CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Democracies Don't Have Time

Academic Elephant has posted her write up of the interview she and Jeff conducted with Colonel Michael Everett. The Colonel advises General Bill Caldwell and General David Petraeus on the development of the Iraqi parliament. He is deeply involved in encouraging the Iraqis to develop legislative tools to resolve their differences and advance their new nation.

Everett offered some perspective on Iraq's new democracy:

There's a couple of things we need to understand to put this in the proper framework. This is a brand-new democracy; if you look at our democracy, we had the preamble to our constitution, we had the constitution signing and then we had this thing called the Bill of Rights...The point I'm trying to make is that if you look at how long it took us to put our constitution together and when you consider that we were not fighting an insurgency, and let me just draw your attention to this, this is what we used to brief General Petraeus. And what I want to show you is that here we are at the end of April, and this basically tracks the top five key pieces of legislation...you have the hydrocarbon legislation to include the what I want to call the various supporting pieces of legislation that need to go along with this to make it something usable. The article 140 legislation and other disputed territories primarily focused on Kirkuk and redrawing the new boundaries of Kurdistan. And then you have the election legislation, de-Baathification and the constitutional review.

Now I ask you this: If our congress had in two months to do a constitutional amendment--let's pick one, one of the more interesting amendments, article two, the freedom of expression and owning a gun, and then pass a supplemental and address abortion and some other very emotional issues for the United States? Could we do it? The answer is probably not.

Academic Elephant asked the Colonel about the response of Iraqi politicians to the Democrats trying to force a withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq beginning October 1 and ending no later than March 1:

They have not made an official response, but I would say that the Prime Minister is opposed to it because once again it plays into the hands of the insurgents. If Osama bin Laden stood up and said "Here's my timetable for withdrawing from Iraq" it would be of significant benefit to us both tactically and strategically.

In other words, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are playing into the hands of the insurgents, both tactically and strategically

[. . .]

So, of course the Sadrists, that's what they want. And there's some discussion, can you bring the radical Sadrists to the table if you announce a timeline. To me, that's really the benefit of announcing a timeline because potentially you could bring the Sadrists to the table. And quite frankly I don't think the Sadrists want to hear that we're leaving in 2009 or 2010. The Sadrists don't care when we're leaving, I think, it's a matter of making that announcement.

Jeff asked what Colonel Everett, as an officer of infantry, thought the effect of the supplemental bill as passed by the congress would have on our troops:

The short answer is "It's not good." You go out with these units in the field and it's July, it's 120 degrees and they have eight pounds of armor on them plus ammunition, hand grenades, claymores and frags, and they've spent two or three days in their joint security station getting mortered and attacked and then they go back to their forward operating base and they log on to their computers and they see things like that--it is not very helpful. And I understand the political dynamic back in the states, however leaders need to be responsible, more responsible than average citizens when they make comments like that that could potentially help the enemy...You can say things to criticize a war in a helpful way, and that's not helpful.

They talked about Anbar Province:

Look at Anbar province. You may have read the Marine intelligence officer from about a year ago. We were ready to write off Anbar, to pull out and give it to AQI and we'll just do some type of containment. And then we engaged the tribal sheiks, they finally started to understand that the issue in Anbar was not the coalition but AQI. I'm sure if you talked to the Marines out west or some of our people in the Office of National Reconciliation, they'll tell you that if you can turn around Anbar, you can turn around any province in Iraq. So I think that we need to find these moderates and protect them, and protect their supporters.

Finally Colonel Everett made an important point about time:

When you go to the War College you teach the elements of national policy: diplomacy, military, communication, and this is sort of my little thing--there's an element of national power that we dont' have, and that's time. Democracies don't have time, and that is the one capital that we need that we don't have.

Academic Elephant highlighted that statement, commenting:

Colonel Everett has an important and ominous point there. By cutting off not so much the supply of funds as the supply of time, congress proposes to suffocate this mission.

That's right, slowly bleed the war effort to death.

There is much more interesting and important information in the interview with Colonel Everett. I highly recommend you read the entire article.

Two Ways To Rule People

Academic Elephant posts about a young army specialist's philosophical view of governance:

The way I see it, there are two ways to rule people. There’s ruling by inspiration, and there’s ruling by fear. It’s harder to achieve inspiration, but if you can get there in the long run it’s easier because you inspire people to take initiative to do things for themselves. Ruling by fear is easier until that day that people stand up to you, and all your power goes away.

We’re trying to help the Iraqis find their inspiration. The insurgents are trying to rule by fear.

Our soldiers are truly inspirational. Read the whole thing here.

Truth Is Our Most Powerful Weapon.

Academic Elephant posted her article on the interview she and Jeff had with Rear Admiral Mark Fox.

They talked about the nature of the conflict in Iraq:

There really is no comparison between the enemy we fought in Iraqi Freedom in the air campaign and the enemy we're fighting today...Flash forward four years later: We don't have a conventional military threat. There is a residue of an enormous amount of explosives and ordinance that has been left over from Saddam'a era--Iraq had more conventional ordinance than the United States. It was awash in bombs and ordinance and so there is a seemingly endless supply of old weapons that can be used in these improvised explosives...and there were some non-military people we were fighting in the first round, but now the people we are dealing with are absolutely--they are only interested in terror and creating terror and mayhem. There are no rules of war, there is no sense of morality or restraint in terms of who's a viable target on their part.

And so it's completely different--there's no conventional aspect to this conflict that we're in right now...The foe that we're now fighting has evolved to the point that it's unrecognizable from a conventional point of view. Now you still have to use all the different pieces of modern warfare to be able to do this mission.

They also talked about the information war:

He considers the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon probably the closest comparison, with the enemy "swimming" in a civilian population and waging not just a campaign of violence, but also one of misinformation:

Now I'm in this world of communications it's incredible--the old Mark Twain saw about how a lie can get half way around the world before the truth can get its boots on and that's the case here.

You can point to a number of examples where oh no, there were people who were burned when they came out of a mosque. I mean they were set on fire and they were burned. And so we don't have any people on the scene and we don't know, but it sounds like something awful has happened, and it's not the case.

Not that long ago, maybe six weeks ago, there were 18 children, they were on a soccer field on Fallujiah and there was an explosion. So we say "Oh, no," and we spin on this for 12, 18 hours and then we find out no, that's not the case. There were not 18 children killed on a soccer field.

It's created a tremendous, difficult thing. The truth is ultimately I think our most powerful weapon. And to be committed to really sticking to the truth is the most important thing we can do. That said, being painstaking and finding the truth and recording it a lot less, it's not nearly as sexy as the blood or whatever it is.

There is much, much more. Read the whole thing here.

Victory In Iraq

In Rear Admiral Fox's office, Jeff and Academic Elephant have discovered what victory in Iraq will look like:

What is needed most, beyond what is being done, is more time.

Read "According to the US military, THIS is what victory in Iraq looks like:

Jeff Gets An Embed Slot

Jeff has gotten an embed slot with the 1-4 Cavalry of the 1st Infantry Division:

I'll fly out sometime tomorrow via helicopter and join up with the unit for a week of living, eating, sleeping, and operating alongside these combat troops.

Read Jeff's "Finally embedding with the warfighters!!"

Working In Saddam's Palace

Between interviews with Rear Admiral Mark I. Fox and dinner at the U.S. Embassy, Academic Elephant posts that it's funny how "old hat" it has become for those working in Saddam's Palace.

I must say there's something truly surreal about sitting here in one of the public rooms of the Hussein palace that is now the American embassy checking emails at an internet station while sipping a Starbuck's-style double iced latte.

You can read the rest of "Greetings from Saddam's Palace" at RedState.

Winning Over Journalists

In Iraq, Jeff has posted a marvelous article on how embedded journalists come to appreciate American troops:

It was in the process of performing that mission, of coping with the loss of loved ones, and of just being themselves as American soldiers, that these young men were able to win over the admiration and affection of more than one journalist who had arrived in their midst harboring a less-than-positive opinion of the Iraq war, and of those who were tasked with prosecuting it. [. . .] “No matter what you think of the war, or what has happened here, you cannot be around the soldiers and not be completely affected. They are amazing people, and they represent themselves and the Army better than anyone could ever imagine.” A retired Army officer concurred, telling me that “young troops are some of the best good will ambassadors we've ever produced. It would never occur to one to not tell you what he's really thinking, and they are so earnest” that it is almost impossible not to be won over by them if given enough time.

Read the whole thing. We are truly blessed to have such troops defending us.