"I still don't think we should be here. But that debate became passé six years ago. Now it's a question of how soon the U.S. gets out and what happens before and after it does. I've met too many good and decent people here to write this place off, smart and hard working Iraqis that want and deserve a first-world existence."The open letter is arguing about what the military is supposed to do as they try to "stand up" Iraqi's in positions of power. Liddick addresses some specific examples to support his assessment of the situation. But ultimately, he calls out his target:
"If you talked to the military you'd find they have a very simple plan: security before all else. And talking to a Corporal or Sergeant as you indicated you did (to get your clever Teflon Don lede) was something like talking to the plumber at City Hall for an understanding of the mayor's new financial policy. As a journalist, criticizing military policy without talking to the military is completely incompetent. But with you, it goes deeper. You hide behind political artifice to lob your mines of pre-conclusion, like a craven wretch. And really, I think that goes to the solid core of the dregs of the problem. You're not a coward merely because you're afraid to seek the truth when it might not conform to your views ... rather your chickenshit views are shaped by the fact you're a coward....
The military has been surprisingly forthcoming with me and all I had to do was ask. Marine Corps Colonel Patrick Malay sat with me on three different occasions, for long discussions about security in his area of operation in Anbar. One thing I learned quickly is that the military's officer corps is filled with the best of America's minds--kids that aced their college entrance exams, were the captains of their ball teams, and had to be nominated by senators to go to the schools they did. These are the guys (along with their much more experienced superiors) that are deciding strategy--and they're fucking smart. I was allowed to sit in on a couple of their high level briefings--again, all I had to do was show some kind of aptitude for objectivity--and I can tell you their comprehension of the situation on the ground is apt, their thinking clever, and their intentions centrally wrapped up with the Iraqi people.At the heart of it all, they're smart enough to be pragmatic. The first thing Malay told me is that we need to drop bullshit Eurocentric pretenses. Iraq is not America, nor even Europe, and it never will be. It will have a democracy, he said, but it will be an Arab one, likely Muslim, and the tribe will be a central component. Realpolitik is at the crux of the Marines' policy. The Corps knows that to win a modern guerrilla conflict, it has to win the hearts and minds of the people. To do that, it needs to clear an area of combatants, hold it (keeping the area clean) and build (i.e. give the people viable options for work and self support)....
The military's policy is designed from the bottom-up on security. The plan is simple--so simple (in theory), it can't fail. Security will bring outside investment, which will thereby enhance existing security, which will bring more investment, further enhancing security, and so on. It's uncomplicated and it's already working. The lynchpin is security. The people of Anbar want it desperately (I lived with these people for most of the past month, and I can't tell you how desperately they want it) and they need it to be able to rebuild. Men like Shaffir (and probably sheik Sadun) can bring that security. They are part of a small cast of men that can take on the military's grand contract (i.e. "I will bring peace") and guarantee delivery.
I'm not saying Shaffir should be Prime Minister. And the Marine brass I talked to didn't think he would be a leader in Anbar, forever. The progression is, in fact, very natural. Security is achieved by men like Shaffir and then, through the democratic process (and ironically, he's the only shot they have at a democratic process in the first place), society can decide to keep him around with his foibles, tell him to clean them up, or just find another leader. First comes the security--and if you want security in a world where the good people are all scarred or dead--you don't hire Alex fucking Keaton.
You hire somebody who can stand up against an enemy that's become the enemy of the people, as Al Quaeda has (the debate over who is and isn't a terrorist is for another time and place). The fact is, men like Shaffir and the sheik you lampooned stood up at a parlous time (for whatever motivations, honorable or venal) and went toe to toe with a baleful brood of characters (foreigners, fanatics, decapitators and the virulently uneducated)--and the people haven't forgotten all that they've given.
Are they criminals? Yes, they are. Should they be scrutinized? Of course. But they're also heroes to many, and widely viewed as the saviors of their small towns and neighborhoods. And, perhaps more importantly, they continue to kill terrorists--men Iraq has listed as Al Quaeda operatives. The fact you, a sniveling coward and ankle-biter hiding preconceived intentions behind putative journalism, are taking pot shots at them appalls me.
Due in part to them, mothers are no longer worried their daughters will be unwillingly pimped out to the unsightly foreign reprobates that came here with criminal networks, in the name of Islam, toting guns and all the vagaries of death. People are building houses (tons of them), sharing chai in neighbor's diwans, and getting down to the brass tacks of figuring out how the hell to rebuild infrastructure that was already neglected and miserably dilapidated before it was bombed to pieces. In a way, Anbar is exactly where it should be upon waking from the nightmare of civil war--fucked up.
The crucial fact is the state of fucked-up is moving in a positive direction and doing it rapidly. Just two years ago, the country's top politicians were worried about making it to work alive. Today, they're setting up anti-corruption networks and guilty politicos are nervously looking over their shoulders, realizing that as the violence drops off, so too does their cover. The people of Anbar are leaving their houses again and the markets are full. I've shopped in them.
The heart of the problem in all of this isn't only with the people of Iraq, it's also with Americans in this age of rapid and uncensored hydra-headed media--and the fact anybody can print anything. The threat there lies in the fact that 80-percent of people in society are grazers (and you can check Chomsky on this, Colonel Malay, or anybody who's served time); non-thinkers that only want to be herded and told what to do. It's those people who read your half-truths online and don't realize you're "independent" for a reason.I'm phobically allergic to the conservative Republican types the military is rife with, but I've only been in country four months and already I hate liberals. There's plenty of ugliness to report in Iraq (as there are thousands of stories of hope and headway)--and the U.S. military certainly isn't beyond reproach. Nobody's telling you to report on one side or the other. But manipulating the truth because of your own personal biases is wretched and works in the face of progress. The other end of the political spectrum disregards you, Dahr, and now I know why. I thought it was because you're a liar--but you aren't. You don't have enough backbone to be a liar. You're a craven obfuscationist, intent on promoting your agenda at the cost of a menagerie of much braver men and women."
