Iraqis: Don't Abandon Us (The News From Iraq Is Better Than the MSM Reports)

Iraqis: Don't Abandon Us Perhaps the debate over whether to persevere in Iraq has become too brittle to accept anyone else's opinion, but the foreign minister of Iraq gives it a game try. In today's Washington Post, Hoshyar Zebari implores Americans and the world not to abandon Iraq to the terrorists and sectarian lunatics. Zebari explains that Iraq has changed profoundly since liberation, and the media paint a distorted picture of his country:

Last weekend a traffic jam several miles long snaked out of the Mansour district in western Baghdad. The delay stemmed not from a car bomb closing the road but from a queue to enter the city's central amusement park. The line became so long some families left their cars and walked to enjoy picnics, fairground rides and soccer, the Iraqi national obsession. Across the city, restaurants are slowly filling and shops are reopening. The streets are busy. Iraqis are not cowering indoors. The appalling death tolls from suicide attacks are often high because of crowding at markets. These days you are as likely to hear complaints about traffic congestion as about the security situation. Across Baghdad there is a cacophony of sirens from ambulances, firefighters and police providing public services. You cannot even escape the curse of traffic wardens ticketing illegally parked cars.

These small but significant snippets of normality are overshadowed by acts of gross violence, which fuel the opinion of some that Iraq is in a downward spiral. The Iraqi people are indeed suffering tremendous hardships and making grave sacrifices -- but daily life goes on for 7 million Baghdadis struggling to take back their capital and country. ...

We remain determined in spite of our losses. Spectacular attacks may dominate foreign headlines, but they cannot change the reality that Iraq has made steady political, economic and social progress over the past four years. We continue to strengthen our nascent democratic institutions, pursue national reconciliation and expand Iraqi security forces. The Baghdad security plan was conceived to give us breathing space to expedite political and economic development by "securing and holding" neighborhoods across the capital. There is no quick fix, but there have been real results: Winning public confidence has led to a spike in intelligence, a disruption of terrorist networks and the capture of key leaders, as well as the discovery of weapons caches. In Anbar province, Sunni sheikhs and insurgents have turned against al-Qaeda and to the side of Iraqi security forces. This would have been unthinkable even six months ago.

Zebari's frustration is easy to understand. The Iraqis have done most of the bleeding and dying over the last four years, but they have worked hard to create a secure nation and a sense of normalcy. They have sacrificed much in that effort, when it may have cost them less in the short term to align themselves with warlords and dictators. Instead, they have trusted the West to help them through the nightmare and into a new morning for a free Iraq.

Now, just when that goal seems within reach, the world has tired of their struggle. The people in whom Iraqis placed their trust now stand at podiums and declare Iraq a lost cause, just when they see Iraq beginning to emerge from darkness and oppression. Zebari knows that all his nation has gained will be lost if his people see their allies abandon them -- and force Iraqis to come to terms with the warlords and the terrorists for their own survival.

Zebari warns what will come of Iraq and the Middle East in general if the West betrays the Iraqis. It will create a haven for terrorists of all stripes, and will spread chaos and conflict throughout Southwest Asia. It might set off a regional war between Sunni and Shi'ite states, with Baghdad as an Armageddon for Persian and Arab cultures.

The world needs a free, united, and stable Iraq, Zebari warns. It may be difficult, but the alternatives are catastrophic.

The U.S. military has never been very good at half-@ssed warfare, which is exactly what’s being done there now. Using U.S. Marines as a well-armed Peace Corps is a disgrace.

Actually we’ve been (and are) pretty good at this sort of thing
The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Wars-Peace-Small-American/dp/046500721X/ref=sr_1_2/104-6805483-7224733?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178292552&sr=1-2

Product Description
Reviewed and debated everywhere, this book has become a key volume in the case for a new policy of interventionism.
America’s “small wars,” “imperial wars,” or, as the Pentagon now terms them, “low-intensity conflicts,” have played an essential but little-appreciated role in its growth as a world power. Beginning with Jefferson’s expedition against the Barbary Pirates, Max Boot tells the exciting stories of our sometimes minor but often bloody landings in Samoa, the Philippines, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Mexico, Russia, and elsewhere. Along the way he sketches colorful portraits of little-known military heroes such as Stephen Decatur, “Fighting Fred” Funston, and Smedley Butler.

From 1800 to the present day, such undeclared wars have made up the vast majority of our military engagements. Yet the military has often resisted preparing itself for small wars, preferring instead to train for big conflicts that seldom come. Boot re-examines the tragedy of Vietnam through a “small war” prism. He concludes with a devastating critique of the Powell Doctrine and a convincing argument that the armed forces must reorient themselves to better handle small-war missions, because such clashes are an inevitable result of America’s far-flung imperial responsibilities.

Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground (Hardcover)
by Robert D. Kaplan (Author)

http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Grunts-American-Military-Ground/dp/1400061326

Product Description
In this landmark book, Robert D. Kaplan, veteran correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and author of Balkan Ghosts, shows how American imperialism and the Global War on Terrorism are implemented on the ground, mission by mission, in the most exotic landscapes around the world.

Given unprecedented access, Kaplan takes us from the jungles of the southern Philippines to the glacial dust bowls of Mongolia, from the forts of Afghanistan to the forests of South America–not to mention Iraq–to show us Army Special Forces, Marines, and other uniformed Americans carrying out the many facets of U.S. foreign policy: negotiating with tribal factions, storming terrorist redoubts, performing humanitarian missions and training foreign soldiers.

In Imperial Grunts, Kaplan provides an unforgettable insider’s account not only of our current involvement in world affairs, but also of where America, including the culture of its officers and enlisted men, is headed. This is the rare book that has the potential to change the way readers view the men and women of the military, war, and the global reach of American imperialism today.

As Kaplan writes, the only way to understand America’s military is “on foot, or in a Humvee, with the troops themselves, for even as elites in New York and Washington debated imperialism in grand, historical terms, individual marines, soldiers, airmen, and sailors–all the cultural repositories of America’s unique experience with freedom–were interpreting policy on their own, on the ground, in dozens upon dozens of countries every week, oblivious to such faraway discussions. . . . It was their stories I wanted to tell: from the ground up, at the point of contact.”

Never before has America’s overarching military strategy been parsed so incisively and evocatively. Kaplan introduces us to lone American servicemen whose presence in obscure countries is largely unknown, and concludes with a heart-stopping portrait of marines in the first battle in Fallujah. Extraordinary in its scope, beautifully written, Imperial Grunts, the first of two volumes, combines first-rate reporting with the sensitivity and insights of an acclaimed writer steeped in history, literature, and philosophy, to deliver a masterly account of America’s global role in the twenty-first century.

• Imperial Grunts paints a vivid picture of how defense policy is implemented at the grassroots level.

• Kaplan travels throughout the world where U.S. forces are located. This is not just a book about Iraq or Afghanistan.

• Rather than debate imperialism, Kaplan relies on a keen understanding of history, philosophy, and in-the-field reporting to show how it actually works on the ground.

• Imperial Grunts escapes Washington and shows us what it’s like to live with the grunts day to day.
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The thing is too many (fine) folks he don’t really understand that this is a counter-insurgecy war (on a global scale)
So yes U.S. Marines are going to be used as a well-armed Peace Corps. As they have been for most of our history.

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