Winning Iraq

Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu – Nov 05, 2007
FrontPageMagazine.com

If the old saw “no news is good news” has any truth to it, then things must be going very well indeed in the Iraq war. Increasingly obvious signs of success as a result of the “surge” under the able leadership of General David Petraeus have all but rendered the mainstream media speechless on the warfront. From the days of constant television showing video of black smoke billowing from burning car bombs in marketplaces, we have now reached a virtual blackout. When was the last time you saw a detailed listing of U.S. and Iraqi casualties in the top right column of the New York Times or Washington Post?

The media are not going to report good news, which leaves Americans with the impression that the war is going as poorly now as it was a year ago. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Friendly casualties are lower than they have been in years, across the board: U.S. and allied forces, Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilian losses are all at near-record lows. Contrasted to this time last year, the comparison is staggering. And for all the recent caterwauling from craven Foreign Service Officers about a tour in Iraq being a “death sentence, and you know it,” so far the State Department has not lost anyone except contractors hired at extravagant cost to protect its officers. (Can anyone say “Blackwater”?)

On the rise, however, are al-Qaeda In Iraq’s losses, although you can expect to see them falling in the near future, too — not because these foreign fighters are not being hunted down and killed, but because AQI targets populations are declining. Fewer and fewer recruits are coming through Syria into Iraq to join the fight.

Huge attrition rates have reduced AQI presence in Iraq dramatically. Partially as a result of these high losses, the brightness of the al Qaeda’s appeal among foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, and other disturbed places around the region has dimmed. Yes, the terrorist training camps in Syria are still functioning and Damascus does little to impede foreign jihadists’ travel through Syrian territory. But it appears some radicals who prefer to fight the infidel face to face are either waiting for another time (like after the 2008 elections) or are seeking more accommodating ground. Hence, the recent resurgence of fighting in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

According to Rear Admiral Greg Smith, spokesman for the Multi-National Force–Iraq, this largely unreported good news is attributable to the strategy General Petraeus brought with him on this his third tour of duty in Iraq. “More than a majority in Anbar Province area have morally and physically rejected al Qaeda,” Smith reported in a conference call on October 31. “The movement called Concerned Local Citizens – often referred to as the Anbar Awakening – has now spread across the entire country.” This is decidedly good news for those who love freedom and extraordinarily bad new for Al Qaeda Iraq.

“There are more than 120 separate Concerned Local Citizens groups around the country,” Greg notes, “Many in the predominately Sunni areas that were former AQI strongholds.” By rejecting the terrorists and embracing a solution within the Iraqi government, tribal leaders and sheiks – still the key opinion formers in the new republic – have “tilted the kinetics” hard in the direction of a non-violent solution to Iraqi problems.

This kinetic shift has enabled the military to take advantage of a broader range of targets. “We continue to go after foreign fighters,” Smith said, “and have expanded our targeting to include AQI propaganda arm, money laundering and finance, and operations.” According to Smith “with the capture of the eighth AQI media cell, al-Qaeda’s ability to broadcast or make propaganda videos inside Iraq is severely degraded.”

Forces on the ground are careful not to overstate this success. “We’ve still got a long way to go,” Smith affirmed. He was cautiously optimistic about returning Iraqi provinces to the responsibility of Iraqi security forces. “Eight of 18 provinces are now under Iraqi control,” he noted. “We expect two more to transfer shortly.”

And as for the final eight provinces? “They won’t be transferred this year, although we had originally hoped to achieve that goal. However, we expect that not far into 2008 the transfers will be complete.”

How about the sectarian militias that media pundits have gloomily characterized as portending a civil war? “Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his followers to support the Iraqi government,” Smith noted. His forces were among those considered most threatening to stability.

Jaysh al Mahdi (JAM) forces, under the titular control of Muqtada al Sadr, were described in a report to Congress in August 2006 as “increasingly linked to retaliatory violence.” According to Smith, JAM has now assumed a much diminished role. A returning British general officer described JAM activities in Basra and the south of Iraq as drifting increasingly into a criminal, mob-rule rather than one that is ideologically Shi’a based. He characterized activities as more “mafia-like” than religious or sectarian, and observed that from the “glass-half-full” perspective the various organized crime gangs were at least committed to keeping Iranian agents out of their business affairs.

The secularization movement seems to be growing rapidly within JAM and the Mahdi Army community. While controlling criminal gangs present their own set of challenges, at least for the moment the threat of civil war or partition of the country seems increasingly remote.

As Smith confirmed, “I have spoken with representatives high and low from all over Iraq, and none favor partition or breakup. They all identify themselves first as Iraq citizens and then as part of a religious affiliation or tribe.” This is, indeed, good news, at least for those other than NBC, which pompously announced last year that after “due consideration” it had decided “a civil war exists in Iraq.”

On the infrastructure side, Smith explained that more power is being generated than in pre-war Iraq — though electric power requirements still exceed supply. “Power shortages continue from time to time in Baghdad,” he elaborated, “but that is because in the old days Saddam directed that most of the power be allocated to Baghdad. Now we are spreading it across the entire country.” He is now making up for Saddam’s previous policy of discrimination.

That’s the good news from Iraq. Not violent, sexy, or especially titillating, but strongly indicative of a rising confidence level and improving security situation among a people who have lived far too long with a knife at their throats.

Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu has been an Army Green Beret lieutenant colonel, as well as a writer, popular speaker, business executive and farmer. His most recent book is Separated at Birth, about North and South Korea.

Hello, America. Anybody out there?

I’ve raised some of the most important issues of our time. Is anyone listening? Does anyone care?

I written a pivotally critical book titled COMMON SENSE & THE MIDDLE EAST: Contrasting Liberty and Tyranny, pre-publication copies now available at cost (rr@fortressinternational.org).

This book is easy to read, less than a hundred pages, yet packed with what every American MUST know to protect him/herself and families in the dangerous times to come. Soon it will be available on-line at minimal expense. We want every American to see these unique and fascinating insights. We want a copy in the hands of every member of our fine Military.

Amazingly the publishing industry appears to believe the War in Iraq, and the greater “War On Terror,” is lost and no one wants to hear anymore on the subject. What a tragedy! That so many, through simple ignorance and sloth, are willingly lining up for their own shackling. We are in a race against time and losing that race.

Tyranny and Terror have been weaponized, through access to modern weapons and communication technology. That’s the difference today, America. The weaponization of tyranny and terror. We cannot go back; we cannot reverse the process.

There is hope, however, born of education and intelligence, and the willingness to ACT on these essential insights that are available free to every American, to all people, truths our enemies hope you never learn. Truly this is a war of education, and ignorance is getting Americans killed. Please, don’t be one of them.

Are you out there, America? Let’s hear from you!

–CommonSense76

Friends,

Every source I have tells me right now to “keep your eyes locked on the Middle East.” The September 6th raid by Israel into Syria, while apparently essential in preventing weapons of mass destruction proliferation, more so is an indicator of the dynamic nature of America’s WAR ON TYRANTS, which has apparently entered a new stage. A combination of Israeli strike aircraft, as well as commando ground units, with the assistance and cooperation of the United States, intercepted what appears to be North Korean nuclear equipment and material, as well as technicians, completely obliterating the site and possibly even capturing some sensitive material and equipment. (Details will follow, INCLUDING POSSIBLE IRANIAN CONNECTION WITH SYRIA AND NORTH KOREA. Stay-tuned!)

–CommonSense76

I don’t believe most Americans have any idea the dark nature of the enemy we face. I have a friend who greatly admires Gandhi, the renowned Indian pacifist. Recently we talked about the war. Our discussion went something like this:

“Rick, the problem I have with this war on terror is that I hate war so much,” he said.

“So do I,” I said.

He shook his head, discounting my words. “No, you don’t understand. I really hate war. This is why I love Gandhi so much. He had a better, more humane way. You’re different, Rick. You’re a ‘militarist,’ you see the world as filled with threats that must be neutralized. I don’t. People are basically peaceful. We should help them be peaceful and avoid war. No matter how you try to explain it—the necessity of fighting these terrorists—it just sits badly in my gut the thought of solving anything with bloodshed. Gandhi defeated the mighty British Empire, driving them out of India without firing a shot in anger. He would not have hurt anyone, yet he accomplished his goals without violence.”

“Yes, he did,” I said. “He was a great peacemaker, yet he was assertive, even aggressive…in his own genteel way. And he did what even the American Patriots in 1776 were unable to do—willingly get the British to turn over power to the people of India and let them run their own affairs as a liberated nation and he did it without taking up arms. Gandhi was an amazing leader of men and surely a hero.”

“Exactly,” said my friend. “But what we are doing in the Middle East is not that; it is not right. We are fighting and killing thousands. Gandhi wouldn’t have done it that way.”

“Again, you are right,” I said. “But let’s look closer. Perhaps we are making unfair comparisons. Would Gandhi have been successful standing as he did against the Ayatollah’s of Iran? How about against Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union? Or even resisting the Taliban in Afghanistan? What would Osama bin Laden do if challenged by Gandhi?”

My friend sat thinking for a moment. He was smart enough to realize that the British and the Taliban or al-Qaeda were, and are, totally incomparable. They are worlds apart.

“I’ll answer my own question,” I said. “In Osama bin Laden’s ‘Caliphate,’ his hoped-for global Islamic Empire he fights for, he has murdered thousands of Muslims, as well as Christians and others, trying to terrorize his enemies, and all of us, into submission. How would our friend Mahatma Gandhi have fared against Osama today? We both know the answer. Mahatma would not have lived beyond the first day of his famous ‘hunger strike against oppression’ before feeling the caress of the ‘Sword of Islamic Justice’ on his narrow neck. In Iran, the Ayatollah’s would have had no patience for his ‘effeminate passivity,’ as they would view it. In the Soviet Union, Stalin would have simply arrested him the first time he protested and no one would have ever heard from poor Mahatma again. Under the Taliban’s thumb he’d have died in obscurity in some Afghan hellhole, scratching his legacy with his own blood on cold, dank walls.”

            The discussion went something like that for awhile. Yet, in spite of my efforts at cold realism, my friend would not be swayed. Apologetically (perhaps predictably) he blamed his passive views on his family background, and on his education. And while I admire him for his convictions, it is fortunate for him that others are willing to pick up arms, if necessary, to protect his life, and the lives of his wife and children. Under the Ayatollahs, or in Nazi Germany, or in Idi Amin’s Uganda, my fine, loving friend, if he had stood to resist tyranny as all true men must do, would have simply been arrested, tortured, then shot, likely first witnessing the rape and torture of his family.

            “Code Pink” and other professional war protestors and appeasers today have shouted in demonstrations outside President Bush’s Texas ranch-house, “What would Gandhi do?” Well, we know what he would do. In the height of WWII against Hitler’s Germany, Gandhi sent a letter to the people of Britain advising them to surrender to the Nazis, to “stop the massive killing.” Later, when the horrific concentration camps were discovered and what remained of millions of murdered Jews, Gandhi criticized the Jews for fighting back as they did in Warsaw and other Jewish towns and cities. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” Gandhi said. He claimed that “collective suicide would have been heroic.”

I’m sure al-Qaeda would be thrilled if more Americans believed as Gandhi. While some aspects of his life I admire, his advice to surrender en masse to pure evil is insane, and if taken by us today would certainly bring on an American holocaust. Dictators are terrorists. They are experts at it, as was Saddam Hussein. They intimidate, torture, and murder to maintain power; otherwise a more brutal tyrant steals power from them. Gandhi was lucky he dealt with the benign and “proper” British, rather than Adolf Hitler. Calling on Mahatma’s trademark method of passive civil disobedience to resist the tyrant, such men as Ghengis Khan, or even Iran’s bombastic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would have simply arrested Gandhi, beheading our hero while they sat eating their noon-day meal.

  “O young people of Islam: Follow the orders of Almighty God and His messenger and kill those people (Americans)…. Death is better than living on this earth with the Unbelievers amongst us.”

- Osama bin Laden

April 27, 2006

 “…(We) see it in our power to make a world happy—to teach mankind the art of being so—to exhibit on the theater of the universe a character hitherto unknown.”

- Thomas Paine

            The man slipped in next to me and softly shut the car door. He said nothing as I pulled away from the curb into a sultry Persian Gulf night. We headed west into the desert, the occasional car passing close on the narrow two lane road. What the Arab agent would offer to tell us we didn’t know, though we knew he was well connected.

            Actually, I remember only a few details of that night, details that stuck with me, visions that sometimes appear without warning in my dreams. Seated next to me in the car, and later directly across from me in the safehouse, was an Arab terrorist from one of the most ruthless organizations in the Middle East, personally protected and given safe haven by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He offered no excuses. He was not concerned about protecting America. He was there to betray his fellow thugs and murderers for money, for lots of cash.

            My prime recollection from that night was not the concern that I might be set up, that maybe he was a “double.” What haunts me today was the empty stare as he looked my way. The Arabs say “the eyes are the windows to the soul.” As I searched his that night I found a wasteland. The man revealed neither sadness nor anger, just…nothing. He was a moving, talking manikin, though a manikin that might kill if threatened. He had trained the group’s fedayiin (“ones who sacrifice themselves”), their professional assassins, and had sent off many to kill and maim, and be killed. Perhaps in the beginning he had been motivated by radical Islamist ideology…perhaps, but not anymore. He was spent. He said he wanted to quit the profession, yet personally I doubted he cared one way or the other.

This was the terror-boss, the general-manager Americans never see, consumed by the incredible inhumanity around him, and jaded by corruption and greed at the top. Terror creates diseased hearts and deformed minds. But it is more than a sickness. It is a prison. Radical Islam feeds on endless hatred, an inhuman condition from which it is nearly impossible to escape. While this terrorist was trying, I hoped, I also doubted he would find rest in his new life. Perhaps his willingness to help America against his former colleagues was his stab at penitence, though I quickly dismissed that possibility, too.

In my mind, more than a decade later, I still see those eyes. The Arabs are right—windows to the soul. His eyes were the polar-opposite of the eyes of U.S. troops I’ve met in Iraq since. Tyranny (and its weapon of choice, terror) does more than terrorize and shackle. The tyrant creates two kinds of puppet-slaves: First, by destroying the heart and soul, he turns some into indiscriminant, unfeeling murderers of the innocent. More often, however, the tyrant reigns by neutering the masses through bloody terror, creating human-sheep who will never dare challenge the Maximum Leader. The terror-boss seated across from me that night was the former, his vacant orbs mirror images of the untold corpses he had fashioned from living, breathing human beings.  

 “The banner of Islam will necessarily be raised when the land is watered with the blood of martyrs.”- al-Qaeda Terrorist Organization (1998).

“It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a cause, that we are defending….” - Thomas Paine (1776).

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