This Salon recap of an Op-Ed originally published in the NY Times on Aug. 19 by seven active-duty U.S. soldiers. Two of its authors have since died and one was shot in the head and wounded. Besides being written by active duty soldiers in Iraq, the piece is also noteworthy for how it cuts to the core of the issues the campaign in that country has faced for the past five years and offers solemn conclusions for the future.
Among the "highlights" are:
- Reports that Iraq police and military details have, in many cases, been corrupted, and either allow acts of violence occur against U.S. personnel, or even actively support those actions.
- We are arming Sunni militias who, it is feared, will challenge the Shiite-dominated government for control, in the vacuum that will be the U.S. pull-out.
- Recent assessments of improved conditions in Iraq have been made by the mis-informed and do not represent reality for most Iraq's who have been living in constant chaos and fear for 5 years now.
The biggest failing of our "leaders", however, remains the fact that they looked at the invasion of Iraq and deposing of Saddam Husein's as the end state of this mission without having any plan in place for what happens next. Several costly mistakes pointed out in the article need to be reversed but the largest error, hearkens to my last post - but requires actual action:
At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.
For whatever reason I was not motivated to post yesterday. I wanted to post, but I couldn't get myself to do it. What I wanted to do was to post a positive story about Arabs and/or Arab Americans and make that sort of a tradition on this anniversary, here at Alt Text.
When this idea was conceived I was thinking in these specific terms but wanted to change the way people thought of this day - a day now linked to a war that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or making us safer. I wasn't looking to start a meme or actively market my idea, just post some positive news.
Reading Seth Godin's site today I came across his post about how we can market our way closer to an end to terrorism. In the post Seth writes how you cannot beat terrorism with guns and prisons - those consequences do little to affect the terrorist's mind and could do even more to fuel the creation of new terrorists. After all, terrorists are just people who subscribe to a particular idea - an idea that America and the West are immoral - heathens that are bent on destroying their culture and robbing them with the resources.
For all I know, we may never be able to eliminate terrorism and animosity towards us (especially as we are sitting atop the world in terms of wealth and consumption). But what we can do is try to create another idea that can combat those to which the terrorists subscribe.
We have not been very successful invading and bombing our way to changing minds but we do know how to market our ideas. The problem right now is that somewhere along the line, our leaders decided that the time for crafting this sort of idea, had passed and they have been busy reinforcing the old ideas that terrorists have of us.
We are already at a place in time where many people are fearful of expressing racist thoughts and that may eventually give way to the idea of racism finally disappearing. In the same way, maybe some day, the idea of attacking innocents as a means of affecting change an the idea that the Western countries only want to hold down and plunder the rest of the world may seem crazy. Unfortunately, for now, there are far too many people willing to do participate in the former and far too much truth to the latter. Even powerfully crafted and marketed ideas need to eventually mirror reality.
