War As They Saw It

image credit: U.S. Army

[Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division conduct operations in Al Haymer, Aug. 6, 2007]



Via Juan Cole, I read an interesting article today in the New York Times by seven American enlisted men from the 82nd Airborne Division. It mentions many of the problems that critics of the war have noted. Juan Cole wrote that when he read this article, it sounded like the Iraq he'd come to know through Arabic-language newspapers and broadcasts. For my part, it sounds like the Iraq I've come to know from reading Cole, Patrick Lang, and other realists, and from the statistics I've seen on the civilian deaths and displacements. I especially appreciated this reference to the grandstanding nonsense of John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and others:

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

The War As We Saw It

That's the idiocy of this thing in a nutshell. The news organizations in this country seldom look at things from the perspective of the Iraqis. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that if they did Americans would realize just how ridiculous our efforts there have become. What we're doing now is counterproductive both for Iraq's interests and our own. The longer we're there, the more the killing will go on, and the more they'll hate us for it.

Give the article a read. It's an antidote to all the nonsense spouted by the Administration and their numerous shills and apologists in the news. One of the soldiers, Jeremy Murphy, was wounded before the article was published and was being flown to the United States as the article was being finished. These guys are seeing the results of our policy closeup, and they're living with the consequences.

In recent discussions of the draft, I've seen many implications that the people who are in the Army are somehow less well-educated than average. I've stated, here and elsewhere, that this is not the case, based on both my own experience and studies conducted by various organizations. The soldiers who wrote this article are clearly smarter than the people who are running this country, and most of the folks who shill for them or support them.