FROM LETTERS ABOUT IRAQ AND AL QAEDA

Mr. Cave put it well today. Iraq has become anosocomial (maltreatment-made) infection. Recklessapplication of anti-terror tactics, like recklessnegligence in application of antibiotics creating a"super-bug," has created a super-criminal setting inIraq involving occupier and occupied alike. As aresult, assets were wasted and little was achieved.All we had left was the desperation of blind ambitionnot to lose. The Baker-Hamilton Report diagnosed thefestering problem but did not have the courage tostate the prognosis: we are now the problem. So longas we stay nothing will get better and the cost inblood and treasure will accelerate facing an ever moresuper bug. Yet, Bush seems to believe that by forcingIraq to privatize Iraq's oil, enabling us to fill ourSUVs at $1.50 a gallon, his legacy will be assured andthe incompetence forgotten. Congress seems to thinkthat by blaming everything on Maliki's non-cooperationthe Bush will seize the convenient opportunity to quitIraq as punishment. But we can neither quit norcontinue. We don't know how to cure this cancer; yet,if not treated it will kill us. I suggest we putforward a date certain for unconditional withdrawalthat runs well into the next President's term. Withsuch continuity, we can prove we're not out to stealthe oil nor to quit and run. It also gives neighbors atime-limit in which to come up with a regionalsolution while we hold Iraq secure.

Science and Math are non-subjects for so many BA, MAand PhDs in America that one wonders if one can callRove and "engineer" because he works with percentages.Bush liked to brag at Yale Commencements that he is"living proof" that a "C" student can be president andCheney that a "colle drop-out" can be Vice President.His presidency has been based on giving as pay-backresponsible government management jobs to loyalhedge-fund hustlers supporting his presidency. THESETYPES ran out multi-billion dollars "reconstruction"of Iraq and came home as rich looters of what oursoldiers shed blood for. So how can anybody besurprised that a "genteman's C" President is running aGovernment that can neither do anything for lack ofcompetence nor audit itself for equal lack ofcompetence?
Like the Romans, our American Empire led by our newNero assumes that NAFTA and global economics willprovide us with slave brains from out there that cando the hard lifting and tech thinking for us. Insteadtheir governments allow the painting of our importedgoods with lead and poison, thus further damaging ouralready fragile brains. Iraq is only a prototype ofthe America we have chosen by choosing Bush-- TWICE!
Not to worry, I'm sure there's a passage in the Biblesomewhere that if repeated as an incantation will makeus all rich. America has become ignorance in the nameof Jesus; that's not the example He gave us nor whatgenerations have died to preserve. Iraq is ourintellectual Waterloo.

As with Vietnam, we Americans-- Democrats andRepublicans-- now blame failed US policies on theIraqi Government. As with Vietnam, (we forget thatwhen in 1963 Diem tried to negotiate with the VietCong we overthrew him) when early in his leadership ofIraq, Maliki tried to bring about nationalreconciliation by (a) declaring universal amnesty and(b) setting a date certain for US withdrawal, Bushwould not allow it. So much for Vietnam-Iraqsovereignty. Iraqis universally refused to accept thePSA oil law that would put Iraqi oil fields in thehands of US companies; yet, Bush seems to think thatif he gets the oil-- enabling Americans to fill 'er uptheir SUVs at $1.50 a gallon-- all the blood andtreasure he wasted in Iraq would be forgiven and hislegacy would be assured. Thus, Senator Warner may havea point in calling for a 5000 troops withdrawal as a"signal." It would signal that it is Iraq's oil,Iraq's war and Iraq's destiny. When Iraqis see uswithdrawing, only then will they start to meetbenchmarks in order to slow us down. But first we mustprove we consider their oil theirs.
Nothing could be more appropriate now than yourreview. I have been wondering about this 1972 memorylong and hard for the following reason.
You know, alQaeda is really a talk club more than aterror organization. As with a spear, it is the tipthat does the damage, but without the pole it isuseless and doesn't have the reach. So, if you get toknow the pole, you kind of can predict where the tipis going. And reverberating along the pole is,ironically, EXACTLY what two totally self-seekingyoung idiots from Saban Center who've been on allsides of the issue are saying:
http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/research/2007august_iraqreport.pdf
Ironically, if you keep trying to say something right,you eventually get it. And boy, they did a brilliantjob of it, per the vibrations I get touching the poleof the spear!
While everyone was looking attentively at the EasterOffensive in 1972, I was wondering how Tay Ninh wouldhold up. And only a few wrote about how the ARVN wereholding out against the PAVN there-- actually moreRFs/PFs-- a prologue to the General Staff's promise toThieu in April '75 that they could hold the MekongDelta indefinitely.
Well, right now, the US military that went into Iraqintel blind, language deaf and culture dumb-- thushaving to behave like Israeli storm troopers out offear-- are now exhibiting the "BETTER WAR" high spiritof CAP/MAT in Anbar; and the enemy really fears thatto the point of panic. I remind you that CAP/MAT ledto RF/PF, which led to Phoenix and the dissolution ofthe VCI. However, in Iraq, there is no BIG CENTRALVCI-like United Front ORG. There is only a bond ofhate and wish for revenge for what we did in mid-2003to 2004 out of fear. You gotta read Laura Blumenfeld'swonderful book REVENGE!
Now, unlike the Israelis (who trained our blind"Special Forces," men who one must say were anythingbut "special" like those in Vietnam), our lowestcommand and fighter level has got that CAP/MAT spirit.
For me that brings tears-- old men can only cry out ofhelplessness to apply what life has taught them--because it highlights American moral superiority,despite the Pygmies at the helm. I saw it in Vietnamin the faces of the high school drop-outs who learnedto "Vietnamize" themselves. You know, a lot of themwere raised by their Hungarian Revolution survivorsparents and never forgot the lesson, which theyapplied in Vietnam; my Romanian anti-Hun roots brokeloose as I hugged these guys and thanked them forsaving something from our repeated defeats byCommunism. Well, good old American ingenuity (DARE Ithink that Petreaus mothered that spirit in this bunchin Iraq now?) has mixed with American moral humanityand the CAP/MAT spirit rose again. My fingers trembleas I write this because there can be no greatersuffering than disappointment in a people life hastaught you to deeply love and admire. I now see the"light at the end of the tunnel" that old Westy usedto tell me was always there and we who write thehistory should document it. It is in the one-on-onethat a lot of these hokum Samllville supermen finallysaw as a light in Anbar. It is the spirit of the ICorps marines of CAP and the IV Corps army guys of MATthat has returned to finally "Iraqizied" the war and,if the pols and generals allow them to feel their wayaround locally, moral courage and moral sense may yetsave the sacrifice of others who had it all wrong.
Alas, there can be no CORDS as in Vietnam in the RPTsand ARPTs-- given the corruption our and Iraq's"entrepreneurs" fostered through privatization--because "Blowtorch" is long dead and not yet replacedat the White House staff. Bush has surrounded himselfwith pear-shaped YAF-type bravados like Kagan andmorons like Keane (a little Congresswoman fromCalifornia sure opened up a new asshole for him at anArmed Service Committee "readiness" hearing) who thinksimply more is better better 'caue it kills more. Bushtherefore might only dig himself deeper chasing afterSadr to assassinate him and now after the Iranians whoteach him effective self-defense...lest he too get theCAP/MAT Spirit. All I can do is pray that Bush "getsit" from Gates (a man I long admired as a silverhaired fox with a great sense of "this doesn't work"way back when his silver hair was matched by his cutebaby face as DCI).
We are NOW scaring the crap out of alQaeda, notbecause we are killing them-- death DOES NOT scarethem, that's their only weapon-- but because we areoffering Iraqi Sunnis a choice and a means to be freeto make that choice. I admit, it is as if we couldonly get to the "Bedouins" in the desert of West Iraq,but that's a start; word gets around and Sadr caneasily be pried loose from Iran's hold to think"Iraqi."
I remember how being with ARVN units used to scare thehell out of me. I used to discuss that "standing out"feeling with Halberstam, who also did a lot of that.But when I was with Khmer Republican units in the1970s, I marveled at how they fought like devilsagainst superior PAVN units, not for strategic causes,but to protect their "visitor from the sky," as theycalled Americans. I recall one saying: "Daniel, it isan honor to die defending my friend from the sky."Well, as our Ambassador snuck out of Pnomh Penh in ahelicopter, my friend and 1/3 of Cambodians died atthe hands Pol Pot. And still, when I met withCambodian survivors at Indian Town Gap refugee centerin Penn., they kissed my hands and were sooooograteful for remembering them. Though they areBuddhists, my friend Paul, now a Jesuit, still servesas Spiritual Adviser to the many in Mass. They neverforgot that he stood by them as Pnohm Penh fell andagain in Thailand. My point is: how can you think thatwith these memories I could ever be for "dumping" apeople whom we polarized?
http://bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.html
But intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb is ahell of a disability. It's not fair that we should putour heroic kids to the task just so that we can stealthe oil. Bush seems to think that if we get the oil inthe end, all the other crap will be forgiven as wefill our SUVs at $1.50 a gallon. Maybe he is right.But if the moral fiber of OUR kids in the sands ofAnbar is even 1% reflected in the parents, Bush willgo home to Texas a failure-- oil or no oil--and wewill never get the oil anyway because Iraqinationalism, not alQaeda, will prevent it.
But all that is geopolitics. For now, I think thatthese two wanna-bes have really gotten a hold of thatCAP/MAT spirit that is the motor of what Petreauscalls the "fortuitous" situation in Anbar.
http://www.csis.org/images/stories/burke/070809_cordesman_briefing_transcript.pdf
Cordesman is aging and sometimes seems gaga, as hecontradicts himself on Bush's need for a"stratertigery," but his report is not bad really.However, the Potemkin tour the three went on showsthat he is a far better synthesist of the analysis andreports of others long in the area than as an "eyeson," given his soft butt, easily sun-burnt skin andintolerance of heat. I can't recall if he's adiabetic, in which case the sweet tea is verboten forhim and would greatly insult his few Iraqi hosts.Still, his report is useful and much of what he wrotemost illuminating. I would love to know what you thinkof the impressions of these three stooges.
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080607_iraq-strategicpatience.pdf
Lastly, I have been thinking about what you said:don't be too hard on Petreaus. You have a point. Gen.Eagleton is my model of a general with a mind, heartand soul. Perhaps I'm imposing a desired stereotype onPetreaus. But anything mannerism that smacks of Franksjust drives me to apoplexy, sorry, it's not fair.
I close thanking you for serving as my Valium when Iget all shook up about what is happening to the"Paradise of Freedom" my parents dragged me half wayaround the world to reach. I fathered three genuinenative Americans and now have four all-Americangrand-kids. Besides eating their lunch as a pension, Ihope to do something to keep America for them as Ifound it. It sounds grandiose, but being payed to justworry is a hell of a deal!
I discovered something amazing about a non-drug (itdoesn't get into the blood stream) drug forcholesterol: it is great for diabetes. I did it all byreading, reading, reading and then thinking like awoman (just stop verbalized "thinking" and let theEureka Phenomenon unconsciously compute its waythrough like a woman's sixth sense). So it hasn't allbeen hands wringing about Iraq. But I have to tell youthat Sorley's "better war" may have been stumbled uponby Petreaus and his "gone native" kids. My source isnot a Potemkin Tour but the vibrations of the longhandle of the alQaeda spear. I thank God and I thankyou for all your kind patience. If you could bepatient with me, I guess I can learn "strategicpatience" from Cordesman!
Please be well, I'll read your review today andre-look at the book.