So twelve Iraq War veterans penned an editorial in the Washington Post today concisely laying out the case that we should get the hell out of Iraq post haste. All twelve of them are inactive and all twelve of them have the rank of captain. It’s a nice little gimmick, no?
In any case, the fact that they are inactive makes it easier for them to express their opinions. But it also means that they haven’t been in Iraq during the magical surge. And, for the nutosphere, that means they don’t know what they’re talking about.
As many folks have already pointed out, “Only two of the 12 captains had been in Iraq as late as 2006, with the rest all departing in 2005 or before. None of them are currently on active duty.”
…How do they know that the surge is a failure? It seems like they did play wack-a-mole during their time in Iraq, but they are too quick to dismiss the current success as a flawed concept. A lot has changed in Iraq since 2005.
Only one has been in Iraq since 2005, the other 11 all served very early in the war and obviously their experiences would have been largely negative. What would an OpEd from 12 officers currently serving in al Anbar, or Diyala sound like?
…We will be conducting a scaled withdrawal because our plans are coming to fruition and we are winning. And although there will be more US casualties before we win, those will reinforce victory, not be added to the rolls of the defeated…
…I choose Victory!
While I am grateful to their service I think the WaPo readers would be better served by those who have been there since the surge started, since the daily drumbeat of defeat had slowly slipped away from the pages of the MSM…
Unfortunately its the kind of editorials printed by the WaPo that is the dirt which buries our victory. They find 12 Captains who are not even in our military anymore, who have not been to Iraq in years, to write a woe-is-me piece on Iraq and in so doing they do their part to bury the accomplishments by our country’s brightest.
Captain’s Quarters (note the irony in the blog name):
Of the twelve captains that wrote this article, not one of them has served in Iraq since General David Petraeus took over command of the mission. Not one of them served with the higher force levels that have been deployed to Iraq. None of them served during the Anbar Awakening. Most of them last served in 2005, two years ago…
The twelve captains have written an indictment of the effort in Iraq, but the indictment only runs to 2006. It’s incisive and intriguing, but not necessarily determinative to what is happening today.
It’s increasingly clear that there is a segment of the population that will never accept that the war in Iraq is lost, has been lost, and could never have been won with the limited (albeit staggeringly large) effort our nation put into it.
If twelve active duty captains came out tomorrow and said the same thing that these inactive captains said, the nutosphere would attack their patriotism and call them defeatists. They will believe any crap you tell them as long as it reinforces the view that we are making progress. Even the positive news from Iraq is tempered with realism. Look at this interview with 3rd Infantry Division Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman, who has achieved some success in Ramadi.
“Do you think what happened here can happen in Baghdad?” I said.
He sat motionless for a time and considered carefully what I had asked him. It was obvious by the look on his face that he wasn’t particularly optimistic about it.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “One advantage we had here was that the tribes are like small communities, like in rural America. The sheikhs are politically powerful. If we turn them, we turn the people. Urban areas erode tribal affiliation. It’s still there in Baghdad, but it’s weaker. So I don’t know. It did work in the urban parts of Ramadi, though. If we can get it to work in all the provinces in Iraq – and it is working in Diyala Province right now, I know it is – then maybe it can work in Baghdad. It’s hard to say.”
Even under the rosiest interpretations, the commander in the field in Ramadi is not optimistic that his ‘success’ can be translated into Baghdad. Yet, this interview is cited by the nutosphere as evidence that victory is at hand. Sadly, the reality is much different.
Vehicle bombs targeting an Iraqi army patrol in Baghdad and a police station in northern Iraq on Tuesday killed at least 11 people and wounded 105, police said.
While levels of violence in parts of Baghdad and surrounding areas have declined since the U.S. military sent an extra 30,000 troops this year to quell violence, there has been a spate of car bomb attacks on Iraqi police and security forces.
Other headlines:
UN: Private US guards in Iraq part of booming, mercenary-like trend
Oil Rises to Record on Concern Turkey May Attack Northern Iraq
US works on alternative to Turkey supply route to Iraq
Shi’ite tribal leaders in Iraq say Islamism on rise
Victory is not at hand. Wake up.
