altogether.

The peace process must come with conditions that both internationally recognized governments agree to honor as two different countries. They must agree to observe territorial borders, honor human rights, obey the rules of law and seek to live in peace as neighbors.

The sacrifices American is making for the war in Iraq will do nothing to make the world safer for Americans. Why? The war on terror or should I say, the proper term, terrorism, is not about one people or one place. It is about ancient culture wanting to destroy modern culture in order to continue to exist – unchallenged, respected and wanted. The very idea of trying to bring an American way of democracy to Iraq has only further convinced those who regard their antiquated existence, that they were right to fear annihilation of their own chosen way of life.

Islamic extremists were not born and breed in Iraq. To be precise, it is now evident that Saddam Hussein had no contact with Osama bin Laden and that he had considered Bin Laden an enemy. We have not, to this day, have found any Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq either. As for the continuing debate for an Iraq exit strategy, we don't have to cut and run. We need only to divide and withdraw.

As always, Liberty is moving.

L.J.Runstein