Richard Warnick‘Petraeus Report’ Not Needed
We don’t have to wait for the so-called “Petraeus Report” on September 11. This was supposed to be an objective, unbiased report by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the progress of Bush’s so-called “surge.” Aside from the obvious problem of the general assessing the outcome of operations for which he himself was responsible, we now know that the report will be written by White House spin doctors.
Today’s New York Times carried an op-ed titled “The War as We Saw It” by seven 82d Airborne Division soldiers: SPC Buddhika Jayamaha, SGT Wesley D. Smith, SGT Jeremy Roebuck, SGT Omar Mora, SGT Edward Sandmeier, SSGT Yance T. Gray and SSGT Jeremy A. Murphy. It’s a useful antidote to all the meaningless happy talk from O’Hanlon, Pollack and other Bush administration cheerleaders. When those guys take their helicopter-borne VIP tours of Iraq, I wonder if they talk with anyone below the rank of lieutenant colonel.
If I were in Congress, I would tell President Bush and General Petraeus not to bother with their report– this is the one that counts. The whole op-ed is worth reading. Here’s an excerpt:
Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. [...]
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side. [...]
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
It takes incredible courage for active duty soldiers to contradict the President and the Pentagon, especially when still in a war zone and given the known vindictiveness of the Bush administration and the right-wing smear machine. General Petraeus surely knows that arming both sides of a civil war is a bad idea, but the spindoctored “Petraeus Report” won’t come close to saying that nor will it conclude that the concept of “winning” in Iraq is indeed far-fetched.
UPDATE: Unlike the frenzy of publicity that greeted the unrealistically optimistic New York Times op-ed by O’Hanlon and Pollack, the 82d Airborne soldiers are getting a virtual news blackout.
UPDATE: On the Huffington Post, Paul Rieckhoff suggests we listen to the soldiers for once. “But the media continually treats troops as wallpaper footage to run in the background while the latest talking-head pseudo-expert pontificates.”
UPDATE: Michael O’Hanlon thinks the 82d Airborne is attacking him. Then he argues that mere soldiers don’t know as much about the war as he does and cites a bogus claim that Iraqi civilian casualties are down.
