 On Point Vincent Carroll, editor of the editorial pages, writes his On Point column most weekdays. He is also an author and freelance writer. Reach Vincent Carroll at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com. |
Carroll: A 9/11 call from Iraq
It’s not often you get a call from Fallujah, Iraq, on the anniversary of 9/11. So when the switchboard asked if I would talk to Marine Col. Steve Ward, who was on another line claiming he knew me, I said of course.
The link on the Defense System Network crackled a bit as Ward spoke, but he was clearly feeling pretty good after his first few weeks in Iraq, having returned to active duty only last month.
“Progress in Anbar is probably better than even the press is portraying it,” he told me, “and the press has been doing a pretty good job” in recounting how the Sunni tribes there have turned on al-Qaida with the help of U.S. troops.
Specifically, he said, the security situation and the cooperation between the Sunnis and Americans are basis for hope.
Meanwhile, Ward is so taken with the quality of the leadership on the ground that he began quoting T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) — something to the effect that generals need to know about something other than how to fight. “We’ve got a lot of generals who know how to do something other than fight,” he said, and then singled out Brig. Gen. John Allen, whom The Wall Street Journal described as “a brainy and slightly built Marine” who is “one of the driving forces behind the strategy in al Anbar.”
As a plus, said the 47-year-old Ward, “There’s a certain relaxed intensity with the Marines these days. The b---s--- is gone.”
I’ve know Ward for many years, and had asked him to stay in touch after he left Denver. But when I told him I might recount the phone call in a column, he had one request: that I not mention his political position lest some readers get the wrong idea. Impossible, I told him — he’s a state senator (Republican, Littleton) and it would be weird to let that go unsaid. He relented.
So for the record: Ward is not one to flaunt his military rank as a political calling card. The Marines are too important to him to cheapen his service in that way.
Lessons from Anbar
For all the progress in Anbar province, it remains far from clear where it will eventually lead. That same Journal article that heaps praise on Gen. Allen explained how tribal loyalty is nourished with American money — lots of it. At one point the reporter describes how a sheik “reached out a hand and placed it on Gen. Allen’s knee. ‘This is my government,’ he said proudly.
“Gen. Allen sighed. ‘Unfortunately, that is the problem,’ he said.”
No less worrisome, according to the Journal, “With the threat of al-Qaida now gone from their area, many of the Anbari sheiks have begun to jockey with each other for power and influence. More ominously, some tribal leaders, including Sheik Heiss, complain that their real enemy now isn’t al-Qaida, but a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad — the government the U.S. is trying to build up.”
In short, Anbar province is a piece of evidence for the arsenals of both optimists and pessimists on Iraq. It’s a sign of U.S. military progress and thus Exhibit A for optimists who insist we must maintain the effort; but pessimists might reasonably counter that even Anbar exemplifies the continuing inability of Iraqi factions to set aside their differences.
Columnist David Brooks in Tuesday’s New York Times argues that given these parallel realities — military progress but enduring sectarian distrust — “America’s best course is not to reunify Iraq, but simply to inhibit the violence as Iraqis feel their own way to partition.”
It’s not the vision President Bush stubbornly promotes, but it’s still a heck of a lot more appealing than, in Brooks’ words, a “cataclysmic civil war” followed perhaps by reversion to rule by a genocidal strong man.
Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.
Ritter had help from the Unions to get elected so give him a break. It is not about what is right for the State employeees or Colorado taxpayers... it is about pay back to the Unions.
Duh!
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003638490&imw=Y
just a reminder
Posted by jay on September 12, 2007 12:01 PMIt`s truely amazen how the surrender monkeys can not admit that Bush is right, the world is a better place every time terrorists die!
Posted by Carl D. Nassif on September 12, 2007 11:05 PMIt`s truely amazen how the surrender monkeys can not admit that Bush is right, the world is a better place every time terrorists die!
Posted by Carl D. Nassif on September 12, 2007 11:05 PMIt`s truely amazen how the surrender monkeys can not admit that Bush is right, the world is a better place every time terrorists die!
Posted by Carl D. Nassif on September 12, 2007 11:05 PMWhat is truly amazing is that no Americans other than those who volunteer for military duty, I repeat no Americans have been asked to sacrifice one thing for this war. If this is the fight of our lives, if is the fight to save Iraq, to save the Middle East, to save America from terrorists, why are we not being asked to sacrifice one thing? Let us remember also that as Bush prepares to sell the war yet once again tonight in his television address, troop reductions will not be bringing the troop level down to what is was BEFORE the surge. This is not a bonafide troop reduction. Is this nation really prepared to be in Iraq and sacrifice hundreds of more American lives indefinitely? Sacrifices? How about raising taxes to pay for the war? How about instituting the draft so we are not repeatedly deploying the same military personnel over and over? How about raising taxes to pay for the thousands of injuries that have been inflicted on countless military personnel? How about allowing more Iraqi refugees into this country? So far there has only been a smitten of Iraqis allowed to come to this country.
Posted by JJ on September 13, 2007 08:20 PM