Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Hurricane Point Rides out the Storm
In Ramadi, personality sometimes 'more useful than body armor' 
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
HURRICANE POINT, Ramadi – If you head west from this small forward operating base located on Route Michigan, you'll reach a bridge that crosses a peaceful river. It would be easy to spend an afternoon walking along the riverbank, and many Iraqis do.
But the 3rd Battalion 7th Marines out of 29 Palms know complacency kills. In fact, that adage is written on the walls near the exit as a warning to Marines about to go outside the wire and into town. Speaking to any member of the 3/7 Marines is like talking to a history book. For those who were here last deployment, the chapters on Ramadi are written into their memory. And when asked to recall the last deployment, the Marines of the 3/7 all seem to pause, as if staring at a photo of the past, trying to match up the old image in their minds with the reality right before them. 
Marine Cpl. Mickey Schaetzle was a Ramadi veteran. Back home in Colorado, he played high school football; here in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, he was in charge of the convoy transporting me and a dozen other Marines downtown. I often find myself comparing young men like Cpl. Schaetzle – capable, in charge and responsive – with the students on the Columbia University campus and campuses across America. Instead of going off to college like most kids his age, Schaetzle joined the Marine Corps "to get a little discipline" and see the world. He saw Ramadi from 2005 to 2006, where he remembered a constant state of alert and the threat of violence everywhere. Marines have been around as long as the United States itself, and from the beginning, "the few good men" who join the Corps have been a bit different. As a tiny unit of "soldiers of the sea," scrappy Marines struggled to prove their worth throughout every single conflict in American history. From the shores of Tripoli where they defeated Barbary pirates in what today is Libya, to the battlefields of France where one Marine officer shouted, "Retreat? Hell, we just got here," you could make a case that Marines have something to prove – to themselves, and maybe just as important, to the Corps.
I forgot to ask Cpl. Schaetzle exactly how old he was, but he graduated from high school four years ago. He was probably about 21, which is a bit older than the average age of servicemen in Iraq, yet men like Schaetzle were anything but average. 
You don't just end up being a Marine by luck, or accident – it takes a concerted effort, a willingness to subject yourself to hardship in the hopes of something in return. Camaraderie, distinction or duty – defining that "something" is difficult, but if you don't know what you want, the Marine Corps will kindly make some great suggestions. Every night before going to bed, Marine recruits will stand by their racks and, on cue, shout at the top of their lungs, "honor, courage, commitment." Recruits bang the thin government-issued mattresses after every promise, so that the physical body will conform, retain and respond to each verbal pledge. For the Marines, muscle memory applies to the heart as well.
All members of the military have sworn to protect the nation, but Marines brag they'll do it first, in fact they insist. It's one thing to flirt with combat, it's even more daring to become an "03" Marine infantry rifleman during a time of war. When Schaetzle enlisted, that's what he decided to be. "Things are a lot better now," Schaetzle said of the new Ramadi where Marines did not have to run on foot patrols trying to avoid fire from rooftops. The "new" Marines of the 3/7 – the ones who were not around for the first deployment – will sometimes gripe that the current state of Ramadi is too boring. "Nothing happens," said one private first class on his first tour to Iraq. Schaetzle's just happy those Marines do not have to deal with what the media came to call "the most dangerous city in the world." In the fall of 2006, a very international and critical press ran headlines saying, "We have lost Anbar Province!" The source of that leaked report was Marine Corps intelligence officer Col. Peter Devlin. With over 20 years in the Corps, Devlin's assessment of the situation on the ground was alarming. Less than a year later, Anbar, a province named after the granaries and the abundance of its fertile land, is considered the fruition of success in the Iraq policy. I contacted Col. Devlin via e-mail. Many members of the military have complained of being misquoted, so I'm reprinting his statements precisely as he wrote them to me: "Quite obviously, the situation in the province has improved dramatically since then, to my great relief. As I have maintained since this improvement became apparent this spring (2007), the assessments that I made last year were accurate for the timeframe within which they were written. Things were that bad and the prospects for improvement seemed very bleak. I do not believe that any other intelligence professional would have developed a much different assessment for al-Anbar last summer and fall." Devlin, the internationally quoted Marine intelligence officer, is glad things have changed, but he did call the publishing of a secret report "an absolute disgrace." 
Looking to the future, Schaetzle told me, "I want to go back to school and become a physical therapist."
"Why do you think you're ready for college now?," I asked. Like many who enlist, Schaetzle just didn't think college was for him after years in high school. For lots of young men and women, the Corps provided a different kind of education, with a lesson plan that just couldn't be found in a textbook.
"I know more what I want," he said with confidence.
What will the effect be on American society when all these young men and women who have seen and done so much come home to live normal lives? "You're not going to be like everyone else," I said. "That's OK, I'm not going to tell anyone I'm a Marine or anything. I just want to study in peace." I always ask troops what they're going to do when they get out. Getting out, leaving the safety and comfort is a big step. I've met many servicemen and women who leave and then come back, after finding civilian life to be less satisfying. "Go to school" is the No. 1 answer – a lot of the 3/7 Marines want to take what they have learned and experienced, and apply it to other areas of a life they know has completely changed. Defectors Situations and settings change, people change, but is it possible for former enemies to become friends, or at least to work together? The complaint of fighting alongside former insurgents who have American blood on their hands may distress people back home, but I've heard a different opinion in Iraq. Infantry officer Capt. Dave Hart with the 3rd Battalion 6th Marines said he would "rather see a defection than a capture, even if these guys were fighting us two or three weeks ago." A capture was a drain on resources, another person to arrest, guard and process through a system that began on its hands and knees and was attempting to take its first steps. A defection was a loss for the other side, an asset for the home team, a fighter not only trained, but intimate with enemy tactics. "Every time we went out, we were going to get into a fight," said Maj. Rory Quinn of the 3/7. Hurricane Point was no picnic, but the Marines of the "cutting edge" 3/7 are used to harsh conditions. Almost every Marine I've met has an opinion, criticism or horror story about 29 Palms, even the ones who have never seen it. Nicknamed "29 Stumps" and smack dab in the Mohave desert, the vast 29 Palms is the toughest place for a Marine to be stationed, or at least that's what they say. Mohave Viper, the training exercise "The Stumps" hosts for Marines to get training in preparation for deploying to Iraq, is said to prepare Marines the best and most realistically for conditions in the Middle East. No stranger to hard realism himself, Quinn, a native of New York, is serving his second tour in Ramadi. Quinn is an all-around easy-going guy. He gets along well with the Iraqis, which is not surprising – he is part of the power structure. And from the younger Marines – the ranks below sergeant, the ones who are about to get out and have nothing to lose when they offer their opinion – I didn't hear one unkind word about Major Quinn, a rarity. "You've got to drink the chai," Quinn said. I never saw him refuse a cigarette either, Iraqis will always offer before lighting up themselves. "We made the mistake last time around of not focusing on the people of the city," he said. In the current "permissive" state of security in Ramadi, personality may be more useful than body armor. "Permissive" was one of those terms a lot of military types repeated just like "kinetic," "tactical" and "malingering" – they sound really specific, but the vocabulary is subject to interpretation. "Permissive," here in Ramadi, meant the threat was distant, but that Marines never relaxed. The following morning we drove down Route Michigan to an Iraqi police station. The occasion was a Ramadi city council. As soon as Quinn arrived, the Iraqis swarmed over to meet and great him. "We try to stay in the background and let these guys do their job," said Quinn. This was democracy at work – not Democracy with a capital D, the stuff political philosophers like Socrates, Locke and John Adams spoke of – but the democracy of local government where normal people sat in a town hall-style audience, listened to what politicians promised and then got up and gave the authorities sitting behind the table a piece of their mind. This was the practical democracy of people arguing, compromising, misrepresenting, accusing, arguing and settling on some sort of agreement. One indignant man got up and accused the members of the board of stealing contracts. "The guys can be pretty cutthroat, they get really jealous when one contractor wins out over another," an American from USAID told me. The council members, who are not eligible to bid on contracts, assured the irate man that the process was transparent. Marines supervised the transparency, and like referees in a boxing match tried to make sure everyone followed the rules. Another man in a white dishdasha, the customary robe many Middle Eastern men wear, sprang out of his seat and pointed a finger at someone across the room. Shouting started and the leader of the council tried to restore order. The interpreter couldn't keep up with the back-and-forth, but as with a rushed text message, I got the gist of the problem: "My honor," "He's lying," "You don't keep your promise!" "I call this man-drama," said Quinn, referring to the public spats and intrigues that went on between Iraqi men. One police officer shot himself in the hand, apparently trying to show off to his buddies. Another contractor accused a competitor of being a terrorist to authorities, possibly because he lost out on a bid. A father insulted a neighboring family when he refused to let his daughter marry their son. And the list went on. In a public culture where women have been almost entirely absent, many men in Iraq and throughout the Middle East take on an etiquette that could sometimes revert to the level of kids fighting on the blacktop during recess at an elementary school. I never thought of how fortunate we are back home to have women who cannot only take a stand, but who temper the male behavior, no matter how crazy they make us. The only time you saw a man and woman together in Iraq, especially in the smaller towns, was when a covered mother carried her toddler to market and let her older son address the male vendors on her behalf. The souk, or marketplace, had been closed down during much of the fighting. The threat of car bombs, suicide bombers and IEDs was too great, and if the streets were littered as they were before, you would find it nearly impossible to spot a "tomato can" IED, a dangerous little explosive that could easily kill a pedestrian or two. "We're hiring locals to pick up the garbage," said Capt. Marcus Mainz, commanding officer of Lima Company and on his first tour in Iraq. Garbage collection, construction projects and other public works are economic shots in the arm and part of the strategy for both improving the city and making it safer. But in typical Marine fashion, Capt. Mainz' AO (area of operations) has gone above and beyond the call of duty. His lieutenant, Luke Larson, has participated in the organization of a 5-kilometer race down roads that pedestrians avoided. The race is on I stood on a bridge overlooking Route Michigan. One of the sergeants told me that, in the past, our military would never stand on this bridge – too easy a target for snipers. Runners, all male, lined up at the starting line for one of the first public events in recent history. There were easily 200 runners, even considering that tight security may have prevented neighboring athletes from entering the town. There was still a ban on vehicle traffic in the downtown area, there had not been a car bomb in several months and the mayor of Ramadi, Latif Obaid Ayadah, told me he was cautious about changing the situation, but he was really excited about building hotels to spur tourism. "This is the capital," he said, and "it would be a great investment." The mayor knew the time was nearing when Ramadi could become a normal city, but the danger was nowhere near its end.
The runners finished near a roundabout, a spot where several Marines had been wounded the year before. Musicians arrived after a happy mob engulfed the winner of the race. Police officers started to dance in circle, each following traditional steps that I've seen throughout the Middle East. The scene was about as jarring as the names of the neighboring streets: Moron, Firecracker, Botta bing. The people of Ramadi had not forgotten how to celebrate.
The announcer on the loud speaker called the names of Marines and I snapped pictures of Iraqis handing Capt. Mainz, Sgt. Humphrey and lieutenants Larson and Mujica trophies. It was a nice movie moment, the point when credits roll and only a few stay seated in the theatre to read the names. But life has never been like a Hollywood film and the Marines of the 3/7 are not actor on some stage.
The media's free ride in Iraq
The New Republic published entries from the "Baghdad Diarist," a soldier who was supposedly reporting on the realities of being in Baghdad. The "diarist" was proven to be a fraud, while the liberal media claimed even if the story was fake, it could have been true and that's what counts. Discerning facts from fiction is an obstacle the media trips over daily.
If the media are the eyes, ears and voice of a democracy, our nation is currently deaf, dumb and blind. The conflict in Iraq is complicated, and yet the media has dumbed-down that complexity by communicating in flashy breaking-news banners with "expert analysis" that is, in fact, amateur opinion given by activist glamour correspondents whose names are synonymous with their news programs. Take the main issue in Iraq: creating a sustainable economy out of a formerly totalitarian one-product, socialist state. The complexity of building (not rebuilding, since much of the "damage" was simply the norm in Saddam's Iraq) is marred in a politically driven game of gotcha, where an activist press plays hide-and-seek with the facts to pander to niche audiences while pretending objectivity and professionalism.
Instead of reporting, analysis and theory, we get political slogans and clichs. "No war for oil." "No military solution to Iraq's political problem." "Failed strategy." "A quagmire in Iraq." Any of these bumper stickers is fine as a starting point, but not as an all-encompassing conclusion, especially without some in-depth scrutiny. After spending time with the mainstream media, it's not hard to understand why the coverage coming from Iraq is, as Staff Sgt. Rodriguez from the 4-9 cavalry from Texas put it, "Completely wrong ... in my opinion."
Unlike any other player on the board, the press has no oversight, no mandate, few penalties and even fewer consequences. In Fallujah, a suicide bomber killed one victim, but an "unidentified police officer" reported over 20 dead and just as many casualties. Because there are "not enough" reporters on the ground, newsrooms want to cover the war "on the cheap." Many bureaus have outsourced both their reporting and standards to third-party "stringers" whose spectacular videos of explosions and inflated body counts have shown up on both jihadist recruiting sites and American television screens, simultaneously. These hacks-for-hire literally get more bucks for each bang. In Ramadi, I met a man who worked for al-Qaida as a propagandist, while moonlighting at Reuters, AFN and CNN in the same capacity. In an arm-wrestling match between progress and propaganda, the media has conflicted values when covering Iraq. A successful insurgent will always get more recognition than a successful infantryman – no matter how many successful infantrymen there are. The reward of media coverage for bad behavior has a Pavlovian effect on attention-seeking terrorists. The media can plea that Iraq is unsafe, and they can blame the military for not "securing their right to cover events freely." But that gives a lot of responsibility to the military and questions the autonomy of the press. In other words, is there a military solution for guaranteeing the rights of a free press? In Iraq, the answer is a resounding "of course," but a press in denial is opposed to admitting that it's not the military impeding their reporting, but the failed strategy of a compromised media campaign. Yes, they should have factored in that terrorists might be hostile to their presence and indifferent to their "freedom of expression." Have the media made mistakes in coverage? Of course, but in an industry where some claim to be "keeping them honest," there's no penalty for false or misleading reports. Accountability is as desirable as rotting stacks of last week's newspaper. So, who watches the watchmen? After I wrote an article critical of the media coverage in Iraq, I got a concerned e-mail from a Barnard graduate working with the Washington Post – an opinion-shaping newspaper. She saw my piece and insisted reporters "go through great lengths to get the story right." This may be true, but when the press gets it wrong, there is no story; they just move on. No long exposes on cover-ups, no trick questions for journalists or grilling hearings. I distinctly recall a newscaster saying, "The Sunni Triangle will never settle for an American occupational force." I just spent a month in Ramadi, in the soul of the "Sunni Triangle" (a made-up name marketed by the New York Times, just like "Shock and Awe"). In Ramadi, I saw crowds of Sunnis thanking Marines for helping to expel al-Qaida and asking for more help from the American military. Will the media reflect on earlier statements and analyze what was previously reported, or will it simply move on? Today, information is a commodity as valuable as the items thrown into Wal-Mart's weekly bargain bin – merchandise to be picked over and looked at to see if there's something both useful and cheap. The Baghdad Diarist – a story I helped to debunk with simple facts and cited statements – is dismissed by the editors and readers of The New Republic because they have plenty of product to drown out criticism. Besides, the TNR readership really didn't care about the particulars; they just wanted a story to support their worldview. As I read much of the Western press, I wonder, whose side are these guys on? Of course, the answer is that they're supposed to remain neutral. In Iraq, I suspect we'll find that neutrality right next to the weapons of mass destruction.
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