Hot Air » Blog Archive » Spiegel: “The U.S. military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe”

Spiegel: “The U.S. military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe”

posted at 9:24 am on August 14, 2007 by Allahpundit
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This is making the rounds on the strength of the irresistible quote in the headline but the big picture is, of course, considerably more complicated. Most of the success is in Anbar, which we knew; Baghdad and the surrounding areas are a different story:

[I]t’s not a war between Iraqis and Americans, as some might think. It’s a war between everyone and everyone else — a war of Shiites against Sunnis, Sunnis against Christians, competing terrorist cells fighting for territory, private militias against the Iraqi police, drug gangs, apolitical criminal kidnappers interested purely in ransom money and Iraqi mafiosos.

Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that in this southern part of Baghdad, a few kilometers as the crow flies from the Green Zone’s fortresses, civil order has vanished entirely. The mob rules here in this area of major and minor warlords, who do their utmost to sabotage the work of city officials desperately trying to rebuild the infrastructure. They cut power lines, destroy water pipes and blow up sewage canals. The Americans are no longer the main enemy here, but only one of many parties. Although their mission is to smoke out the terrorists, they also play the contradictory role of peacekeepers.

WaPo had precisely the same take last week. Even so, morale seems to be high:

Gibbs commands seven battalions here in the south of Baghdad, in an area the size of San Francisco with 700,000 residents. His entire brigade, part of the troop surge, has been stationed here since March. In the months since then, the colonel has learned what the issues are here. He says: “We need mass plus time.” In other words, US troops should unquestionably remain in Iraq. If it were Gibbs’ decision to make, they would remain here for years to come. It is unacceptable, he says, to allow sadists to shoot at women and children from rooftops, or to allow a bunch of punks to lay bombs whenever they feel like it.

A terrorist emir, it has been said, has to have killed 600 Americans. The terrorists pay $10,000 for a bombed-out Humvee and $15,000 to anyone who destroys a tank. “We’ve found torture chambers here and shut them down,” says Gibbs. “We’ve found enough weapons for an entire army. But we’ll get them all. We’ll kill them. We’ll win.”

It’s a long one but at least read pages 7 and 8, when Crocker talks about the obligations of a “moral nation” and Spiegel describes the birth of Iraqi heroes. The new Gallup poll shows support for the war is up and support for withdrawal down over the last month, but it’s hard to believe Petraeus will have anything to say next month that will cut substantially into this deficit:

Meanwhile, Matt Sanchez is still embedded outside Sadr City in northern Baghdad, where the power’s still on only one or two hours a day and Iraqis are sleeping on rooftops for (slight) relief. Here’s the scene captured by Sanchez of Shiites making their pilgrimage. No car bombs yet.

Blowback

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When I was a kid, half of inner-city Boston slept on the roof in the summer to beat the heat (probably still do). That’s what poor people in the city do.

The vector is in the right direction. The truth is getting out. It’s going to be very hard for the Dems to spin this and force a pull out. Very hard…

TheBigOldDog on August 14, 2007 at 9:36 AM

I want to believe!

Dash on August 14, 2007 at 9:36 AM

I]t’s not a war between Iraqis and Americans, as some might think. It’s a war between everyone and everyone else — a war of Shiites against Sunnis, Sunnis against Christians, competing terrorist cells fighting for territory, private militias against the Iraqi police, drug gangs, apolitical criminal kidnappers interested purely in ransom money and Iraqi mafiosos.

The HA people who think of all Muslims as a single stereotype need to read and understand those words. The members of AQ who are cutting off fingers for smoking need to be simply killed, not talked to or understood. Any Iraqi missing fingers should be given some cold water and a pack of smokes, and ammo for his AK-47.

The progress in the U.S. Senate is not so impressive. Come September we will still have 100 Senators who have thrived inside a central political system, and those top-down believers will judge progress of a bottom-up battle in Iraq. From their view there is no progress that counts. Ugly huh?

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 9:38 AM

Ugly huh?

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 9:38 AM

It is. The liberal fallacy that peace and prosperity flow from the top down rather than the bottom up are at odds with the founding philosophy of this nation. Unfortunately, the fallacy is even embraced by people like Bill O’Reilly who should know better. It’s one of the hidden assumptions that once exposed begins to be questioned.

Ironically, because Iraqis had a chance to really experience what life would be like under a fundamentalist regime they may wind up ultimately being far more liberal than would have happened otherwise.

TheBigOldDog on August 14, 2007 at 9:49 AM

If only the Democrats in Congress weren’t as closed minded as a Klansman at an NBA game. No matter what gets said, they won’t hear a word of it unless it agrees with the conclusion with which they walked in the door.

trubble on August 14, 2007 at 9:54 AM

Regardless of the suited schmucks who dictate policy, we still have the best trained, equipped, and badass soldiers the world has ever seen. There will always be bad apples that will be fodder for the media, and that will only grow worse as the press becomes more entrenched in the war zones.

However, I really do believe that the people of Iraq place far more faith in the soldiers who walk down the streets, trying to keep them from being killed by cowards with car bombs and IEDs, than in a bunch of jackasses in bermuda shorts trying to photoshop their way to a pulitzer.

MadisonConservative on August 14, 2007 at 10:04 AM

The HA people who think of all Muslims as a single stereotype need to read and understand those words.

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 9:38 AM

Those people number few to none. Islam is the issue, not “all Muslims.”

Connie on August 14, 2007 at 10:14 AM

Michael Yon’s latest says that Iraqis are making plenty of political progress too.

MT on August 14, 2007 at 10:16 AM

The electricity situation has been such a killer for us. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have to sleep in 90 degree heat. You would think anyone who attacked the power grid would be killed pretty quickly by angry Iraqis. Guess that’s not the case.

WisCon on August 14, 2007 at 10:16 AM

I should say, to sleep that way every night.

WisCon on August 14, 2007 at 10:18 AM

Those people number few to none. Islam is the issue, not “all Muslims.”
Connie on August 14, 2007 at 10:14 AM

Connie, There are many commenters here on HA who believe we should have a war on “all Muslims” as defined by Wikipedia as:
A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم) is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form of Muslim is Muslimah (Arabic: مسلمة). Literally, the word means “one who submits to God)”.

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 10:28 AM

Tuna, I dunno ’bout that, I’ve been posting and reading comments here since HotAir first opened, I especially hit the Iraq - Afghanistan threads and I don’t see how Posters are saying “all muslims are the same”. I see more comments like “Sunnis this and Shi’ites that” but not that they’re one big monolithic group. If that were the case then who here would be in favor of liberating them from tyrannical dictators?

You’re absolutley correct on the rest of your comment about bottom up and top down.

Tony737 on August 14, 2007 at 11:02 AM

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 10:28 AM

So by that logic, if we’d decided to take out Jim Jones, we would have had to take out all of his followers because deprogramming would have been pointless?

Connie on August 14, 2007 at 11:08 AM

It is. The liberal fallacy that peace and prosperity flow from the top down rather than the bottom up are at odds with the founding philosophy of this nation. Unfortunately, the fallacy is even embraced by people like Bill O’Reilly who should know better. It’s one of the hidden assumptions that once exposed begins to be questioned.

Top-down does not work, but bottom-up does. Once again clearly illustrating the difference between American political ideologies, and yet again showing that conservative principles work everywhere and every time they are implemented.

It’s just too bad this sort of strategy didn’t happen a couple of years earlier.

JamesLee on August 14, 2007 at 11:10 AM

Michael Yon is exactly correct:

Large numbers of Iraqis detested us after the prisoner abuse stories, and some over-the-top attacks on Fallujah, for example. But through time, somehow the American military has managed to establish a moral authority in Iraq. It’s not the only authority, but the military has serious and increasing moral clout. In the beginning, our influence flowed from guns, or dropped from the wings of jets. Later it was the money. Today, the clout still is partially from the gun, and definitely the money is key, but there is an intangible and growing moral clout and it flows from an increasing respect among Iraqis for our military. Washington has no moral clout in Iraq. Washington looks like a circus act. The authority is coming from our military. The importance of this fact would be difficult to overstate.

Circus act indeed. Our Military is handling this situation exactly right. The American People and the world need to see and hear this truth.

Yon’s report is excellent. Read it all. (Thanks for the link, MT!)

techno_barbarian on August 14, 2007 at 11:12 AM

I agree with Dash: I want to believe!

But the so-called Iraqi government still appears to be supporting the fighting between the various Iraqi groups. Goodness knows the evidence is the Sunni and Shia are even more interested in killing each other than US troops.

If these factions will not work together in a national government then the only answer (it seems to me) is to break up Iraq much the way the Indian subcontinent was divided by the British. It was ugly. There still isn’t perfect peace between Pakistan and India, and it may never happen. But the alternative was a never ending civil war.

doufree on August 14, 2007 at 11:19 AM

The only thing that can keep the Iraqis from becoming a free people are our petty politicians. The left does not make decisons that are in our country’s best interests and in turn have no inclination to care what could possibly be in another country’s best interest.

volsense on August 14, 2007 at 11:22 AM

More bad news for the Democrats.

right2bright on August 14, 2007 at 11:28 AM

Yes, progress is going to start from the bottom up not the top down. Iraq never had anything work from the top down, so why would we expect it to start once we showed up. Under Saddam the top only took care of the top and the bottom got screwed.

BohicaTwentyTwo on August 14, 2007 at 11:43 AM

More bad news for the Democrats.

right2bright on August 14, 2007 at 11:28 AM

Perfect lead-in to Prager’s latest column titled If It’s Bad for America, It’s Good for Democrats.

MT on August 14, 2007 at 11:43 AM

I can always tell when Michelle puts something up, my server slows down considerably :)

Thanks for all the great feedback and come take the poll on the Democrat plan for the military.

~~Matt Sanchez, Baghdad~~

Mattsanchez on August 14, 2007 at 11:47 AM

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 10:28 AM

That’s weird, I’ve never seen any. Guess I should read comments more closely.

Do you have any examples?

apollyonbob on August 14, 2007 at 11:48 AM

Connie, There are many commenters here on HA who believe we should have a war on “all Muslims” as defined by Wikipedia as:
A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم) is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form of Muslim is Muslimah (Arabic: مسلمة). Literally, the word means “one who submits to God)”

Okay, name one.

aengus on August 14, 2007 at 11:48 AM

A terrorist emir, it has been said, has to have killed 600 Americans. The terrorists pay $10,000 for a bombed-out Humvee and $15,000 to anyone who destroys a tank.

If the information on those bounties is accurate, it seems likely that wealth from oil sales funds the bounties and much else. Before the Americans can establish anything durable in Iraq, it seems they must take oil and money away from Islam.

Kralizec on August 14, 2007 at 12:09 PM

So by that logic, if we’d decided to take out Jim Jones, we would have had to take out all of his followers because deprogramming would have been pointless?
Connie on August 14, 2007 at 11:08 AM

The definition of “Muslim” is not logic; just agreement on how to use the word. The logic you describe is what I’ve been arguing against. See the thread “State Department: Tancredo “absolutely crazy” for wanting to hit Mecca”

Also see the more recent thread: Intel jittery as Al Qaeda’s training camps empty out

The whole of Islam is not our enemy; a few nuclear bombs cannot “settle” this war. Islam is a completely flat structure of many cells. There is no head of Islam to cut off. There are cells of Islam that are our deadly enemy; there are cells that are our natural allies. Assuming that all Muslims are alike makes our thinking easier. Getting some of them as allies makes the fighting easier.

It will be a long war. Who wins depends on who fights.

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 12:10 PM

Connie,
I forgot to add the tag line.
Communication is a wonderful illusion.

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 12:17 PM

TunaTalon you’re putting words into people’s mouths. Not that you can name anyone, just an anonymous bunch of HA commenters. Gee so Sufis in Central Asia aren’t necessarily the same as Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia? Thank you educating us all Professor Obvious.

aengus on August 14, 2007 at 12:18 PM

“It’s just too bad this sort of strategy didn’t happen a couple of years earlier.”

[JamesLee on August 14, 2007 at 11:10 AM]

It is too bad. It may turn out to be the biggest mistake of the war. It’s certainly the one least likely to dawn on Washington to be a mistake, despite the fact the biggest fear for all Iraqis is to not be, in some way, at the top of the heap, from where money, food, fuel, electricity, etc, is controlled and flows.

Emphasizing and promoting local government and independent initiative is where success lies. The former is the easier of the two for Iraqis to grasp. It’s the latter, the how, that is needed, and lacking, for the former to be effective. Not that I fault Iraqis for any lack of it. Thirty years of having to live off the teat of mother government dulls individual initiative, never mind the potential that one would be punished if one shows to much of the wrong kind of it. But the US military is most capable in coaxing it out of just about anyone.

I hope that with an eventual bottom in place and a little help from DC, the central government can be made to shed the vast majority of their central functions and confine themselves to foreign affairs, national security, domestic tranquility, and equality under the law.

All that is my “I want to believe” [HT: Dash], but I don’t think it is unrealistic, so I’ll add another to push it closer. I think the Iraqi people, after establishing a rudimentary condition of local control and independence, and thus free to choose union or independence while surrounded by dangers, both foreign and domestic, will choose union.

Dusty on August 14, 2007 at 12:40 PM

TheBigOldDog: “The truth is getting out. It’s going to be very hard for the Dems to spin this and force a pull out. Very hard…”

That’s why the liberal traitors running the Democratic Party in Congress (Pelose, Reid, Durbin, Murtha, Schumer, etc.) intend to hear Petreaus’ report in closed session. So American WON’T know the truth: that we are winning and that our continued presence under the new rules of engagement means that we will destroy Al Qaeda.

Then, immediately following the hearing, they’ll claim we’re losing and try to force immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

georgej on August 14, 2007 at 1:35 PM

Is it me or is my imagination that there is some positve news being reported by some of the MSN on the progress in the Iraq war? There are some even asking what will happen if we pull out to soon.

KBird on August 14, 2007 at 1:52 PM

Spiegel: “The U.S. military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe”

More appropriate headline: “The U.S. military is more successful in Iraq than Congress is in the U.S.”

Dr. Charles G. Waugh on August 14, 2007 at 3:18 PM

TunaTalon you’re putting words into people’s mouths. Not that you can name anyone, just an anonymous bunch of HA commenters. Gee so Sufis in Central Asia aren’t necessarily the same as Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia? Thank you educating us all Professor Obvious.
aengus on August 14, 2007 at 12:18 PM

I thought about naming monikers in the 9:38 AM comment but that was a little too trollish for my taste. But since you have called me out… here they are. CAIR has probably copied and cross referenced the comments for use against Hot Air anyway.

The following references are all from the two links from my 12:10 PM post. Most of the comments have been edited for brevity. All of the referenced comments handle the world of Islam as a single unified enemy. If anyone referenced below objects to the way I have interpreted their comments I will be pleased, most pleased, to be disillusioned.

Anyone who thinks we have seen the worst of this war against islam, and I said islam not islamofascism, is living in a fantasy world. If you haven’t noticed the surge may be working in iraq but islam is taking over the world.
peacenprosperity on August 11, 2007 at 4:13 PM

I think the problems of winning and holding hearts and minds are more difficult than you imagine. Nevertheless, if you were first to destroy the capacity of the Americans’ enemies to make war against them, and if you seized their resources so that they couldn’t regenerate their war-making capacity, you would afterward have both greater leisure and greater resources for winning whichever hearts and minds on which it pleases you to make an attempt.
Kralizec on August 11, 2007 at 6:46 PM

In Islam there are two possible outcomes: Victor and Vanquished. That’s it. And that is how the Muslims — the Shi’a and the Sunni Arabs, and to a slightly lesser extent — because their non-Arab identity does not reinforce but weakens the strength of their Muslim identity — the Kurds as well in dealing with the Arabs.
Victor. Vanquished. Not a good prospect for advanced Western democracy.
Don’t blame Ameican incompetence in “post-war planning.” Once Saddam Hussein was deposed, everything that followed was nearly inevitable, though the time frame might have been different.
No. Blame Islam.”
MB4 on August 11, 2007 at 7:10 PM

There is no way to win the hearts and minds of Muslims - nominal Muslims (ie: secular/lapsed/cultural) yes; true Muslims (ie: religious/observant/devout) NO. The more devoted they are to the prophet Mohammed and his teachings, the less chance there is to win their hearts and minds - to do so would require turning them away from the teachings of their Koran, Sira and Hadith. And without the Koran, there is no Islam.
There is no room in Islam for co-existence with infidels. There is no room in Islam for reform. Islam cannot be reconciled with the kuffir. It’s them or us. Their “religion” will allow nothing less.
Redhead Infidel on August 11, 2007 at 8:56 PM

You win a war by throwing everything you have at it and hitting the enemy where it hurts. Which one’s of you think we have Muslims on our side with respect to destroying the Jihadists. They are, by definition, all Jihadists in training. They may never detonate the bomb or actually kill someone, but it’s not because they don’t want to or believe it’s the thing to do, it’s just that their chance may never come. And for those of you that don’t think all of Islam should be put in the same bucket and treated accordingly, your help is not needed nor will it be of any benefit. It is that sort of thinking that’s going to get more innocent people hurt and killed in the world. While you people are trying to figure out who’s on our side and who’s not (BTW, the very definition of the Muslim religion does not allow any of them to be on the side of peace and righteousness) they’ll be slaughtering innocents left and right. It’s high time “the world” stands up and tells these whackos that one more large scale attack in the name of Allah, and it will cause the holy (that’s an oxymoron word when you talk about their cult) sites of said cult to be decimated. In the history of the world, more people have died in the name of religions than any other reason. In those deaths, more have died as a result of Islam being involved than any other one religion. It’s time to end this nonsense and remove this parasite from our planet. The globe has gotten too small to tolerate this nonsense and we need to get serious about making these people a non issue.
rayvet on August 3, 2007 at 6:27 PM

There is a clash of civilization and Islam seeks to eventually impose its domination over the world. Some Mulsims want to impose Allah’s will immediately by force (Al Qaeda, Taliban, etc.) others want a slow and stead creep and infiltration until armed conflict because realistic or maybe even not necessary through demographics (CAIR and the Saudis).
Eventually we will have to do to Islam what we did to political Shintoism — impose by force of arms a separation of mosque and state.
tommylotto on August 3, 2007 at 7:00 PM

Muslims have declared war on the West and vowed our destruction. Moderate Muslims? Show me some. Yes, if they bomb one of our holy cities we should return destruction seven-fold. The Jihadists will understand and respect that threat! Tancredo has spoken what many of us have been thinking for quite some time.
drewas on August 3, 2007 at 8:19 PM

The definition of a ‘moderate’ muslim is someone who tries to distract you so his buddy with a knife can sneak up on you and slit your throat. I am a firm believer in reciprocity. There are no innocent infidels? Infidels should be converted, subdued, or killed?
One way or another, Islam as it exists today will not survive this century. How much blood is shed depends on them, not us.
ticticboom on August 4, 2007 at 1:15 AM

General Casey has finished talking to the press club. To quote the Army Chief of Staff, “success in Iraq is achievable.” When asked about the accuracy of the press coverage from Iraq is General Casey had to laugh out loud. So did the audience. They know.

General Casey has a nuanced view of our Muslim enemies and our Muslim friends in Iraq. My preference is for General Casey and General Petraeus to have it right.

TunaTalon on August 14, 2007 at 3:25 PM

So are you saying that the people you quote have it wrong? Or, do they understand Islam and the Koran?

Mojave Mark on August 15, 2007 at 12:57 AM

So are you saying that the people you quote have it wrong? Or, do they understand Islam and the Koran?
Mojave Mark on August 15, 2007 at 12:57 AM

I’m saying that there are a billion people who believe in the Koran at some level or another. The book is the same to all of them but their understanding of the meaning is vastly different as you might expect from so many people.

1. Bin Laden wants a unified world of Islam fighting against the Infidel.
2. Ayman Al-Zawahiri wants a unified world of Islam fighting against the Infidel.
3. President Bush has told Muslim nations “you’re on our side or on the side of the terrorists”.
4. General Petraeus is busy in Iraq pitting Muslim against Muslim to the advantage of the U.S.

This old Hillbilly believes Petraeus has it right and the President could still be proven right by history.

TunaTalon on August 15, 2007 at 9:10 AM

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