Back in March, I wrote about Major General David Petraeus, who used to live next door to me and now commands the 101st Airborne.
I've been wondering what he's been up to, lately. Now, courtesy of Max Boot, I have some news:
Like the Marines, the 101st is living in one of Saddam's palaces. Its accommodations are slightly more posh; the troops have access to running water, the Internet, satellite TV, even two swimming pools. But only a sadist would begrudge them a few creature comforts. The Marines are heading home in September; the 101st will be here until February 2004, a whole year. One of its brigades, the 3rd, came here after spending most of 2002 in Afghanistan; now the "Rakkasans," as they're called, are deployed in the wasteland between Mosul and the Syrian border.
The 101st faces many thorny problems unique to its area, such as land disputes between Arabs and Kurds, and a porous border with Syria. But its approach is similar to that of the Marines. In their combat operations center, the division commander, Major General David Petraeus, has posted a sign that proclaims, "We are in a race to win over the people. What have you and your element done to contribute to that goal today?"
They have done a good deal--almost all of it without the help of the CPA. On his own initiative, General Petraeus decided to open the Syrian border to increase trade, and to strike deals with Turkey and Syria to swap Iraqi oil for badly needed electricity. The division has also restored telephone service and is taking bids for cellular service.
Like [Marine Major General James] Mattis, Petraeus preaches respect for Iraqis. Politeness and restraint are the order of the day. And when his troops do have to use strongarm tactics, they take pains not to leave hurt feelings behind. After they killed Uday and Qusay Hussein on July 22, the division spent more than $100,000 to repair damage to the neighborhood where the intense firefight occurred.
One of the 101st's brigade commanders, Colonel Joe Anderson, hopped in a humvee to take Bing West and me on a whirlwind tour of Mosul. Projects underway range from training the Iraqi police to providing medicine for a local hospital to painting schools to refurbishing an Olympic-size swimming pool to building houses for refugees. The list seems endless--and the 101st is doing all of it with its commanders' own discretionary fund, much of which comes from seized assets of the old regime.
It's too bad, though, that all Iraqis hate us so much, and that we're sinking ever-deeper into a quaaagmire from which there will be no escape. Read the whole article; it's a welcome contrast to the daily missives of misery from the myopic journalists holed up in their hotel in Baghdad.
I especially loved Petraeus's quote (in Saturday's NYTimes), from the recent Rumsfeld Show he appeared at: "No one loves an occupying army. But as occupying armies go, we (the 1001st airborne) is more loved than any other occupying army."
The Islamic Terrorists And Their Supporters Are From Mars, The 101st Is From Venus! I love it! We're just misunderstood do-gooders! THAT's why they all hate us!! Even after spending $100,000 for repairs on Uday's House Of Horrors!!
Will we ever be loved?
Posted by: paulie | September 9, 2003 10:30 AM
Good article - I took your advice and read the whole thing. The differences in style/strategy between Army and Marines are so striking - I had no idea. That Maj. Gen. David Petraeus of yours sounds like quite a guy.
Posted by: Valencia | September 9, 2003 01:07 PM
Look. Petraeus deserves respect. Period. As do any of the commanders and dedicated soliders that face the current military obstacles faced around this twisted globe. and most of these guys have had to reinvent themselves well-beyond where they ever thought rational or in any military reality. Specialists no more. Keeping weapons clean for better kills and efficient target aquisition is now being blended with building schools and helping civillians. Bullets and butter in the same easy package. Good thing? I don't buy it for a half a second.
So I have a problem with glorifying this stuff. Are there good deeds being done in Iraq and Afghanistan? And are there commanders and soldiers doing good deeds because they're good soldiers and good people who believe what they're doing is right, and that they should do their jobs with integrity and for the right reasons? For damn damn damn sure. They deserve salutes, on thier merit.
But striving to make this dirty business, war -- and we are at war, unless someone can call this peace - into something palatable for our Cheers TV-conditioned population who need multiple happy-go-lucky characters, heros, resolution in 26 minutes and happy endings is a deep level of insulting insanity.
We need to kill lots of people, destroy cities and basic services, maintain a level of chaos to arrive at our solution, on our own timetable? For our reasons? OK, try and sell me this. Please, please, please don't try and sell me that efficiently trained killers and destruction-masters (Shiva!) are now deliverers of loving-kindness and compassion. Please don't insult me and try and sell me this load of crap.
Use another team. Bring in builders, craft another set of humanitarian heros -- if what we are doing is "freeing and helping the Iraqis". But don't stick Mike Tyson in a dress with some blue eyeliner and call him "Mom".
What, doesn't the latest $XXX BILLION budget have anything left for the development of a secondary plotline? Have focus groups told us that our audience can't hold multiple thoughts in their heads at once, and still want to buy a Coke?
Solution1: Fire Jerry Bruckheimer and his ego-maniac director and for chissakes bring in Sydney Lumet. At least he can craft a tale that is willing to be honest and intelligent about the unpretty real world.
Solution2: Soldiers are killers and destroyers, from Mars. Diplomats, police and aid workers are bridge-builders, from Venus. Unless we want transsexuals in uniform, can we agree that we oughta accept the realities of the twine and work with existing traits, instead of trying to morph them both into some freakish GMO bio hazard mess? Keep it separated! Give yourself permission!
Posted by: paulie | September 9, 2003 01:35 PM
Nobody is trying to sell you anything, so relax. This is the other side of the plentiful stories so relentlessly promulgated by Standard Media.
Why is it that Standard Media doesn't report on these sorts of things? Probably for the same reason that they won't report that today marks seven consecutive days with no American combat deaths in Iraq--the longest such period since May 1.
Death, destruction, and failure sell to those eager to condemn violence and entirely unwilling to admit that yes, it sometimes solves problems at the nation-state level. Perversely, progress and reconstruction don't sell. It's the same phenomenon that puts all the house fires and car crashes at the top of the local news, every night, all across America.
Where are the routine reports from outside the Sunni triangle--that is, from the bulk of Iraq? Could it be because most of the reporters are holed up in Baathist Baghdad, where the so-called "action" is? Could it be that this taints their view of the situation in the country as a whole?
Why is it that anything which suggests that--gasp!--something good might come out of this is propaganda intended to somehow make war "palateable," while anything that portrays destruction and failure is The Unvarnished Truth?
You seem to think that being a trained soldier makes a person into a thing incapable of anything but killing and destruction, which, I think, contradicts your assertion that "the commanders and dedicated soliders" deserve respect.
While your so-called "killers and destroyers from Mars" are delivering on promises of rebuilding and are actually doing things despite the risk, where are many of your "bridge-builders from Venus"?
Leaving.
To claim that soldiers are simply trained killers, incapable of anything else, is not only not respectful, in the face of General Petraeus' diplomatic negotiations with Syria to open up the border, it is demonstrably false. I doubt that he's an exception, rather than a rule.
Your apparent inability to accept the fact that soldiers are human beings--capable of many things, some of them (gosh!) even moral--creates, I think, a limited perspective.
Posted by: --iaw | September 9, 2003 03:37 PM
I actually see the fact that soldiers are having to learn such "unsoldierly" things as diplomatic relations with people from other cultures, and that they're spending their time rebuilding schools, as tremendous progress - both for the American people and for humankind as a whole.
The reason their jobs have changed so much is that even in war, it is our goal to behave in the most civilzed manner possible. Our goal - not always met, of course, but what a good goal.
I'm not deluded - reading one article on the good things that are going on (and even in this mostly upbeat account, the reporter did give space to explaining some of the things that haven't gone well, and the ways that the Army has mishandled things) doesn't give me a rosy view of the situation in Iraq, nor does it make me think this has all been a "police action."
But I am impressed, and duly so, that there'd be even one division in our military whose leader has such a clear grasp of the importance of treating Iraqis with respect, and luckily for everyone, there are more than one. To me this is a sign of the capacity of humans for good even in the midst of war. I'm awfully proud of those folks, and not just Gen. Petraeus - what about the 22-year-old kid? He clearly made an impression on Max, too.
Posted by: Valencia | September 9, 2003 04:26 PM
have the fantasy. go ahead.
Maybe read, among others, David Grossman's book, "On Killing". The Westpoint soldier-author shows how amazingly and painfully hard it is for a soldier, a man, to kill (destroy) a fellow man, even in war. He explains this by showing that in a typical man, there is an innate aversion towards killing another human being. I call that a beautiful thing. Through history, the US military has in a very dedicated and learned fashion overcome this natural aversion to improve the killing effectiveness of its soldiers. (Also read the NYTimes this past weekend about the training of cooks, dishwashers and anyone who can carry a rifle to be "warriors" in Iraq -- killers. We're running short of these by all accounts.) Don't mistake the roles we're asking these fellow human beings to do with some fantasy of nation-building -- this is the height of hypocracy.
In the 20th century, there has been a substantial increase of this killing effectiveness, centrally by using a concentrated conditioning process to condition US soldiers to kill. The conditioning process has been so effective that when in the Civil war era only a few percent of the soldiers were willing to kill, the ratio rose to 15-20 percent in WWII, and to about 90 percent in Vietnam and The Gulf. These guys, these human beings with families and feelings and lives, are trained as killers for doing society's dirty work.
Yes, they are human beings. I'm not talking about how we treat them before, during and after their tours. I'm talking about how we hold them in some unreal fantasy of our own making.
I'll sum it up and leave you alone: Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery as we can now depict men (and women) that our military trains in a concentrated way to kill as "humanitarians". Beautiful.
We will, I believe, have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our humanity and scientific conquests.
Peace is the only goal worth struggling for. This is no longer a wish but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments -- a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.
Is it morally acceptable to intend to kill innocents as part of a strategy of deterring war?
Respecting our soldiers from this place is honor. Placing them in some fantasy as we sit on our collective asses and debate the good from killing is debased insanity.
Posted by: paulie | September 9, 2003 05:14 PM
Peace is the only goal worth struggling for.
Nice sentiment. But what do you do when confronted by people only want to kill you?
What do you do when confronted by a leader who supports those people and gives them refuge?
What do you do when that leader also kills his own people to the tune of 300,000 or more, who tortures them, who maims them, who jails them for decades?
Where is your peace, then? How do you struggle for it? By making nice? By convincing them not to kill you because it's wrong?
And you dare to make accusations of fantasy?
Pacifists are philosophical and societal free-loaders. They can only exist in a society that defends their right to believe and think as they wish by killing others who would take that right away, or who would simply kill them outright. You derive direct benefit from the very thing you condemn. Your professed moral conviction is only possible because you sup off the fruits of the wars we wage.
That's gotta bug you, huh?
Is it morally acceptable to intend to kill innocents as part of a strategy of deterring war?
No. That's why we spend billions developing ever-more-accurate weapons that avoid this as much as possible. I've made this point many times: if we wanted to kill them all, we could. But we don't.
We have the power to raze Baghdad to the ground, to turn it into black glass and its citizens into ash. But we didn't.
We could have annihilated the entire Iraqi army to its last man in days. Instead we gave them clear instructions on how to surrender without getting shot, and let them just walk away from their guns and tanks if they chose.
Why?
The only one here who seems to have a problem with showing that our soldiers are also human beings--which is not at all the same as painting them as Ghandis in kevlar--is, it seems, you.
Isn't it nice that we have to train them to kill? To overcome their resistance to the idea? It seems as though we'd rather not kill people. And yet, the fact that those we are ultimately warring against have little or no compunction against killing us seems not to stir you, or, at least, not enough to warrant mention. All that stirs you is this ephemeral notion of peace...while an ideology which explicitly encourages the killing any American, anywhere, by any means, is...what? Let me guess...the natural consequence of American imperalism? No, wait--the result of American hegemonic ambition and First World colonial racism. Or some such morally satisfying trope.
Did we kill Iraqi civilians? You bet. Would we have killed them if 9/11 never happened? Nope. Would we have killed them if Iraq was ruled by a stale monarchy and an popularly elected Parliament, like Britain? Nope. Did we know that we'd kill civilians? Most assuredly. Is that the same thing as "[intending] to kill innocents as part of a strategy of deterring war"? No.
The bottom line is, you see no difference between the September 11 attacks and the Iraq campaign--or any other war--simply because, in each instance, people died.
That is, quite simply, moral fantasy...completely detached from the real world, the people in it, and the entirety of human history.
Posted by: --iaw | September 9, 2003 07:28 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Beautiful!
What is so FAN-tastic is the speed, force and clarity with which the extreme polarities come these days. Warp Factor 10, baby -- YEAH! Maximum OVERDRIVE !!! Let's see what this PHAT FEROCIOUS machine can do!!! Step on the GAS!!!(And I won't deconstruct this whole strain by saying I 'preciate the equal force and energy you put into the fighting...but I do. Fight! Peace!)
Can we see? it is apparent everywhere, certainly large (LARGE) on the world stage, and equally evident in each our own individual lives.
You say: we must fight to defend our freedoms.
I say: if we continue to fight we will destroy ourselves.
Both are right. And, equally important, both are wrong. Both are sane. Both are insane. By taking a position for either side we negate the argument into a continuous polarity of right/wrong, us/them, liberal/conservative, peace/fight, good/evil, nationalism/individualism, etc..... pick any argument...and ALL of us are constrained by secondhand thoughts - and we cannot NOT be influenced or conditoned -- by media, books, opinions of others, etc.
We just happen to be picking the current argument, Islamic terrorists vs. the US, going on now, looming large, to help us see some things...but whatever the argument, it always becomes polarized, no matter what. can we see this?
is this equation correct:
we > right
or:
we
or is this equation correct:
they > right
or:
they
yes. no. both. neither.
or is this equation correct:
we = they
or is this equation corect:
we (do not equal) they
yes. no. both. neither.
In the example we're playing out above, we both seek to defend our positions based on our conditioning, traditions, our trainings, our thoughts, our emotions -- whatever -- our opinions -- and we insist OUR way is right. How does such an individual find out what is right, what is true? The US insists it is right. AND the terrorists insist they are right. I say I am right. You say you are right. Is there a solution in this dynamic? one must give, the other take. Ideals equally (or un-equally)unrealized on both sides...we go back and forth forever and ever .....see saw, see saw. If we accept this see-saw dynamic as "reality", we are governed by its sanity -- as well as its equal and/or opposite, insanity. Can we see that this is both sane...and insane? Polarity.
Realists say: If we had more money we can build more sophisticated and targeted weapons to kill the terrorists while killing fewer civillians and achieve a larger measure of peace, freedom and security for the right reasons, albeit imperfect. (Fear = they have tried and will try again and kill us if we do not accept the realities that history has shown, eg, man is just violent and corrupt. accept it, work with the system because evidences and our beliefs show this to be true. by leaning against the wind we may not be able to achieve our "ideals" but we feel like its the right direction). realists negate the opposite.
Idealists say: If we had more money, we could use our technologies to feed the starving people of the world and achieve a larger measure of peace, freedom and security, albeit imperfect. (Fear = if we remain focused on killing eachother, we accept what these systems and history has shown us, that man is violent and corrupt; we must fight against these systems because evidences and our beliefs show us otherwise. by leaning against the wind we may not be able to acheive our "ideals" but we feel like its the right direction) idealists negate the opposite.
see-saw. both are sane. both insane. pass the Lithium. is this the "reality" of life...? Polarities?
Stuck, we remain forever stuck in sand, stuck between cause/effect. Cursed, Cartesian thinking.
Is matter made of particles or waves? Well, depends on the observer...it is both. it is neither. it is a dance between the two. somewhere "between"...where? what about light?
A spaceship orbits a planet. it can remain in orbit forever, or until such material disintegrates -- hmmmm...interesting word in this context. Dis-integration. Hmmm...
What are the requirements for a spaceship to break out of its orbit? Assuming that it wants to.
First, the spaceship's passenger must question: what is my destination? Where do I want to go? Do I want to float aimlessly in space? No, not really. I'd rather go somehwere. Somewhere is better than nowhere, it thinks. So, the spaceship must determine a destination. Say it wants to land in...Fiji. OK.
Then, there is a window of opportunity for that destination to be approachable, the realities of where the spaceship is in space vs. where the spaceship wants to go. When, where, at what time can such a release from orbit occur, allowing movement towards said destination...
Then there is the application of tremendous energy. Not just tremendous energy, but tremendous energy APPLIED, in a specific manner at a specific time to direct the spaceship towards that destimation. How...
And there're certain precautions, protections which need to be in place to protect the spaceship and its occupants from exploding, burning up in the course through the atmosphere that is present around its destination. A heat shield.
So....what is true? Are we all stuck or is there a window of opportunity for a destination beyond polarity?
Posted by: paulie | September 10, 2003 11:12 AM
Paulie writes:
"We will, I believe, have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our humanity and scientific conquests."
I believe that we've actually been in that state for many years now, perhaps since the first atomic weapons test. We go back and forth on it, but to me the bulk of decisions have actually been made in favor of peace. The big powers got themselves out of the nuclear standoff - why? Because they both realized it was suicidal.
The problem that confronts us now, as big powers, is convincing the small terrorist groups of that danger.
If we were all going about this from the same cultural perspective, one in which society was largely sane, free, and democratic, then I believe a wholly pacifist stance would have meaning, weight, and a real chance at succeeding. but we haven't reached a Star Trek universe yet. We're still in the dangerous adolescence period, and that means people are ready to kill other people - even those who are themselves peaceable - because of ideology.
The reality we live in is grey, grey, grey. And figuring out what to do with it requires nuance, and weighing among imperfect and morally difficult choices. I just think we have to give/take credit where it's due, and not believe that because our choices are grey that they're black.
And by the way, shouldn't we all be doing this in the Agora?
Posted by: Valencia | September 10, 2003 12:02 PM
And by the way, shouldn't we all be doing this in the Agora?
Yes!
As soon as I, uh, make one.
The technical challenge of created two separate comment systems without resorting to a third party offsite system are a bit more complex than I expected.
Posted by: Ian Wood | September 10, 2003 12:45 PM
right. non-Agora add-ons -- Agora doesn't exist yet, but we still want to think on these things so we go on as if, willing though not yet in Agora. or Fiji.
"We're still in the dangerous adolescence period, and that means people are ready to kill other people - even those who are themselves peaceable -because of ideology."
uh-huh. grey, as you say, using nuance to navigate and see. dangerous. more than, less than equations are often (though not always!) a matter of interpretation, who is doing the judging under what conditions, with what history, etc. what is too little force? what is too much? Are we moving towards more peace for more people, or away? It changes. we hope that it moves towards more, but understand that less is sometimes the reality.
so defining destination becomes important under these conditions. Freedom. Love. Security. Peace. Work. Food. Water. Air. Respect. Creativity.
Is this "a Star Trek universe?"
do you think, or feel, we are, in various stages, progressing towards an adult or more advanced stage? Evolution? Are we evolving or just becoming more clever?
"I just think we have to give/take credit where it's due, and not believe that because our choices are grey that they're black. " Yes. Or white. Hmmmm....is grey moving towards white or away from white? On a color wheel it is both. Is the moon "better" when its moving towards fullness or away?
Sorry. Eastern training.
Posted by: paulie | September 10, 2003 12:49 PM
Which is why I killed the Buddha.
Posted by: Ian Wood | September 10, 2003 01:28 PM
hmmmm...but Ian, baby....how can you think you did this when da Buddha does not exist?
Posted by: paulie | September 10, 2003 01:51 PM
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