Well, I’ve finally written something that resonated with people. The reviews are in and they are a mixed bag.
I don’t have the time to answer every single person personally, as much as I would like too. For all those of you who expressed support, thank you sincerely. Many of the more thoughtful responses included questions such as this one:
I respect your opinion and I agree a time table is potentially dangerous, but isn’t there also the idea that us having a visible presence in Iraq is also hurting the situation? Is there no thought of a middle ground where we allow Iraqis to become more visible and we provide more background assistance?”
Ed
Ed – I can tell you from personal observation that both the coalition and Iraqi leadership recognize the need to have Iraqis doing the job of providing Iraqi security. In the building I work in, we try to be as low key as possible, and the actual security for the building is already provided by Iraqi policemen. We are here more as technical advisors and facilitators than anything else. The Iraqis have ownership. Thanks, Ed, for asking and expressing your concern.
I hear the general officer level briefings every week and hear the various Iraqi ministries addressing Iraqis via televised broadcasts. The leadership over here understands that Iraqis have to do this job of building a free Iraq. That process is imperfect and is just beginning. If it reaches completion and bears fruit, it will be the next few generations of Iraqis who benefit most. The changes required for a free Iraq to exist are sweeping and will wipe away an ingrained culture that is what it is because Iraqis have not known what it is like to make their own choices in many decades.
It’s easy to try and discount what I have to say, as the individual below did:
This guy does not speak for anyone I know. In fact, I’d say he’s in the minority. I doubt he’s even over here. It is deeply, deeply sad that people are willing to believe that President Bush is actually a military leader with any sort of vision.”
A Coward
I am a real soldier serving in a real combat zone, putting my life on the line for what I believe could turn out to be good for both Iraq and the United States of America. We live in an age of globalization, and as much as I’d like to live out my life isolated and happy, ignorant of the problems halfway around the world, those problems are in one way or another my problems. I can ignore them until they affect me, or deal with them now, and hopefully change the future for the better.
I’m not in combat every day. I am not a grunt, as some have speculated. I am an information warrior, living in Baghdad and trying to help in some small way to make Iraq a better place for Iraqi children because I believe that what we do here will have a ripple effect. We are all connected.
This war is not perfect, and this war is not pretty. It was a long time coming. It may have been started justly or unjustly. But no matter which side of the arguments you find yourselves on, you would do well to remember that the outcomes of millions of lives depend on whether or not the coalition stays the course. Those of you supporting a complete pullout on a timetable might as well be spitting in the eye of all the Iraqis who are currently trying to build futures worth having. So go ahead, keep on supporting the next murdering dictator or intolerant fundamenalist theocrat. Condemn more generations of Iraqis to a life where owning a cell phone or a satellite dish is a crime and people disappear en mass as if they had never been.
I made my choice, and I’m here. You make yours every day when you rally, rail and cry against a war you don’t understand and haven’t seen firsthand.
P.S. It’s been suggested that I was paid by the Pentagon to write the blog entry supporting no timetable. I find that laughable. Get to know me and you will as well. I took a pay cut to come here.