Interesting letter from One Hand Clapping blog, with selected comments afterwards:
A non-insurgency theory - report from Iraq veteran
by David High @ 7:10 am. Filed under War on terror, Iraq, Analysis
From D. Sensing – David High is a Marine major who returned from Iraq service earlier this year. This post contains some of his observations and reflections.
We spent our first several weeks living aboard a former Iraqi air base called Al Asad, located about 135 miles northwest of Baghdad. It’s near the rural center of Al Anbar province in the Sunni heartland. All vegetation is confined to a narrow band hugging the banks of the Euphrates River (I wonder what the agronomy was like 6,000 years ago, when the civil cradle was rocking here), the terrain is rolling to rugged, and the desert sand is the consistency of talcum powder.
The people are, for the most part, friendly and tolerant of our presence, perhaps in some ways ambivalent, as their lives have adapted over generations to enable them to navigate around the obstacles presented by an unwanted or irrelevant government. This has always been true; it was only exacerbated under Saddam (especially the last 15 years). As a stumbling central authority became more intrusive and incompetent, the regular folk met their workaday needs by reverting to the traditional reliability of tribal affiliations.
All loyalty flows thus: first is immediate family, then the extended family and tribe, next neighborhood/town, and then Islam. Nation means little, if anything. Townspeople consider anyone not from their hometown as foreigners. A visitor from the Iraqi equivalent of Murfreesboro [near Nashville – DS] to their neighboring cities might as well be from Tokyo.
As far as the grander scheme is concerned, the media are generally tone deaf. Not inaccurate, but certainly incomplete and selective, if not myopic. To curb expenses and marshal their resources, the news organizations are “pooled” in Baghdad. MSNBC, NPR, and the New York Post may all share a single photographer or correspondent. Their travels are limited by necessity, and thus the reporting is largely based on hearsay, other reports, or forays to hotspots. I have never seen a member of the media, and I haven’t spoken to anyone who has. Baghdad and the 90% remainder of the country are separate worlds, each wholly detached or even unrecognizable to the other. The Green Zone is altogether extraterrestrial; it is Coppola-esque. For the Marines with whom I work, it might as well be Disneyworld—remindful of the familiar, but a slightly skewed doppelganger that also reminds you of why others would be repulsed by us.
There is no insurgency in the sense of Vietnam, Algeria, or even Chechnya. I fully recognize that we will unwittingly create one ourselves if we stray too far from our stated mission. Without clarity of purpose, human nature will see to it that we become increasingly insular in our self-protection and frustrated in the Iraqis “failure” to think like the Des Moines Jaycees. I truly do not think we are there yet…the few thousand Marines in my world talked about and questioned and challenged our own assumptions and paradigms every day. We constantly reevaluated the definition of victory on the tactical and operational level. And we were not unmindful of justice, and other’s perceptions of us and our actions. It is tough to continue to do so, however—and here comes the irrepressible force of human nature—after seeing the immediate aftermath of suicide attack. But we do try, with all our being.)
Back to my non-insurgency theory: There is not a web of like-minded (much less amenable) patriots gaining succor and inspiration from the populace. There are a thousand disparate cabals and petit punks and opportunists, each with competing motivations and interests. A water truck leaving a coalition base may be fired upon by a host of various suspects. The “usual suspects” rounded up may include:
1) a 17-year-old who was paid $50,
2) a competitor of the truck’s owner who covets his contract,
3) a local tribesman who resents the presence of another affiliate,
4) a garden-variety criminal out to steal the truck, or embezzle the business,
5) a former Ba’athist apparatchik fearing the end of his gravy train,
6) a Jihadist from Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Egypt hoping to please God, or
7) an Iraqi, proud and nationalistic, believing the US is on a craven crusade to plunder his country’s oil and rich culture.
The permutations are endless and motivations intertwined. In this petri dish of conspiracy, those who are convinced that the Israeli Intelligence services, the Church of England, and Hollywood joined forces to mastermind the WTC attacks don’t even evoke a smirk. Credulity knows no filter. Lyndon LaRouche would be quite at home here.
Internationally, the Kurdish homeland was divided as deviously as Texas congressional districts. Sunnis consider their fellow muslim simpatico, unless they are shi’ite. Shi’ites stick to themselves, unless the other shi’ites are Persian.
Imperialism is the prime evil here—but of the 19th-century European variety. We are the inexperienced pledges cleaning up after the frat party we weren’t invited to. The customs and rules and borders were imposed by Sykes-Picot, resented by T. E. Lawrence, and tolerated by the inhabitants—who couldn’t have cared less at the time.
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Comments:
Mike Rentner Says:
August 4th, 2005 at 8:06 am
Things have changed a lot in the short time since Major High left and our battalion took over for them.
I don’t feel too comfortable going into too much detail, but his categorizations were what was believed at the time when we got here, but the quantity of foreign fighters has dramatically increased as the muj get more and more desparate. They have lost the city of Hit and only have a few places left to be. One of those places is where the fighting is going on now. They are desparate, well-trained, and intent on seeing the Iraqi government fail.
Maj David High, USMC Says:
August 4th, 2005 at 3:57 pm
An update on the media paragraph (the letter was written last Christmas eve). 2 months later, as forces were freed from Fallujah, we were finally given the combat power to enter Haditha and Hit. Finally, “sexy” operations warranted media prescence. First came a single reproter from the Christian Science Monitor. Nice guy. Quiet; blended in; a thankfully low-maintenance. Even asked me to take his USB and post his copy to editors back home. Then came a CNN team: a reporter (female), her producer (female), and their cameraman (male). They took up “boat space” in the vehicles, and my attention back at the base. Most significantly, I walked up behind the women—who were generally unobjectionable—talking to a small group of Marines. As I approached, I heard them expounding to the Marines that “Zarqawi was merely a myth, pushed by the Bush White House to prolong and justify the occupation.” Couldn’t believe my ears. Jaw dropped at such unprofessionalism. Thankfully, the Texas Marines didn’t respond with anything beyond quizical looks akin to the RCA dog.
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