Friday, February 02, 2007
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HamNation: How to Win in Al-Anbar
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Posted by:
Mary Katharine Ham at
4:00 PM
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This is a bit of a tribute in felt. I read the "How to Win in Al-Anbar" Power Point, and I thought it was one of the greatest, simplest explanations you'll ever see of anything that goes on in Iraq-- all of which is pitched and violent and complicated by centuries of tradition and politics.
Since it's a Power Point/pdf, I thought we might make it move a little bit, so Katie and I went to the craft store, and this is what we came up with. I hope you enjoy. It's dedicated, of course, to the memory of Army Capt. Travis Patriquin-- the man who wrote it in the first place, who was killed Dec. 6, 2006 in Iraq. He left behind three young children and a wife, and with this, a glimpse into the mission for which he lost his life:
Hope you like it. Thanks to Justin for editing and Katie for expert felt-placement.
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Every America has the right of Free Speech and you have your rights. I just hope you remember THAT My Son and other Soldies gave theirs Life so you can said things like what you wrote. I don't care who you hate and I don't care if you are against this WAR. Our soldiers are doing a job and you need to respect them for keeping your civil rights. |
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the "T"-word, but I didn't know if the censor would choke on the correct spelling and I really wanted to use the term.
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You all deserve to lose in Iraq. Unfortunately, the rest of us, and most especially our military, would pay the price.
Here's a text version of what should have happened:
Here's Joe. He's an American soldier (notice I said "HE"). He went to Iraq to promote the interests of his country. His country is the United States of America. Iraq, however, is a desert hole filled with Moslems. Moslems are bad people who've been trying to conquer and oppress the world for 1400 years.
See Joe and his 150,000 colleagues. See the massed M1 Abrams main battle tanks. See the A-10 Warthogs flying overhead. See the Apache attack helicopters flying overhead. See the B-52s based in another country, loaded with napalm and other WMDs, in case the Iraqis don't get the message.
See Joe and his colleagues conquer Iraq, starting with the Baghdad airport.
See them kill anything that even looks like it has a gun. See them stand over the Iraqis as the Iraqis are forced to rebuild the infrastructure they let go to heck under Hussein because, unlike the Americans who took on the greatest empire on Earth, they didn't have the testicals to overthrow him. Testicals is a funny word which means moral courage and cultural morality.
See how the Iraqis obey Joe and his colleagues, because disobedience means death and suffering (which they understand, just ask Saddam), and obedience means food, health and prosperity. See Joe explain that this method even works on raising dogs, and if filthy Moslems respected and loved dogs like (decent) Westerners do, they might not have had to be conquered, because that would be at least some clue that they might someday be made into decent people.
See Joe and his colleagues drink beers in downtown Baghdad, safe from IEDs and suicide bombers, because anybody who has tried that in the past 3 years is now dead, along with their family and most of their tribe. See Joe's special unit, go from house to house, pulling out every 10th Iraqi and sticking a bayonette in his belly because some dumb Iraqi from their neighborhood still tried to use an IED. See the rest of the middle-east wet itself with the knowledge that when Joe's done in Iraq, he and his colleagues will be coming to a town near them. See the middle east pacified, and Islam turn into a bad memory. See Joe's kids (back in America) enjoy a bright future where America brought peace to the middle east.
See Joe's kids start teaching the children of the beknighted moslems all about individual liberty and the rule of law.
See the children of the beknighted moslems turn into decent human beings, some of them even becoming Christians, but some of them becoming scientologists anyway. See Joe's kids tolerate the middle-eastern scientologists, because scientologists don't generally call America "the great Satan" and try to kill people who won't Scientologize.
See Captain Patriquin dandle his grandchildren on his knee, because he's still alive, because America went to war in a filthy desert country like Americans, with Americas interests at heart, and to hell with any notion of "good Iraqis", and so Capt Patriquin lived to dandle his grandchildren, instead of some filthy Iraqi moslem living to dandle his.
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There's no doubt that Bremer's initial marginalzation of the Sunnis, compounded by the Fallujah invasion, polarized the entire province of Al Anbar, drove the locals into an unwanted alliance with jihadists, and helped radicalize the insurgency.
Local police and civil representation is the only answer in all of Iraq's regions. Why would the Sunnis accept a Shiite Army, filled with militia death squads, to provide their security? Would you? |
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I showed it to my five and six-year-old sons. My five-year-old said that you deserve five stars for this video! |
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http://www.controlcongress.com
The key problem is the Kurds, Shiite and Sunni want to have their own homeland unless they are in charge of the other groups. This is why the Biden plan has bipartisan support. What do you think?
ACUF-The now outgoing Central Commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, told Congress two months ago that more troops were not the answer for Iraq. He specifically said that he had met personally with all of the commanders in the field and all agreed that more soldiers would not help. An anonymous “Army officer who recently commanded a brigade in Baghdad” told the Washington Post bluntly, “The plan will fail.” The “surge” in forces was too small and it did not accord with Iraqi politics because Prime Minister Nouri “Maliki must protect [Moqtada] al-Sadr,” who heads the largest, most aggressive and anti-U.S. Shiite militia but holds 30 seats supporting Maliki’s coalition government.
Each of the Shiite, Kurd and Sunni factions still believe they can prevail at least in slightly larger homelands and have no reason to be reasonable. Based on efforts in Yugoslavia and Lebanon the State Department types think any decent order would take six to 12 years to impose. The generals want none of this. While supporting an increase in troops, cracking down on death squads and ethnic militia, and imprisoning more insurgents, hawks Bing West and Elliot Cohen put the real problem facing the president well. “The paradox of American strategy in Iraq is this: President Bush can achieve success only by threatening to do something he is morally opposed to doing—leaving swiftly and risking chaotic civil strife. If the president showed the same iron will toward Mr. Maliki that he does toward Congress and public opinion, Mr. Maliki would blink first.”
Donald Devine, the editor of Conservative Battleline Online, was the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management from 1981 to 1985 and is the director of the Federalist Leadership Center at Bellevue University
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If it is your contention that words and pictures on a chalkboard represent actual life, then life is no more meaningful than chalk to that argument.
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Terrorists do suck.
Oh yeah. Jack M. begged me to say he sent me, too. Like Dave said, it wasn't pretty.
I think he's a little mentally deranged. |
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Good HamNation, I have enjoyed them since I started reading your site from a link on Michelle's blog.
I loved the .PPS when I first read it. Was very saddened when the author was killed in Iraq. The writing was a little hard to read in a couple of the frames.
MKH-I was in your hometown this week for my monthly oncologist vist at Duke. I have to go each month and I stay overnight. Can you give me some names of good restaurants relatively close to Duke for take-out(as long as it ain't sushi).
thanks if you can think of any.
Still328
stillawake@ec.rr.com |
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Oh, and Jack M. begged me to tell you he sent me here.
Begged.
Not. Pretty. |
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Would love to see it incorporated with the new operational strategy in Iraq along with denial of enemy resupply by securing the borders with Iraq and Iran/Syria. And you know, considering who was elected to Congress, this presentation is just about at their level understanding. Perhaps you could arrange a showing for them. |
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