From: (Sufaud)
The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds?
By Oscar R. Estrada
Washington Post
Sunday, June 6, 2004; Page B01
BAQUBAH, Iraq
The General and the Colonel have told us that we are the main effort,
at the forefront of helping to rebuild Iraq. But how do you rebuild
when all around you destruction and violence continue? Do the facts
and figures showing levels of electricity restored, the amount of
drinking water available, the number of schools reconstructed or the
numbers of police officers hired and trained really convince the Iraqi
people that we are here to help? Are we winning their hearts and
minds?
Winning hearts and minds is my job, in a nutshell. I'm an Army Reserve
civil affairs (CA) officer stationed in Baqubah, 30 miles northeast of
Baghdad. In Vietnam, winning hearts and minds was mostly a Special
Forces task, but after that they were smart enough to get out of it,
and the responsibility has since fallen into the laps of reservists
like me who are trained to deal with every conceivable problem that
arises when Big Army meets Little Civilian. And that's why CA soldiers
are among those most often deployed overseas in the Reserve.
That's how they get you, actually, with promises of foreign travel,
foreign language training, Airborne School, Air Assault School . . .
and the chance to help others. We're trained in the Army's regimented
style to deal with civilians in foreign countries, required to learn a
satisfactory number of acronyms, probed, pricked and tested, and then
sent overseas to do good.
And here we are, in Iraq, trying to help the Iraqi people as death
threats frighten our Iraqi interpreters into quitting to protect their
families, and as attacks from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades
(RPGs) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) become daily and
nightly occurrences.
We're told by senior officers that most Iraqis are being influenced by
"bad guys" and their anti-coalition messages. The latest acronym for
these bad guys is AIF, which stands for Anti-Iraqi Forces. The fact
that most AIF members are Iraqi is neatly ignored as we try to win the
goodwill of the "good" Iraqis.
One day last week we rolled into the town of Zaghniyah to win some of
the local hearts and minds. In a country where most people are
unemployed, we offer the townspeople $1 for every bag of trash they
can collect. Our "docs" -- medics, assistants and physicians -- set up
shop in the local health clinic and we try to "engage local
leadership." But most of the local leaders, we are told, are not
there. Those people who do speak with us do so only to catalogue their
concerns -- chiefly unemployment and lack of electricity and water.
It's the day after the swearing-in of Iraq's new interim government,
and so I explain that their concerns have to be presented to their
Governing Council, and that we can fund projects only through that
council. An old man waves me off and tells me that they know the
Americans control everything and will do so as long as they are here.
The rest of the men nod in agreement.
As the day wears on, every ray of sun seems to add weight to my Kevlar
helmet and body armor. I am at a loss as to why our efforts aren't
recognized or appreciated. But then, as I look at the children
collecting trash and the main road clogged with military vehicles, as
I watch one of our docs try to help a woman carrying a gaunt and
sickly baby in her arms, and as I listen to an old sheik struggle with
our demands that he hold American-style town meetings, I realize that
Iraqis may see our help as something else. I see how paying them to
collect trash may be demeaning and remote from their hopes for
prosperity in a new Iraq. I see our good faith efforts to provide
medical care lead to disappointment and resentment when we have
neither the medicine nor the equipment to cure or heal many ailments.
And I see how our efforts to introduce representative democracy can
lead to frustration.
Some experiences here have reminded me that our sacrifice for the
rebuilding of Iraq is minor compared with that of the average Iraqi. A
few weeks ago I was on a patrol in the town of Buhriz, near Baqubah.
Our mission: to assess the city's potable water needs. Buhriz is a
place where our soldiers are often shot at, so we rolled in with two
Bradleys and several Humvees packed with heavily armed troops.
On the way to the water treatment plant, we stop for a psychological
operations (psyop) mission. A psyop team walks up and down the market
handing out "product," in this case pro-coalition messages in a glossy
Arabic-language magazine. Young people take the magazines and seem to
enjoy the novelty of the event; some people bombard the team and its
interpreter with questions about things the town needs and the
whereabouts of detained relatives.
But others return the fancy magazine and pull their kids away from
"the occupiers." One man pulls a young boy by the arm and slaps him on
the back of the head as he chastises him. I stare at the man and he at
me; his hatred is palpable. We're less than five feet apart, but the
true separation is far greater. I'm unable to communicate with him
without the help of the one interpreter assigned to this patrol of 30
or so soldiers, and the "terp" is with the psyop team. I wish I could
ask the man why he hates us, but I doubt anything useful would come of
such a conversation. As we drive out of town, a little boy who looks
about 3 years old spits at our vehicles as we pass his house.
I flash back to an incident a month earlier when we were returning to
our compound by way of "RPG Alley," a route of frequent attacks. A
unit ahead of us had reported taking fire and we rushed to the scene.
Other patrols and M1 tanks soon arrived and we sat and waited,
pointing our weapons into a date palm grove to the north. A small
column of Humvees moved down a dirt road toward the grove, and all
hell broke loose. I never heard a shot fired from the grove, but
someone did, and then everyone was firing.
"Hey, what the hell are we shooting at?" I screamed at my buddy as I
continued to squeeze off rounds from my M-16.
"I'm not sure! By that shack. You?"
"I'm just shooting where everybody else is shooting."
But everybody else was shooting all over the place. Small puffs of
white erupted in front of us as our own soldiers lobbed grenades at
the grove but came up short; tracers from .50-caliber machine guns
flew past us, and the smell of cordite filled the air. Then, as
suddenly as it had started, the tumult ended. We sat in silence and
listened to the crackling radios as a patrol dismounted from a couple
of armored Humvees and began to search among the trees.
"Dagger, this is Bravo 6. Do you have anything, over?"
"Roger. We're going to need a terp. We have a guy here who's pretty
upset. I think we killed his cow, over."
"Upset how, over?"
"He can't talk; I think he's in shock. He looks scared, over."
"He should be scared. He's the enemy."
"Uhm, ahh, Roger , 6 . . . he's not armed and looks like a farmer or
something."
"He was in the grove that we took fire from; he's a [expletive] bad
guy!"
"Roger."
From my perch in the Humvee, I listened as the patrol found a
suspicious bag hanging from a tree and called in an explosive ordnance
disposal unit to examine it. On the other side of the road, in the
distance, a horse-drawn cart crept on its way from some unknown
village to the piece of road we now controlled. I watched it grow
larger until the old man on the cart came face to face with the armed
soldier waving him off. He slowly turned the cart around and headed
back to where he had come from. I wondered where he was going, whether
it was important and how much effort he'd put into the trip. I
wondered if we had any chance of winning either his heart or his mind.
As we headed back to our compound, I couldn't stop thinking about the
man in the grove, frozen in shock at the sight of his dead livestock.
Did his family depend on that cow for its survival? Had he seen his
world fall apart? Had we lost both his heart and his mind?
Stop thinking about this, I tell myself as our imposing convoy comes
to a stop in front of the water treatment plant that serves Buhriz --
it's time, once again, to go about my job of winning those hearts and
minds. I spend the next half-hour asking people questions and taking
notes that I'll later summarize in a neat and orderly report sprinkled
with just the right number of Army acronyms, grid coordinates and
date-time groups. I'll detail the gallons-per-day requirements and the
inoperable pump and the need for high-capacity filters and all the
other bits of information that will help someone somewhere request the
thousands of dollars it will take to repair the plant. My work is
done, and I feel confident I've done it well. I feel as if I've
actually accomplished something worthwhile today.
And then I remember: Security, you forgot to ask about security! So I
do, and the treatment plant manager tells me that his biggest threat
is coalition soldiers, who shoot up the compound whenever the nearby
MP station and government building are attacked. He shows me the
bullet holes and asks, "Why?" I give the standard response: We have to
defend ourselves, and these problems are caused by the insurgents. And
I think the people listening are buying it when the plant's caretaker
tugs at my elbow, urging me to come see his house on the corner of the
plant grounds. We're running late, but I follow the man before the
patrol leader can say no.
An old man, the caretaker's father , comes out of the house and
gestures for me to come inside. It's a one-level, three-room concrete
building, clean but humble. The old man's grandchildren, his
daughter-in-law and his wife stare up at me as he leads me by the arm
and points out the bullet holes on the side of the house, the
shattered windows and the bullet-riddled living room. He's speaking to
me in Arabic. I can't understand a word he's saying, and yet I
understand it all. I see the anguish in his face as his eyes start to
tear up, I see the sadness as he points to old photographs of safer
days under Saddam Hussein. I see the shame as he mimics how our
soldiers hit him when he was detained, and I see the disappointment as
he asks me "Why?" and I stare at him at a loss for words.
"Why?" I don't even remember what I told him, but I think I
apologized. The patrol leader was telling me it was time to go.
Everyone, even the old man's family, seemed in a hurry to end the
encounter. So we quickly walked out, hoping to somehow outpace the
wave of shame that threatened to knock us over.
Only I can't outrun it. I stay up that night thinking of the old man
and the young soldiers who fired into the darkness in response to
bullets and mortars and RPGs hurled at them from somewhere "out
there." I think of the man with the dead cow and of the rush of
adrenaline I felt firing from the back of that Humvee at the perceived
threat. I think of the old man on the cart, the children who burst
into tears when we point our weapons into their cars (just in case),
and the countless numbers of people whose vehicles we sideswipe as we
try to use speed to survive the IEDs that await us each morning. I
think of my fellow soldiers and the reality of being attacked and
feeling threatened, and it all makes sense -- the need to smash their
cars and shoot their cows and point our weapons at them and detain
them without concern for notifying their families. But how would I
feel in their shoes? Would I be able to offer my own heart and mind?
Author's e-mail:oestrada@umich.edu
Oscar Estrada is an Army Reserve captain from Arlington, serving as a
civil affairs team leader in Iraq. A third-year student at the
University of Michigan Law School, he spent 81/2 years as a Foreign
Service officer with the State Department.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17426-2004Jun5.html
.
|
|
| User: "TonyZ2001" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
09 Jun 2004 10:50:09 AM |
|
|
mithril@iafrica.com (Grantland)
wrote:
A bunch of crap.
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
Tony
.
|
|
|
| User: "Michael Johnathan McDonald" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
09 Jun 2004 08:37:18 PM |
|
|
(TonyZ2001) wrote in message news:<20040609115009.16194.00000823@mb-m15.aol.com>...
mithril@iafrica.com (Grantland)
wrote:
A bunch of crap.
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
An honorary member to boot.
Tony
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Grantland" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
09 Jun 2004 12:30:38 PM |
|
|
(TonyZ2001) wrote:
mithril@iafrica.com (Grantland)
wrote:
A bunch of crap.
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
Tony
Charlie Cloud <skunkrain@earthlink.net> wrote:
On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 17:25:18 -0600, King Samuel <stars@bars.usa>
wrote:
Charlie Cloud wrote:
Republican spin doctors:
t
Drop fucking dead you *****.
Say, Sam, think they'll build a big old monument to him on the mall?
You know, like the Washington or Lincoln monuments? LOL!
I can see the GW Bush monument - a huge bronze coil of ***** with a
host of green bronze flies supported on thin bronze stalks. The fly
wings are tuned to resonate with a loud buzz or hum from hidden
speakers, so that they appear to move, noxiously. A vile stench
(hydrogen sulfide?) is emitted from hidden underground emitters to
complete the effect.
Grantland
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "KJ Ayau" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
09 Jun 2004 10:57:33 PM |
|
|
A bunch of crap.
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
Tony
Damn, Tony, but you haven't changed! Someone posts something you can't refute,
so you just write something like "crap." Why?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Woodswun" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
10 Jun 2004 05:54:53 AM |
|
|
In article <20040609235733.13681.00000518@mb-m20.aol.com>, (KJ Ayau) wrote:
A bunch of crap.
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
Tony
Damn, Tony, but you haven't changed! Someone posts something you can't refute,
so you just write something like "crap." Why?
Try reading up some on "controlling behavior" and you'll have Tony pegged pretty
well. His posts here are classic examples of the controlling personality.
Woods
.
|
|
|
| User: "KJ Ayau" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
11 Jun 2004 12:11:39 AM |
|
|
In article <20040609235733.13681.00000518@mb-m20.aol.com>, (KJ
Ayau) wrote:
A bunch of crap.
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
Tony
Damn, Tony, but you haven't changed! Someone posts something you can't
refute,
so you just write something like "crap." Why?
Try reading up some on "controlling behavior" and you'll have Tony pegged
pretty
well. His posts here are classic examples of the controlling personality.
Woods
Sounds reasonable to me. It is pretty amazing, though, don't you agree? I've
seen the pattern for years in this newsgroup. Something he doesn't like/can't
refute/can't answer, he calls it crap or attacks the writer, calls him all
kinds of names, etc. I sure hope he doesn't have children. Even though I
thoroughly disapprove of George Bush, I make it my goal to never disparage him
in front of my children, aged 9 and 7, because I don't want to disillusion them
about our society and systems or teach them disrespect for our officials. As a
teacher I've seen so many students spouting filth about Clinton, Gore, Kerry
and Democrats that I know they got from their parents. Parenting is the most
important job in the world and so many people suck at it!
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Woodswun" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
09 Jun 2004 06:28:29 PM |
|
|
In article <20040609115009.16194.00000823@mb-m15.aol.com>, (TonyZ2001) wrote:
mithril@iafrica.com (Grantland)
wrote:
A bunch of crap.
It was published in the Washington Post and written by an officer in the Army
Reserve who is currently serving in Iraq, and prior to that worked as a Foreign
Service Officer for the State Department - hardly "crap".
Another member of the Anti-American coalition on this group.
There is much disagreement among members of this group about what constitutes
"Anti-American". Many are of the opinion that the neo-con supporters of Bush
and his corporate buddies are the true anti-Americans, since they are the ones
destroying the freedoms that this country was based on.
Woods
.
|
|
|
| User: "Su Zanne" |
|
| Title: Re: The Military: Losing Hearts and Minds? |
09 Jun 2004 09:47:31 PM |
|
|
Woods wrote:
There is much disagreement among
members of this group about what
constitutes "Anti-American". Many are of
the opinion that the neo-con supporters
of Bush and his corporate buddies are
the true anti-Americans, since they are
the ones destroying the freedoms that
this country was based on.
Bunch of WHORES..they are!
A Bunch of babbling WHORES!
Isn't there a prophecy about them? I'm sure I've seen something to that
efect.
;)
SuZ
Woods
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
