Joe Klein Is Shrill!

Good to see!

READ THIS NOW! - Swampland - TIME: This is the most accurate and courageous--the authors are all non-commissioned officers--account of the war in Iraq that I've seen. It puts to shame--and shame is the appropriate word--all the Kristol, McCain, Lieberman, Pollack and O'Hanlon etc etc cheerleading of the past two months. I'll have more to say about the road out of Iraq in my print column this week.

---

Here is what he is talking about:

The War as We Saw It: By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY Baghdad:

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

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.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Comments

[Ian Maitland]

Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?I know some of the press has left no stone unturned in Iraq trying to find some G.I.s to parrot its line on Iraq. It has tirelessly dangled the reward of instant celebrity before their eyes. Scott Thomas Beauchamp blew up in their faces, but that hasn't stopped them.
Now they have located some live NCO's who may actually agree with them. So they canonize these men, trumpet their views, and then they have the chutzpah to tell us these men's views of the war are accurate and courageous ("accurate" in Klein's lexicon seems to mean no more than "they agree with Joe")
The big story is the one Klein suppresses -- these views seem to be so rare among our forces in Iraq.
Klein's journalistic ethics stink.

[anne]

There are comments thyat are so cruel so devoid of morality that they are scarcely to be believed. We have such a comment. Imagine a group of courageous soldiers would teach us of what war is, and we would go on to mock them. What have we become?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force....

[anne]

We are passing through an insanely tragic needless military occupation following on as needless a war, but after 4 1/2 years of thousands of American deaths, tens of thousands of physical casualties, tens of thousands of psychological casualties, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, countless wounded, millions displaced, 2 trillion dollars wasted on resulting destruction, there is a mockery of soldiers who would help us understand the tragedy.

Where is shame?

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

Where is shame; where is conscience?

"In the course of writing this article ... one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a 'time-sensitive target acquisition mission' on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States."

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

Where is shame; where is the slightest conscience?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9903EED9163EF930A15756C0A9629C8B63

The Hawks on Iraq, And My Lost Son

To the Editor:

In ''The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts,'' you note that the shapers of thoughts and architects of the war now have troubling doubts about their enthusiastic support of the invasion of Iraq. How sad for them.

I am the mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker of the Pennsylvania National Guard, soldier 720. That number is seared on my soul now, along with the screams and despair of my family and the wind carrying the sound of taps above the weeping crowd at the grave site of my son.

To me and mine, the consequences of the failed judgment and outright lies of the Bush administration and its apologists and spokesmen are not just becoming ''depressed'' or ''angst-ridden.'' We have lost our brave and beloved son, who was ordered to the war these folks dreamed of and hoped for.

The explosion that killed my son in Baghdad will go on in our lives forever. Sherwood gave the full measure of his responsibility as an American citizen doing his duty for an administration that betrayed him.

CELESTE ZAPPALA
Philadelphia, May 17, 2004

[anne]

Sgt. Sherwood Baker was killed as part of a detachment looking for mass destructive weapons when the Security Council had been well and publicly informed before the war that there was no finding of mass destructive waapons in Iraq.

Always those who would stand for peace when war is needless insanity, even those soldiers who would stand for peace, are to be mocked.

Where is shame?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html

August 19, 2007

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force....

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/04/opinion/04BROO.html?ex=1383282000&en=a52dd59eac5f7517&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

November 4, 2003

A Burden Too Heavy to Put Down
By DAVID BROOKS

It's not that we can't accept casualties. History shows that Americans are willing to make sacrifices. The real doubts come when we see ourselves inflicting them. What will happen to the national mood when the news programs start broadcasting images of the brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt? Inevitably, there will be atrocities that will cause many good-hearted people to defect from the cause. They will be tempted to have us retreat into the paradise of our own innocence....

[Really]

Ian claimes, above:

"The big story is the one Klein suppresses -- these views seem to be so rare among our forces in Iraq. "

Why do you think that? Just, you know, curious.

[anne]

Notice the understanding and sensitivity and dignity of these infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division and the corresponding terrifying lack of understanding in an omnipresent opinion leader. Here we find the continual thrust to war's insanity, that we have been subjected to.

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

Why is it that a sense of what war in Iraq is has been almost impossible to gain, so impossible that American photographers must sign an agreement not to photograph a wounded soldier with having gained the written permission of the soldier in advance?

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=10871

May 14, 2007

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1st Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, 27, of Walpole, Mass., died May 13 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat patrol operations in Salah Ad Din Province, Iraq. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/us/16prof.html?ex=1336968000&en=cdac003ebaa879c2&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

May 16, 2007

Former Soldier, Now a Professor, Loses His Only Son to a War He Actively Opposed
By PAM BELLUCK

BOSTON — The father, a longtime military man, from West Point to Vietnam to the first Persian Gulf war, became an early public critic of the war in Iraq, writing frequently and potently about its causes and effects.

But when his only son joined the Army and was sent to fight in that war, the father, Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, expressed only support, said a family member and colleagues.

"My father, he was first and foremost a father to his son," said Jennifer Bacevich, one of Professor Bacevich's three daughters. "They loved each other very much."

On Sunday, two soldiers came to Professor Bacevich's home in Walpole, Mass., with the kind of news that a military man knows is always possible: First Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, 27, the son, had been killed by a bomb while on patrol in Balad, Iraq.

"My father," Ms. Bacevich said in an interview on Tuesday, "is heartbroken."

Michael T. Corgan, an associate professor in Boston University's department of international relations, who also has a military background, said Professor Bacevich knew the risks his son was taking.

"Having been in combat himself, he knows the amount of chance involved," Professor Corgan said, "that no matter how careful you are, no matter how well prepared you are, bad things happen."

"But what can you say to somebody who's lost his only son in Iraq?" Professor Corgan said. "What makes it hard is we all know how Andy feels about this war." ...

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/nyregion/03soldier.html?ex=1304308800&en=52ca90fc0782f48b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

May 3, 2006

A Sergeant's Death in Iraq Follows His Fiancée's
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

Jose Gomez knew the loss of war. In 2003, his fiancée, Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez, an Army private, died in a roadside bombing in Tikrit, Iraq. So when he was ordered to Iraq for a second tour last July, this time as a reserve officer, he decided to spare his mother by not telling her.

Instead, Sergeant Gomez, 23, invented a detailed ruse that he was studying accounting and economics two days a week at a college in Texas and working. He made regular Saturday phone calls to his mother, Maria Gomez, of Corona, Queens, and insisted on being the one to place the call. When Mrs. Gomez dialed the number and found it disconnected, he gently brushed her off, reminding her that he would call her.

Then a bank statement arrived at Mrs. Gomez's home, showing Army paychecks deposited to Sergeant Gomez's account.

"You've been in the Army these eight months," Mrs. Gomez told her son.

"No, no, I'm not," Sergeant Gomez insisted.

There was no call last Saturday. On Friday, two officers and an English-Spanish translator came to tell her that her son was killed that day in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

"He never wanted me to be hurt," Mrs. Gomez, a petite woman in jeans and a turquoise sweater, recalled yesterday, sitting on a settee in her small living room on 104th Street, made smaller by the presence of a pack of reporters pressing her for details of her son.

Her eyes moistened when she spoke of him, but when she spoke of his deception, she glowed with tenderness and said that her son would go to any lengths for her.

"He was saving money to buy his mother a house; that was his main goal," said Felix Jimenez, Sergeant Gomez's stepfather.

On a side chair sat Marie Canario, 21, wearing the diamond engagement ring Sergeant Gomez gave her at Christmas. He had waited until the last moment before leaving in August to tell her he was going to Iraq. "I was upset, crying," Ms. Canario recalled.

"Don't worry," Sergeant Gomez told her before he left, she said. "You act like I'm not coming back."

"I don't think he wanted to go back," she said yesterday. "He said he didn't want to go." ...

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Anne,

It is not true that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Iraq had helicopters equipped with spray nozzles and loaded with lethal chemicals. These weapons had been used -- against Iranian troops, a war crime, during the Iraq-Iran war, and against civilians, including the 5,000 Kurds killed at Halabja.

5,000 dead in one day qualifies as mass destruction in my book.

Of course Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld knew about the existence of these weapons: they were the ones who supplied them to Saddam Hussein.

It naturally follows that they are the ones who should be tried -- as we tried the war criminals at Nuremberg -- for their part in Saddam's crimes.

[anne]

There were however no mass destructive weapons in Iraq before the war. There were intrusive inspections underway, inspections that repeated showed there were no mass destructive weapons in Iraq in 2002 and the beginning of 2003. We were not threatened by Iraq, Britain was not threatened, there was no need for war and less need for a military occupation.

Nonetheless, we have Tony Blair blathering about Iraq being able to deliver mass destructive weapons in mere minutes, even to the very minute. We have analysts writing for Foreign Affairs worried about war only in so far as Iraq would use the fearsome waepons Iraqis did not have. We have mushroom cloud imagery from an Administration beyond reading contradicting public reports delivered to the Security Council by the International Atonomic Energy Agency.

[howard]

Ian, i am trying to make any sense out of your remarks, but i can't. in fact, i at first assumed you were satirizing a right-wing blowhard, but apparently not.

and the giveaway is the notion of scott thomas "blowing up" in anyone's face, the kind of incoherent comment one sees all the time in the right-wing parallel universe.

i want the soldiers properly armed, trained, rested, and treated, but i don't want them determining policy, pro or con, so this article made very little difference to me other than to acknowledge the bravery of the co-authors to write it when the ian maitlands of the world lie in waiting to punish deviations from the party line.

[Q the Enchanter]

Ian Maitland, if the media are trying to push some "line on Iraq," then why is it they "matter-of-factly" report that "G.I.s have expressed can-do attitudes and pride in what they are doing in Iraq"? Strange thing to do did they want to push some sort of one-sided, defeatist narrative about the war, don't you think?

In any case, even though troops are *trained* to be "can-do" and proud, I would say it strains credulity to suppose that out of the 150,000 troops over in Iraq, the number of those who are currently less than gung-ho about our prospects there doesn't range at least into the thousands. If so, and given the stipulated paucity of conspicuous reporting about such perspectives among the grunts on the street, what does that say about the "line" the media are pushing?

[jeff hoffman]

Mr. Maitland, The opinions of the authors can be fairly judged to reflect those of their ranks if polls of troops are correct. In 2006 a Zogby poll of reserve, marine and national guard troops had all three in the majority favoring withdrawal within a year, and more recent polls cited in articles that I couldn't pull up on Google in the short time frame I have here have the troops paralleling our civilian population in the 30's percentile favoring our involvement over there. Do you have other numbers supporting your anecdotal impressions? The problem with this article is that it is a small sampling of a larger group and can be matched by a small sampling from a smaller group. Doubtless there are 6 members of the minority view who will reposte their counterarguments, and get lots of airplay from the far right wing whether their efforts makes it to press or not. They will both be judged anecdotal by their detractors, of which you have labeled yourself with your comments.

[christofay]

Hillary is a war supporter.

Why is it not allowed to question why a war supporter's child is not over there?

Are we all yellow elephants?

[Hal]

Ian, you are the one who is way off base. The war was started with LIES and has been a DISASTER. Those of you who attempt to defend it by attacking those who expose its stupidity are the ones who are abusing our good sense. It is quite rich for you to talk about "manipulation" when that is what got us into this mess. The media parroted the Pentagon "line" in the run up to the war. Now some parts of it have the courage to tell the truth. And you attack them for that. Disgusting.

[Hal]

"Compared with, say, Vietnam, isn't the lack of dissent in the ranks deafening?"

No, the Iraq war is being fought with a mercenary army, people who volunteered to fight. People as a whole who are not in a position to bitch about their decision. Vietnam was fought by draftees who had every reason and right to scream about what had been done to them. The fact that you don't get the difference says a lot about your mentality.

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/opinion/l03iraq.html

Is It Time to Leave Iraq?

To the Editor:

"Empty Words on Iraq":

My son, a 19-year-old American marine, is scheduled to be sent on the "deadly fool's errand" to Iraq in September. I live with constant fear that he, too, will be pointlessly injured, maimed or killed in this "obvious quagmire."

Unspeakable horrors, as in the town of Haditha, are creating victims of both innocent Iraqis and young Americans being exploited for their patriotic ideals by leaders who support the war but don't, in fact, support the troops.

I have opposed the war since its beginning. Now, three years on, with my own son's participation in it looming, I'm living the ultimate nightmare where I'm screaming and no one — but no one — is listening.

Donna J. Anton
Hayle, England, June 2, 2006

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/opinion/l18iraq.html

The Relentless Tragedy Called Iraq

To the Editor:

"Insurgent Bombs Directed at G.I.'s Increase in Iraq":

I can't help but compare your headline with President Bush's bizarre remarks on Wednesday: "There's some good people in our country who believe we should cut and run. They're not bad people when they say that, they're decent people":

"President Joins in G.O.P. Attacks on Democrats About Terrorism."

You better believe I'm a decent person — and a decent mother whose 19-year-old United States Marine son is being deployed to Iraq next month to face a deadly, targeted anti-American insurgency that has nothing to do with the "war on terror."

Why should my son, or any other mother's son, be sacrificed in a mounting civil war because it's not politically advantageous for the Bush administration to admit that its Iraq policy has failed?

My decency is suffused with bitterness.

Donna J. Anton
Hayle, England, Aug. 17, 2006

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/opinion/l10iraq.html

This Time, a True Strategy for Iraq?

To the Editor:

"Quagmire of the Vanities":

Paul Krugman is right: gambling on the Iraq war is much easier "when the lives at stake are those of other people's children." Except that it is my son, a 20-year-old United States marine stationed in Falluja, whose life is being gambled with.

It is my son whose blood may yet protect the egos of men who won't admit that they were wrong. And it is my son whose 3,000-plus comrades-in-service have already paid the ultimate price for fighting another nation's civil war.

After four years of pointless, fruitless, uninstigated combat, if President Bush indeed escalates the "sacrifice" of other parents' beloved children — against all reason, against the will of the electorate and without any personal sacrifice to call his own — it would not be vanity. It is called tyranny.

Donna J. Anton
Hayle, England, Jan. 8, 2007

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/opinion/l12herbert.html

Is This 'Supporting the Troops'?

To the Editor:

My 20-year-old son is nearing the end of his first deployment to Iraq with the United States Marines. Only a few days ago, we learned that he received a commendation for initiative and bravery for pulling wounded and dead Iraqi soldiers out of a bus hit by a roadside bomb during a recent midnight convoy.

Specifically, he was recognized for "tirelessly moving multiple wounded Iraqis to the casualty collection point and loading them on the medivac helicopters ... and also volunteering to help collect the dead and ensuring that they were evaluated."

It's bad enough that my son is risking his life fighting a war that was waged on lies and deception. How infinitely more galling it is to realize that his value to the Bush administration wouldn't even merit decent care at Walter Reed if he were wounded or disabled.

Bob Herbert is right about the troops being shortchanged: it's something I never thought that America would do either.

My son has been commended for extending a degree of professionalism, respect and devotion to duty in aiding wounded Iraqi soldiers that the United States government doesn't extend to its own troops.

The horror, the horror.

Donna J. Anton
Hayle, England, March 8, 2007

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/opinion/l10iraq.html

Leaving Iraq: Voices in Response to a Clarion Call

To the Editor:

As the mother of an active-duty United States marine, I am conflicted by your editorial. While I applaud your bold stance — "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq" — it is clearly too little, too late.

You admit to putting off this conclusion, hoping against hope that the feckless George W. Bush would have the vision or means to pull off a miracle in Iraq, while much of your reality-based readership foresaw the disaster, having already discounted the war-mongering propaganda well before the ill-fated invasion four years ago.

My son is scheduled to return to the lost cause of Iraq next February. It will take much more than a lengthy editorial in The Times to bring the troops home by then, or any time in the foreseeable future. Lives, limbs and treasure will continue to be lost and spent in this endless quagmire, this nightmare of Kafkaesque proportions.

Donna J. Anton
Hayle, England, July 8, 2007

[corvid]

Re what the first commenter said about Scott Thomas Beauchamp: He did not "blow up." In fact, his TNR diarist entries have been checked and verified. And, if one has any critical faculties at all, one has to wonder why the military is trying to bottle him up.
.

[Larry]

Ian, what is telling about the media with respect to the soldiers' recent NYT Op-Ed, is that it has gotten very little mention at all, save for the medium we are participating in now (Internet blogs). The soldiers in question lived the war first hand. On the other hand The Pollack and O'Hanlon Op-Ed touting that the "surge is working" was given widespread coverage in the mass media (television and print). Of course Pollack and O'Hanlon's learned opinions were formed after being exposed to eight days of dog and pony shows meeting with military and civilian officials in Iraq.

[rea]

Ian Maitland, you have a peculiar notion of evidence. Faced with a succession of soliders who tell you that things are going terribly wrong in Iraq, you conclude that something is wrong--not with what's happening in Iraq, but with the soldiers. Your a priori expectations are not a sensible test of the validity of the evidence you have about Iraq.

[jeff hoffman]

Ian: What poll are you referring to in regard to what most troops think about their mission? I've now spent a few minutes scouring the web for any data to support that statement and I can't find any. Please reconstruct how you arrived at that conclusion. Also your conclusion that the (7) soldiers' testimony seemed based "less on their direct experience than on the same media reports..."; with what aspects of their individual or collective experience are you so familiar as to infer that?

[jeff hoffman]

Ian, Ian, Ian! "those soldiers didn't think they were getting the support at home that they deserved." For God's sake, man, do you just make this stuff up randomly as you go along? Completely bizarre.

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

The reason for the feeling of being used is an abject dread of allowing the slightest criticism of a needless insane war and occupation, no matter the cost.

The reason is abject fear from before the fear that we might not go to war if the needlessness were recognized.

The reason is abject fear for more than 4 years that we might leave Iraq rather than needlessly and destructively occupy the country.

Imagine, the poor dear is being used while Iraq and Iraqis are destroyed. Phooey.

[anne]

"Why is it I get the feeling I am being used?"

Because at all costs, all that is cared about has been and is war and occupation and understanding is as nothing, let alone a sense of compassion. So the feeling of being used by any call for peace. The abject fear, is a fear of peace.

[anne]

The tragedy of this brilliant courageous letter by these infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division is that the observations they have made have been completely neglected in the last week by the news media. I am astonished and deeply saddened to find no following coverage. A few shameful blog attacks on the column, and the observations are as though they never were.

[anne]

Imagine the constant drumming of the fear and war drivers on Iraq, then notice there is a though ignoring of such deeply thought analysis by our field soldiers.

Rather the shameful response is to "feel used," to feel used by truth and courage.

Thank you, Brad DeLong for carrying this column forward.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/washington/12cnd-troops.html

September 12, 2007

2 Soldiers Who Wrote About Life in Iraq Are Killed
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON — "Engaging in the banalties of life has become a death-defying act," the seven soldiers wrote of the war they had seen in Iraq.

They were referring to the ordeals of Iraqi citizens, trying to go about their lives with death and suffering all around them. They did not know it at the time, but they might almost have been referring to themselves.

Two of the soldiers who wrote of their pessimism about the war, in an article * that appeared in The New York Times on Aug. 19, were killed in Baghdad on Monday. They were not killed in combat, nor on a daring mission. They died when the five-ton cargo truck they were riding in overturned.

The victims, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, and Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, were among the authors of "The War as We Saw It," in which they expressed doubts about reports of progress.

"As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day," the soldiers wrote.

"My son was a soldier in his heart from the age of 5," Sergeant Gray's mother, Karen Gray, said by telephone today from Ismay, Mont., where Yance grew up. "He loved what he was doing."

"But he wasn't any mindless robot," said the sergeant's father, Richard Gray. Sergeant Gray leaves a wife, Jessica, and a daughter, Ava, born in April. He is also survived by a brother and sister.

Sergeant Mora's mother, Olga Capetillo of Texas City, Tex., told The Daily News in Galveston that her son had grown increasingly gloomy about Iraq. "I told him God is going to take care of him and take him home," she said.

A native of Ecuador, Sergeant Mora had recently become an American citizen. "He was proud of this country, and he wanted to go over and help," his stepfather, Robert Capetillo, told The Houston Chronicle. Sergeant Mora leaves a wife, Christa, and a daughter, Jordan, who is 5. Survivors also include a brother and sister.

While the seven soldiers were composing their article, one of them, Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Murphy, was shot in the head. He was flown to a military hospital in the United States and is expected to survive. The other authors were Buddhika Jayamaha, an Army specialist, and Sgts. Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck and Edward Sandmeier.

"We need not talk about our morale," they wrote in closing. "As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."

* http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html

[anne]

The detached lunatics of 2002 and 2003, who argued for an end of America unless we went to war in Iraq, are arguing even now for an end of America unless we continue a war longer than the World War. The was no danger to America from Iraq in 2002 or 2003, and there has been no such danger since, but there is an imagined danger and that is enough for lunatics.

So seven "infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home" are heading back home in a terrible way, but the war goes needlessly on.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/opinion/l22war.html

Boots on the Ground Tell the Real Story in Iraq

To the Editor:

"The War as We Saw It," by Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, Edward Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy:

As the mother of two Iraq veterans, I particularly want to thank the seven courageous soldiers for their honest assessment of Iraq. Those of us who have had "blood in the game," directly or indirectly, have known the truths they told for some time.

But those truths are being trivialized, obscured and denied by the very people we have deputized to speak and act on our behalf in Washington. Like the issue of unsafe missions and inadequate equipment, it has taken the boots on the ground to speak up.

As an American, I want to thank them for their service to our country, and for looking out for our sons and daughters the way our commander in chief will not do — by painting an accurate picture of the failure of this administration to understand and manage this devastating war of choice.

President Bush claims he doesn't want the war micromanaged by Congress. And yet he persists in allowing a select band of neocons to influence decisions based on his own self-serving agenda.

Let's hope that some in Congress read the account of these men and feel that it's time to listen to those whose vision is not clouded by politics, and whose lives are actually on the line.

Nita Martin
Wallingford, Pa., Aug. 20, 2007

[anne]

Where is simple pacifism being voiced during this period? Where is reference to pacifism of the past? Where especially is religiously based pacifism?" Where is reference to the pacifism of art? There is so much anti-war art, but I am struck by how little we refer to any.

[anne]

We must leave Iraq immediately and completely.

[anne]

Mark Thoma posted the article by the seven infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division. Brad DeLong posted the article. There was little notice beyond, so we should be thankful for this noticing.