The New Editor - War in Iraq

Iraq: Good News Is No News

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:03:00 -0700

Preoccupied as it was poring over Tom Daschle's tax returns, Washington hardly noticed a near-miracle abroad. Iraq held provincial elections. There was no Election Day violence. Security was handled by Iraqi forces with little U.S. involvement. A fabulous bazaar of 14,400 candidates representing 400 parties participated, yielding results highly favorable to both Iraq and the United States.
...

Iraq moved away from religious sectarianism toward more secular nationalism. "All the parties that had the words 'Islamic' or 'Arab' in their names lost," noted Middle East expert Amir Taheri. "By contrast, all those that had the words 'Iraq' or 'Iraqi' gained."
...

All this barely pierced the consciousness of official Washington. After all, it fundamentally contradicts the general establishment/media narrative of Iraq as "fiasco."

Letter from Iraq

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:03:00 -0700

From my friend Tom Pritchard, who is serving in Iraq with the Army:

Dear gang,

Happy belated New Year. I hope it finds us all well, even in these crazy times. It certainly is hard to believe that a year has nearly passed since I left for Iraq. Time, as always, has played it's tricks on me. As I look back on it, it seems like yesterday when we left but there are instances that seem long ago too. How can that be?

It looks like they are not going to keep us here the full 15 months like we were told from the onset. In fact, god willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be home in a month. Damn, those words feel good to type. The FOB has been slowly closing things here. A lot of the shops and stuff are gone and the computer lab and gym will be closing in a few days. No more treadmill running for this guy for awhile. I have still been keeping up with it, running about 25 miles a week or so. Good times. The Niz and I might try to do the half marathon in Waco in March. I haven't quite committed yet, but like to think I could do it.

Things have been quiet lately. We have been living on the FOB since December, which I have mentioned before. That has been really awesome. We still go out and conduct missions on a daily basis, but they haven't amounted to much in the past few weeks. Often the Iraqi Army goes with us and they pretty much handle it. Recently we helped keep a polling site secure during their election. Lots of boring time spent waiting around. Considering that America is imperfect and our elected officials don't much get along or agree on anything, this after a couple hundred years of practice, I wonder how democracy will find the fine folks of Iraq. Good luck ... you'll need it. By the way, there were over 14,000 - that's right 14 k - names on the last ballot. WTF? Go figure.

Had an awesome time watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl. My parents are from Pittsburgh and I have followed the Steelers closely since I was a kid. Needless to say, I was the happiest guy in the room and a bit richer in the wallet too! It too me 2 days for my voice to recover. Now if the Cubs could get it together that would make for the best sports year ever!

Congrats to my wife Ann on the sale of her first cake. Good job Ann, I'm proud of you!

Wished there were more to write about. But as the old adage says, no news is good news. Look forward to writing the next time. Perhaps it will be from Kuwait!

Live well and GO CUBS , Tommy

What He Said: Calling Out Mahdi Sympathizers in Iraqi Police

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:02:00 -0700

Suppose there had not been an Iraq War

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:02:00 -0700

Don Surber:

Suppose there had been no war in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein would still be in charge. Abu Ghraib would still exist. Instead of placing hoods on inmates and making them stand on chairs and otherwise humiliating them, as a few disgraced troops did, inmates would be tortured, bodies mutilated and people executed by Hussein's henchmen.

Headless torsos would still be thrown on lawns in the dead of night, the Hussein equivalent of burning a cross.... Hussein's insane sons, Oday and Qusay, would still be alive. Women would still be raped on their wedding days. Olympic teams would still be physically punished for losing a game.
...

Crooks would still be trading oil for bribes under the Oil for Food program operated by the United Nations. Billions would still be going into the wrong hands. And those German contractors would still be building bunkers for Hussein.
...

To insist today that we should never have gone to Iraq is to say that Iraq should be like North Korea. That is stubborn, that is ignorant, and that is not liberal.

Read the whole piece.

Baghdad: Then and Now

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:03:00 -0700

'The War is Over, and We Won...'

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:11:00 -0700

Glenn Reynolds writes:

"THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON": Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. toops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.

He says the big problem everybody is talking about now is corruption. But hey, we have that here, too. He'll be heading to Afghanistan next week. "Afghanistan is a bad situation, but on Iraq I can't believe things have turned out so well."

He thinks that Obama will be able to pull troops out, and send some to Afghanistan, without creating problems in Iraq. Michael will be reporting from Afghanistan soon, and sending back video, so stay tuned. Things aren't going swimmingly there.

How The Surge Worked

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:03:00 -0600

Peter Mansoor:

Given the divisive debate over the Iraq war, perhaps it was inevitable that the accomplishments of the recently concluded "surge" would become shrouded in the fog of 30-second sound bites. Too often we hear that the dramatic security improvement in Iraq is due not to the surge but to other, unrelated factors and that the positive developments of the past 18 months have been merely a coincidence.

To realize how misleading these assertions are, one must understand that the "surge" was more than an infusion of reinforcements into Iraq.

That Was Counterterrorism, Senator

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:03:00 -0600

Ahem...

Is the War Over?

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:04:00 -0600

Michael Totten:

What most of us still think of as âwarâ in Iraq is, at this point, a rough and unfinished peacekeeping mission. Whether it is officially over or not, it has certainly been downgraded to something else, and itâs about time more analysts and observers are willing to say so.

About 1,200 Troops Re-Enlist in Baghdad on Independence Day

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:27:39 -0600

(via Hot Air)

This re-enlistment ceremony is being called by some 'the largest in US history.'

Obamaâs Iraq Problem

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:03:00 -0600

The New Yorker's George Packer:

... as exhausted as the public is with the war, a candidate who seems heedless of progress in Iraq will be vulnerable to the charge of defeatism, which John McCainâs campaign will connect to its broader theme of Obamaâs inexperience in and weakness on national security. The relative success of the surge is one of the few issues going McCainâs way; weâll be hearing about it more and more between now and November, and it might sway some centrist voters who have doubts about Obama.

Al Qaeda on the Run

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:03:00 -0600

A Wall Street Journal editorial explains why.

A Lighter Moment from Iraq

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:42:00 -0600

An excerpt from a letter from my friend Tommy Pritchard, currently serving with the US Army in the Baghdad area:

I have both a funny and embarrassing story to relate. The other night we were manning a road in the middle of the night. The gunner in our vehicle sits right behind and above me and the other front seat. The air conditioning vent is right above my head. Well, I start to get a spray of water on my head and I think that maybe there is some condensation from the vent misting me. Then I ask the gunner, V, what he is doing. He replied that he was peeing in a bottle. Well, sort of at least.

Now, I have worked as a gunner and have had to pee into a bottle before while manning the machine gun. However I don't recall having had this issue before. Anyhow, V was able to adjust his fire before I got too much. As you can guess I was not real happy about the situation. The other guys found it to be quite funny, as I would have if not the recipient. The next day I was able to pay the favor in return with a number of well placed shots to the lower ribs of V. We called it even.

Despite his inaccurate peeing, V is a great kid. He wants to be the governor of Kansas someday. I told him he had my vote, but might reconsider after this deal. Hopefully next time he'll ask to have someone switch out for him for a second. The guys probably won't help too much though -- more fun that way.

Letter From Iraq

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:05:00 -0600

My friend Tom Pritchard, now on his second tour in Iraq, is stationed with the US Army in the Baghdad area, and recently sent this letter to a group of friends and family shortly after his arrival there:

Dear Gang,

After my last email my friend JA sent me an interesting and valid question. Basically he said that he is sick of the negativity the coverage of Iraq gets in the media and was wondering what progress or good stories I could relate from my experiences. During my guard shift I had time to consider this slippery slope. Well, the answer to this brief question is a both long and short. I'll start with the short.

In the area that we are assigned, I would say that the things I find encouraging are: kids are going to school and walk to and fro freely, the markets here are always busy - (they are outdoors type, kind of Oakbrook Mall meets Maxwell Street), the major roads that run through here are very busy - (they would give the Dan Ryan and Eisenhower a run for their money during rush hour) and lastly the Iraqi Police show up to work regularly - (how effectively to be determined). Now these things I would consider positive, yet sustains, not so much as progress. It might not seem much, but it is my understanding that when neighborhoods go south schools and markets become ghost towns quickly. People are literally scared to go outside. It will be a little time before we are able to develop a better understanding of the area in which we work to identify some of the issues that we can help with. This seemingly simple task can be easier said than done. So to make an evaluation on progress is premature of me at this time.

In a larger sense though, regardless of what happens on a grassroots level I will experience, the real progress of Iraq will be determined by its leaders and moreover its citizens. I use our own country as an example. We had to fight to establish our country. Less than 100 years later we had to fight to maintain our country. Less than 100 years after that we had to fight 2 wars to preserve both ours and others freedom. Yet 20 years after the end of WWII we were still figuring out how to give all of our citizens their freedom. And even today you can't get a Democrat and Republican to agree upon what time it is much less issues of importance. What does this have to do with the situation in Iraq?

If you consider the complicated nature of Iraqi culture and society, the problems and issues that have existed for hundreds and hundreds of years, the transition to a democratic government will not be without its own unique problems. This place will probably always have a violent nature to it, especially when it comes to solving problems amongst Sunni and Shia. I believe it naive to think that would change in our lifetime. The fact that the golden goose has been laid upon their table and what kind of country they want to have is entirely dependent upon the sacrifices the Iraqi people are willing to make.

The fact that a vast majority of people here live in third world conditions does not help matters much. Clean water, electricity, education and jobs are all rudiments that lack in the area that we are in. I would consider it a major success if any of these things improve over the time we are here. I consider myself a realist more than an optimist. I will keep an open mind to things I experience and see and relay both the good and the bad as best I can.

As always, live well and GO CUBS! - T

Is Gen. Petraeus Garnering a Place in History?

tpelia@yahoo.com (Tom Elia) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:03:00 -0600

Ken Allard:

In military history, the turn-around David Petraeus has commanded in Iraq rivals MacArthur's surprise landing at Inchon. For awhile, that master-stroke reversed the rising Chinese tide in the Korean conflict, although eventually it could only underline certain eternal questions in war. How do you deal with an enemy who can learn lessons? And how do you judge when the next objective might be a bridge too far?

An earlier and more attentive generation might have idolized Petraeus. This one barely grasps his victory and has no idea who he is. The Pew Research Center reports that 55 percent of the public cannot even recognize his name â roughly the same percentage as those who wish the war would just fade away.