What We Got Right in the War on Terror

I was hoping to do some big analysis of Abe Greenwald's masterful essay, at Commentary, but never got around to it. This is simply the best piece I've read on the war on terror:

Over the course of the 10 years, American authorities foiled more than two dozen al-Qaeda plots. Those averted tragedies were not foremost on the minds of revelers who gathered to celebrate Bin Laden’s demise on May 1 at Ground Zero, Times Square, and in front of the White House. But if a mere few of the plots had materialized, those spaces might not even have been open to public assembly.

Not only have U.S. authorities managed to keep America safe from al-Qaeda for a decade; by the time he was killed, Osama bin Laden was barely a leader. Among the items recovered at his compound in Abbottabad were some recent writings, in which the former icon lamented al-Qaeda’s dramatically sinking stock and pondered organizational rebranding as a possible antidote.

His growing insignificance as a global player was not the product of chance. The marginalization of the world’s principal jihadist was the result of audacious American policy—indeed, the most controversial and hotly debated policy undertaken in the wake of 9/11. In the words of Reuel Marc Gerecht writing in the Wall Street Journal, “the war in Iraq was Bin Laden’s great moral undoing.” In his desperate attempt to drive American fighting forces out of Mesopotamia, Bin Laden sanctioned a bloody civil war in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. The carnage failed to repel the United States, but in the end, the countrywide slaughter of Muslims proved too much to bear for al-Qaeda’s own one-time and would-be supporters. The “Sunni awakening” that helped transform Iraq was an awakening out of al-Qaeda jihadism, and the blow it delivered to Bin Laden’s ambitions was stunning.

After the turnaround in Iraq, the landscape of the Muslim world suffered even greater changes—with ordinary Muslims rising to revolt against Persian and Arab tyranny, not against American hegemony. As Fouad Ajami has written: “The Arab Spring has simply overwhelmed the world of the jihadists. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, younger people—hurled into politics by the economic and political failures all around them—are attempting to create a new political framework, to see if a way could be found out of the wreckage that the authoritarian states have bequeathed them.”

It was the Freedom Agenda of the George W. Bush administration—delineated and formulated as a conscious alternative to jihadism—that showed the way. Indeed, the costly American nation-building in Iraq has now led to the creation of the world’s first and only functioning democratic Arab state. One popular indictment of Bush maintains that he settled on the Freedom Agenda as justification for war after U.S. forces and inspectors found no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The record shows otherwise. “A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East,” he said before the invasion, in February 2003. “Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both.”

And something of the kind has come to pass. “One despot fell in 2003,” Ajami has said. “We decapitated him. Two despots, in Tunisia and Egypt, fell, and there is absolutely a direct connection between what happened in Iraq in 2003 and what’s happening today throughout the rest of the Arab world.”

Thus, there are three intertwined achievements that have proved to be the dispositive features of American success in the war on terror: formulating the Freedom Agenda in the Middle East, reversing the course of the war in Iraq, and establishing a national-security apparatus to foil multiple terrorist attacks. It is no coincidence that they are also the most controversial foreign policies America has implemented since the Vietnam War.

September 11 was a hinge moment in American history. The attacks plunged the nation into a full-scale war against non-state entities. Any adequate American response had to break with previous approaches in previous conflicts. War could not be waged on parties inside states in the same way it had been waged on states themselves. Prisoners captured on a battlefield in a country not their own and with no interest in following the rules of conventional war could not be handled as they had been. Getting the edge on Islamist terror would mean fundamentally rethinking our approach to both the blunting of deadly threats and the shuttering of the political hothouses of the Middle East in which such threats thrive.

The adoption of these unprecedented and uncompromising means of war inspired animated debate in the United States. In fighting the war on terror, we have been told, America has become—depending on the accuser—either too dismissive or too enamored of democracy. Some on the left think our national-security apparatus undermines our defining ideals. On the right, outraged voices condemn our naive enthusiasm for helping to secure liberty for Muslims abroad, calling it a form of multicultural self-sabotage. After civil war seized post-invasion Iraq, critics from across the ideological spectrum denounced our misguided effort. The fits and starts and frustrations of the war decade have this one thing in common: we have done battle in an age when spectacular setbacks appear to provide irrefutable evidence of our own baseness and incompetence—a few years before drab good news arrives to refute both expert opinion and common knowledge.

The arguments that we have prosecuted the war on terror immorally and ineffectually are important, and deserve the respectful hearing they have received, even if many of those arguing these points have resorted to launching the most abject slanders and accusations toward those who believe the war on terror is just and has been fought honorably. To be sure, not everything the United States has done in the war on terror has been correct. Far from it. As Winston Churchill said, “War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.” In the fight against Islamist terrorism, American blunders have come in all shapes and sizes, and in truth there are few small wartime miscalculations. This is especially so in an age of instant global headlines.

We continue to suffer for our biggest mistakes. Concerning the failure to catch Bin Laden and make serious efforts to nation-build early in the Afghanistan war, inaccurate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons, and the Pentagon’s ill-preparedness for the Iraqi insurgency, there can be no absolution. These errors have cost the country tragic sums in money, credibility, and life. They also set our efforts back precious years.

But these blunders, great as they are, have not undone America’s outstanding accomplishments. Ten years ago, the most delusional optimist among us would not have predicted the irrelevancy of Osama bin Laden or a decade without another al-Qaeda attack, let alone a democratic Iraq and a transformative explosion of antiauthoritarianism in the Middle East.

Nor do American achievements in this war mean we are in a position to quit the fight. The notion that America achieved closure with Bin Laden’s killing suggests to some, perhaps even the occupant of the White House, that the war on terror has had its decade and the United States can now move on. “America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home,” said Barack Obama this summer as he announced a sizable drawdown of troops in Afghanistan for the fall of 2012. The suggestion that our work is done has traction only because resolute American action at home and abroad have provided a sense of security so pervasive it now goes unquestioned.

The United States has fallen prey to false comfort in the past. So before we submit to the siren song of closure, we would do well to recall that that is exactly where this war began—and our retaining some genuine measure of security has been the result of thinking and acting more boldly than we have in generations.

Now go read the whole thing.

We Didn't Overreact to 9/11

At the video, an interesting clip featuring Ann Coulter and Matt Welch.

And see Charles Krauthammer, at Washington Post, "The 9/11 ‘overreaction’? Nonsense":

9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. This time, however, the enemy had no home address. No Tokyo. Which is why today’s war could not be wrapped up in a mere four years. It was unconventional war by an unconventional enemy embedded within a worldwide religious community. Yet in a decade, we largely disarmed and defeated it, and developed the means to continue to pursue its remnants at rapidly decreasing cost. That is a historic achievement.

Our current difficulties and gloom are almost entirely economic in origin, the bitter fruit of misguided fiscal, regulatory and monetary policies that had nothing to do with 9/11. America’s current demoralization is not a result of the war on terror. On the contrary. The denigration of the war on terror is the result of our current demoralization, of retroactively reading today’s malaise into the real — and successful — history of our 9/11 response.

I love Krauthammer. Read it all.

Just War Theory

A cool discussion, with Michael Walzer:

RELATED: At Dissent, from 2006, "Regime Change and Just War," by Michael Walzer. And the response, which destroys Walzer's argument, from Jean Bethke Elshtain: "Jean Bethke Elshtain Responds."



And more Walzer, more recently, at New Republic, "The Case Against Our Attack on Libya."

How The West Was Won?

I went to bed last night when the big news was still the Alabama tornadoes. This morning the headlines are that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and buried at sea. Before sunrise there was a celebratory crowd at the gates of the white house and at ground zero. The president says justice has been served. If OBL’s goal was to lure us into jihad he clearly won a long time ago. To be clear, I'm glad we got him, but his death is only a side note to the fact that the United States of America has spent 10 years starting and fighting in 2 wars in 2 countries that had less to do with terrorism than the governments of their geographical neighbors, Iran and Pakistan. I can only say I'm surprised by all the public celebration. Could the last two days have happened without what has happened in the last ten years? I don't know. It's a question worth asking.

Discussing this with my mother this morning she said hindsight is 20/20. It certainly is, if our eyes are open. Now more than in times past America has been needing some good news but the planet's dilemma of world powers clashing is no football game. There are no winners, and there will be no winners. There's no score to keep no matter how hard we crave it to be so. This isn't a movie. There are no happy endings and there is no form of heroic justice. It is war, not just the military's war, our war, and it continues without a clear end.

Right now around the globe, as people die, military and civilians, even because of our efforts, we revel in patriotic colors. In a few days we'll go back to Trump's hyperbole, Snookie's face paint, and Charlie Sheen's psycho-babble, because it's what makes us happy. We are too quick to party. What may come next could show that we, in the global war on terror and the terrorists alike, have only begun to battle. There's nothing I would love more than to be as wrong as a person can be.



Afghanistan

American Military Casualties (05/1/11 11:23 am EDT), Total In Combat:

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03): 4452
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) 4311
Since Handover (6/29/04): 2876
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 224
Since Operation New Dawn: 15

American Wounded Official Estimated

Total Wounded: 33023
Latest Fatality April 29, 2011


As of April 21, 2011, there have been 2,340 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001. In this total, the American figure is for deaths "In and Around Afghanistan" which, as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense, includes some deaths in Pakistan and Uzbekistan and the deaths of 11 CIA operatives.

In addition to these deaths in Afghanistan, another 29 U.S. and one Canadian soldier were killed in other countries while supporting operations in Afghanistan. Also, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from Afghanistan died in Turkey on May 26, 2003, when their plane crashed.

During the first five years of the war, the vast majority of coalition deaths were American, but between 2006 and 2010, a significant proportion were amongst other nations, particularly the United Kingdom and Canada which have been assigned responsibility for the flashpoint provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, respectively. This is because in 2006, ISAF expanded its jurisdiction to the southern regions of Afghanistan which were previously under the direct authority of the U.S. military.



Casualties in Afghanistan as of Aug 10 2010:

Afghan troops killed 8,587
Afghan troops seriously injured 25,761
Afghan civilians killed 8,813
Afghan civilians seriously injured 15,863
U.S. troops killed 1,140
U.S. troops seriously injured 3,420
Other coalition troops killed 772
Other coalition troops seriously injured 2,316
Contractors killed 298
Contractors seriously injured 2,428
Journalists killed 19
Journalists seriously injured unknown
Total killed in Afghanistan 19,629
Total injured in Afghanistan 48,644


Iraqi Casualties
As of March 31, 2011
US Soldiers Killed, 4,444
Seriously Wounded, 32,051
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq 1,487
Journalists - Iraq 348
Academics Killed - Iraq 448
Other Coalition Troops, 318

Sources: DoD, MNF, About.com and iCasualties.com


Iraqi Civilians
100,000 to 110,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

All Downhill

Older video, fall 2010. Longboarding hills at Ft. Bragg.

The Kids In Sumar

Music, Neko Case, Vengence is Sleeping. Video, I took, the kids in Sumar Iraq.

Counterflow

Part One

Counterflow: So Love May Find Us. This is a long song/short film cut into two parts. Youtube and every other site I've looked at have a 15 minute time limit. The song is almost 20, so here's 10 and 8 in two parts. The footage and photos are mine, the music - Australian band extraordinaire ,"The Church."

Part Two

Iraq And Magic Tricks

2009: Remembering May

2009: Remembering February pt.2

At Zazzle.com, I made a couple T-shirts from a few of my favorite photos. One of the shirts is in this shot of me with my brother in Gainsville Florida over this holiday vacation.

2009: Remembering April

Roadside Camels, on the road to Nefer, west of Diwaniya.

Downtown Diwaniya, smiling girls.

Two boys in Nefer. While parked and waiting we were usually treated with youthful curiosity, varied requests, entertained by antics, and occasionally taunted.

During my deployment I took a lot of pictures of the HQ kids, downtown. Very photogenic. They show up in several of my old entries, April and other months.

"...weather today: blue skies and hot with a mix of kids and Humvees."

2009: Remembering March (pt. 2)

It was bittersweet to see the way kids were unafraid of us, the Americans, but while just as curious, timid toward the soldiers of their own country.

Out in front of the Police Department.

A lone traffic cop, as our convoy rumbles through his intersection of swarming traffic.

A female beggar, on a bridge in Diwaniya.

2009: Remembering March

I don't intend to spend my whole leave this holiday season working on the computer. That said, there is a great number of recollections photographic and otherwise I want to review while I have time. I'll be going month by month here on Versa Vice over the next two weeks posting selections from the images I've collected in 2009.

I jumped head first into my March folder and it took me over an hour to select, optimize and post these five photos. I realize now what a productive month March was. There are a huge number of pictures to publish here, and I'll get to it. First though, I need to spend time with family.

2009: Remembering February

Over the past several months I've had various images of the past year pop up on my screen saver. I've been astonished at the number of pictures that are really good but still unseen on my blog or elsewhere. Over the next few days, till next month, in 2010, I'll reselect b-side images of the previous months, from the year 2009, and publish them here, like a rarities collection of tunes by a favorite band.


This one was among a series of "beyond a shadow of a gun" shots that I took. My vantage point, as a medic, in the back seat of a Humvee, waiting for traumatic action and reactions that never happened, but for one occasion, left me in the perfect spot to capture images that may never be seen by my the people in these pictures, but nevertheless left for me to publish on the Internet for a whole world to see. A tiny glimpse into another world.


This gal, this little princess or Diwaniya, still makes me think of "Angel of Harlem," by U2. Like a vibrant little rose, rising from the cracked concrete of a lost world. I can only imagine the life ahead of her and her friends.

All of these shots were taken in the more metropolitan areas of Diwaniya Iraq. My back-seat vantage point served my photographic tendencies well.

American Soldiers

A couple of friends asked me about my blog this morning. So I "tweeted" that I'm taking a break, on Twitter. Mostly because I'm in-between places right now, in transit, and on my way home. It's nearly a two week process, moving an entire army company from Iraq back to the states through Kuwait, and that's with all good weather. But this morning with a wireless connection and little else to do, I figured I'd post a counter balance to my previous theme.

It may or may not need to be said, but I'm proud of being a soldier and of the people I work with. I was primed to get stuck on the Hero/Soldier theme as I encountered those Facebook groups right after a couple weeks of hearing a lot of silly talk from soldiers on the subject of returning home. Some guys (and girls), particularly the younger set, see the return home as a license to do whatever they want when they get back. As if going crazy is something they deserve, like a spring break from school amplified. Perhaps it's all just, could it be?, me dealing with concerns or even worry for these guys doing something dangerous or regrettable? Am I really growing up finally?

But I've gone on enough about all that. What follows is a selection of photos taken over the last 15 months of my fellow American soldiers from the 110th MP Company, one of the very last units in Iraq (if not the very last) to begin and complete a 15 month deployment.

Gunner Spc. Amato giving a wave.


Sgt. Anderson and PFC Smith, we did a lot of training with ASVs (the vehicle), but barely used them at all in theater.


Spc. Chambers, a meet and greet with locals. Even if the young guys talk big, we're still fortunate that our mission involved this kind of contact, and not the kind of "contact!" we train for in basic.


Spc. Hackler


It was often interesting to watch how receptive, or not, the Iraqi Police were to our assistance or advice, particularly coming from an American female. Sgt. Irlbeck with the local cops.


Pfc. Johnson with the tough guy look, I think he forgot there was a purple bear on his vest.


Spc. Ward while at an IP station. The "shoulder pads" are called DAPs by us, only used by gunners by the end of the deployment.


This is a picture I got from another soldier's Facebook. Judging by the DCUs this was most likely '04-'06.


Ever curious, the local kids who have lived their entire lives with American presence, gather around whenever we would show up.


A muddy field the day after a day of rain, I think it was April, the only time I saw any precipitation in Diwaniya. The black mask is worn by an Iraqi interpreter.