August 23, 2005

"...the whole thing was unintelligible to me."

-Lord Auckland, Governor-General, on the catastrophe he had engineered

The Return of Elphey Bey

The press has created a meme and put it in the mouths of our enemies. "Leave Iraq, and you will not be bothered." This has some significant parallels to the British Army's retreat from Kabul in 1842:

It was to be the most terrible retreat in the history of British arms. It began on January 6th, 1842 and would in end an 'awful completeness' as the historian John Kaye said, barely a week later. The nearest British garrison and therefore the only place where safety could be guaranteed was in the city of Jalalabad, and it lay over ninety miles away. It doesn't seem so far, but it was a ninety mile trek over snow-covered mountain paths and passes, through desolate country held by warlike tribesmen with a great hatred for the British. The British had little confidence in their leaders and even less in the trustworthiness of Mohammed Akbar's promises of safe conduct through the passes. It was therefore a very cold, dispirited throng, there was such confusion it could not be called an army, that left their home of the last three years and headed for the mountains. Almost 17,000 people left the cantonment that dark day . . .

There was no sign of Akbar's promised escort and the horror started immediately after the rearguard left the compound with the Afghans swarming over the walls into the cantonment eager for loot. The rearguard itself came under sniper fire and many men were hit in the first hour or so of the retreat. It was only to get worse. Afghan horsemen rushed the column again and again, driving off baggage animals and killing both soldiers and unarmed camp followers. By the end of the first day only five miles had been covered and much of the baggage had been lost. As the army tried to make camp, stragglers continued to stagger in asking where their units were. Nobody seemed to know. All was confusion and pointed to a lack of any effective leadership that had already led, and would again lead,to tragedy. Only one tent had survived the Afghan attacks and it was used by some women and children and senior officers that night. Everyone else had to lay down in the snow and the following morning many woke up with frostbitten limbs. Many didn't wake up at all. When the army moved off, those with frostbitten feet had to be left behind.

On the second day, the sniping and mounted attacks continued and in one the Afghans captured two mule guns, leaving only one other mule gun and two heavier pieces as the total ordnance available to the British. And then Mohammed Akbar appeared, scolding the British for leaving before his escort had been made ready. This was nonsense as the time and place for the escort to meet the British had been very precisely set; Akbar's men just hadn't shown up. Akbar suggested the British halt for the day while he negotiated safe passage through the upcoming Khoord-Cabool pass with the local chieftains who controlled it. How Elphinstone could believe such things was beyond the comprehension of the men under his command, but he did and the army dutifully halted. Akbar also asked for three British political officers, Pottinger among them, as hostages. Again Elphinstone supinely gave in to the demand. It must have seemed like a sentence of death to Pottinger and his two companions but they obeyed their commander's orders and went with the Afghans. It was to save their lives.

On January 8th, the third day, the weakened, cold , hungry army moved into the Khoord-Cabool pass. Its four-mile length was to become a charnel house. From the heights above the Afghan tribesmen poured down a withering fire on the Army of the Indus that had no hope of retaliation. Again Akbar's guarantees were shown to be false. Flight was the only option and everyone moved as quickly as possible to escape the fire of the long-barrelled Afghan jezails. The pass was narrow and there was a partly frozen stream wandering along its bottom. The stream had to be forded some thirteen times before the exit of the pass was reached. When the main body finally reached the end of the pass and a temporary safety , the Afghan tribesmen descended on the stragglers and slew them wickedly. Perhaps 3,000 men, women and chidren were lost in that bloody defile. Some said they saw Akbar himself riding through the killing zone shouting in Persian (which many of the British knew) to spare the British and in Pushto (the language of the tribesmen) urging them to kill everyone.

Major-General Elphinstone's ineptitude is legendary. Again and again and again, Akbar Khan gave his word to protect the British, or to at least spare them from the hordes of Afghans who descended upon them. Elphinstone always took him at his word -- despite the advice of many of his officers. Though the British eventually returned to Afghanistan, there were there only briefly, then left again, returning once more 35 years later as the great game continued . . .

To paraphrase what Daniel Henninger wrote in his Friday column for the Wall Street Journal last week, "the forces that conspired to remove all of the moral and political complexity from the case of Terri Schiavo are now about to turn their attention to Iraq." By this he means to implicate us all: Sheehan and her ilk, her media megaphone, politicians who count the days until November of 2006, and the presidential leadership as well.

If the US were to leave Iraq next year, in toto, we will not have lost the war. But neither will it be over. Radical Islam has not been defeated. Militarily, perhaps, the designs of Al Qaeda have been kept at bay from North America with success. But the ideas which animate their actions, and which are so attractive to so many in the world, have not been discredited. Creating a democratic Iraq, (one of the many goals of our involvement there) is an action meant to answer the jihadis claim for claim.

What would happen, were we to withdraw, and the Iraqis to fail in their constitutional odyssey? The West may lose the will to fight in Iraq, and the Iraqis may lose the will to govern themselves (in which case, one or many strongmen may come to power), but one thing is for certain: Radical Islam will most certainly not have lost its will to power. That desire will manifest itself in violence and Americans will die.

It is a confusing proposition to attempt to compare our current conflict to either World War II -- when the entire might of the American nation was mobilized -- or the Cold War, when forbearance from action was largely seen as the smart course due to the logic of mutually-assured destruction. We find ourselves in a strange situation, partially committed, unsure of what to do next, but knowing -- or do we? -- that restraint may mean death. Our indecisiveness will cause us to be avid spectators of our own slaughter:

As [the prisoners] trudged back along the track towards Kabul, they walked past the thousands of frozen, bloody and mangled corpses of their friends, fellow officers and comrades. "The sight was dreadful, " wrote Lady Sale in her diary, "the smell of the blood sickening; and the corpses lay so thick it was impossible to look away from them, and it took some care to guide my horse so as not to tred upon their bodies."

Will the United States perform now as Elphey Bey did in 1842? I submit that if so, peace will be short-lived, and the carnage to come will surpass anything hereunto experienced by man. As the slaughter of Elphinstone's charges was to Lord Auckland, the whole thing will be largely unintelligible to the West, agog at the death that surrounds us.

UPDATE: Please see these: David Frum's Diary on National Review Online and Tipping Point on Iraq [h-t: Mark Tapscott].

Written by Chester at 11:34 PM | Link | Print Article

Update

Rather hefty workload has kept blogging unfavorably light round these parts.

Here's some fun things to know though:

1. I'll be a panelist in October at the conference, Media, Communications & Technology in the Age of the Blogger. Looks to be great fun!

2. If you haven't visited them lately, I highly recommend:
Chris Roach
The Blue State Conservatives, and
Cella's Review

3. Comments are currently disabled. I'm searching for a solution. I'm going to disable trackbacks shortly as well. May have to switch to haloscan. The spam is unstoppable.

Thanks, Loyal Readers, for continuing to check in! I hope to write more than I have of late!

Written by Chester at 11:25 PM | Link | Print Article

August 19, 2005

"You bastards. This is Jihad? You call this Jihad? "

This MEMRI report, of an interrogation of a captured terrorist by an Iraqi security member, is a must read (ht: Austin Bay). Not only does the terrorist admit to assassinating Muhammed Al Bakr, but he details campaigns of targeted rape, the fact that the Fallujah assault scattered his coworkers, the fact that he was only paid $400, the fact that Ansar al Islam set up house quite comfortably in Halabja during the time of Saddam.

Interrogator: "Did you kidnap women?"

Abed: "Yes."

Interrogator: "There were operations of kidnapping and rape, carried out by the squad you belong to?"

Abed: "Yes."

Interrogator: "Tell me how many rape and kidnapping operations were carried out. My information says that the kidnapped women were university students or daughters of famous people. You raped them and got money for it, and if they were not slaughtered afterwards.... Did this really happen?"

Abed: "Yes, it did."

Interrogator: "Who would carry out these operations?"

Abed: "Abu Sajjad."

Interrogator: "Your superior?"

Abed: "Yes."

[...]

Interrogator: "Is this Jihad – raping women? Is this Jihad?"

Abed: "It is because they collaborated with the Americans."

Interrogator: "That's why they were raped?"

Abed: "Yes."

Interrogator: "A student who is simply going to her university is kidnapped, raped, and then slaughtered?! This was an American collaborator?!"

Abed: "Mullah Al-Raikan would give the names to the squad commander."

Interrogator: "My information says that they were kidnapped and brought to Mullah Al-Raikan's headquarters. True or false?"

Abed: "He would interrogate them."

Interrogator: "Were they raped after the interrogation?"

Abed: "Yes. He would give them to the squad, and they would kill them. Some would rape them."

Interrogator: "You bastards. This is Jihad? You call this Jihad? "

Interrogator 2: "What was your role in these operations?"

Abed: "I would stand at the entrance to the headquarters. It was a house, and they would bring them there."

Interrogator 2: "Did you participate in the rape and murder?"

Abed: "No. Just one who worked for the PUK. She was a Kurd."

Interrogator: "In the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan?"

Abed: "Yes. We brought her too."

Interrogator: "And you raped her?"

Abed: "Yes."

These videos should be aired in the United States.

UPDATE: Hello, Instapundit readers. My comments are currently disabled. Feel free to email me.

You may view a video of the interrogation as well, via MEMRI TV.

Written by Chester at 8:10 PM | Link | Print Article

August 15, 2005

60 Years of Victory

To our good and loyal subjects: After pondering deeply the general trends of the world and the actual conditions obtaining in our empire today, we have decided to effect a settlement of the present situation by resorting to an extraordinary measure.

We have ordered our Government to communicate to the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, China and the Soviet Union that our empire accepts the provisions of their joint declaration.

To strive for the common prosperity and happiness of all nations as well as the security and well-being of our subjects is the solemn obligation which has been handed down by our imperial ancestors and which we lay close to the heart.

Indeed, we declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to insure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilization of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandizement.

But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone--the gallant fighting of our military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of out servants of the State and the devoted service of our 100,000,000 people--the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, nor to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.

We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire toward the emancipation of East Asia.

The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met death [otherwise] and all their bereaved families, pains our heart night and day.

The welfare of the wounded and the war sufferers and of those who lost their homes and livelihood is the object of our profound solicitude. The hardships and sufferings to which our nation is to be subjected hereafter will be certainly great.

We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all of you, our subjects. However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the [unavoidable] and suffering what is unsufferable. Having been able to save *** and maintain the structure of the Imperial State, we are always with you, our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity.

Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion that may engender needless complications, of any fraternal contention and strife that may create confusion, lead you astray and cause you to lose the confidence of the world.

Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its divine land, and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibilities, and the long road before it. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude, nobility of spirit, and work with resolution so that you may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State and keep pace with the progress of the world.

- Emperor Hirohito, Accepting the Potsdam Declaration, Radio Broadcast

Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended. A great victory has been won....

As I look back upon the long, tortuous trail from those grim days of Bataan and Corregidor, when an entire world lived in fear, when democracy was on the defensive everywhere, when modern civilization trembled in the balance, I thank a merciful God that he has given us the faith, the courage and the power from which to mold victory. We have known the bitterness of defeat and the exultation of triumph, and from both we have learned there can be no turning back. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.

A new era is upon us. Even the lesson of victory itself brings with it profound concern, both for our future security and the survival of civilization. The destructiveness of the war potential, through progressive advances in scientific discovery, has in fact now reached a point which revises the traditional concepts of war.

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.... Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

- Gen. Douglas MacArthur, radio message to the world, September 2nd 1945, aboard USS Missouri.

In contradiction to my last post, Kjeld Duits reports that the taboo about talking of WWII has disappeared in Japan. I suppose I'm showing how long it's been since I was there -- 8 years -- when I remember that no one seemed to discuss such things.

May the memory of our greatest victory of the past, and the sacrifices borne by our forebears instill in us the intestinal fortitude to prevail against our current enemies, and to destroy the existential threat they pose to our freedom and the freedoms of others.

Written by Chester at 1:43 AM | Link | Print Article

August 10, 2005

It Can't Happen Here . . . can it?

Last weekend brought a visit to the National Museum of the Pacific War, an excellent museum in Fredericksburg, Texas, which is an excellent place, as anyone in San Antonio or Austin will tell you.

Each President who served in the military during the war had a monument detaling his service. Lyndon Johnson had activated himself as a Naval Reservist while still a sitting Congressman. Then this note, "On July 1st, 1942, President Roosevelt ordered all Congressmen serving in the military back to Washington to attend to their legislative duties."

Those were certainly different times.

The museum was excellent and detailed everything very well. All of the large Naval battles were covered in some depth, and the land battles and amphibious invasions in acceptable depth (though i could have used a bit more). Many tangential topics about the home front -- rationing, quick marriages, internments, and all manner of interesting things that usually slip under the radar, like the fact that the Coast Guard conducted horse-mounted patrols of the Oregon and Washington coasts in 1942.

All in all, an excellent depiction of the whole affair. Only when nearing the end of the museum, and seeing the black and white photos of Hiroshima, did I look at my watch and note the date: it had been exactly 60 years prior.

I've been to the Gembaku Dome in Hiroshima, a daytrip I took by myself from Osaka in high school. While certainly doing its part to honor the memory of the dead that day, the Japanese installation did little to place the blast into the context of the overall conflict, which is a recurring problem in Japanese society. Before going, my host-father (who is still a friend) told me that I "would see what your country wanted to do to Japan." The war is taboo over there, but when it is discussed, it is usually in the context of victimhood. From a standpoint of encouraging Japanese pacifism, perhaps that is a good thing in the long run, but given China's rise, I doubt it is any longer in our interest to encourage the Japanese to be passive in world affairs.

I dare say that any Japanese interested in the history of the war would do much better to visit the museum in Fredericksburg than in Hiroshima.

Was Nagasaki the last nuclear blast the world will see?

If you have not yet read the first two parts of "The Sacrifice and The Reckoning" over at American Digest, you must do so immediately: (Part 1, and Part 2). I can't wait for Gerard's next installment, and feel a morbid guilt for saying so.

Written by Chester at 12:20 AM | Link | Print Article

August 8, 2005

Blog Maintenance

As you may have realized if you've scrolled through the archives recently, I have a taste for porn, online poker, and Viagra.

Just kidding! Actually, I'm inundated with trackback and comment spam. I'll be rebuilding the blog at some point tonight and temporarily shutting off the trackback and comment functions while nuking all 6,300 pieces of spam. When that's done I will turn those features back on in the next post and see if I still have problems.

All of this may cause pages to load a bit slower while the update is going on. I appreciate your patience!

Written by Chester at 7:58 PM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1) | Print Article

'There's Something Happening Here . . .'

Operation Quick Strike: Neither Quick, Nor just a Strike

Things are about to change dramatically in Anbar province.

As both Wretchard (here, here, and here) and Bill Roggio have noted, Operation Quick Strike has begun.

The question is, why now? An LA Times story (8 U.S. Troops Killed in Battle for Border) on the death of 6 Marine snipers (aside: this is extremely unusual and bears close examination) contained a tantalizing detail of the nature of Quick Strike:

The deaths of the Americans, though, highlight the intensity of the fighting in the area after a recent order by Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in the country, to control Iraq's western border by November.

This is a rather important detail that is buried deep within the story.

Wretchard points to another LA Times story which has a bit more detail (Base Set Up to Curb Rebels):

American troops have established the first long-term military base along a major smuggling route near the Syrian border in a new effort to block potential suicide bombers from reaching targets in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities.

A force of 1,800 U.S. troops, responding to continuing concerns that foreign fighters are crossing the Syrian border into Iraq, recently began an operation that includes setting up the base, three miles from the crossroads town of Rawah.

This is a major change in the force structure out on the border. Rawah is not quite on the border, but does occupy a rather important crossing point for the Euphrates. But more importantly, it will be the first US base in Anbar that is north of the Euphrates. In any case, 1800 new troops represents about a third more personnel than were in the Marine regiment responsible for this area. This is a significant increase. More:

U.S. military officials in Iraq say the operation near Rawah is their top priority. In the last two weeks, the military has been building structures at the new base and American troops have begun arriving at the facility. The base as been set up far enough from the town so that insurgents seeking to launch mortar and rocket attacks would have to do so from the open desert, where they are more likely to be seen.

A mission statement viewed by a Los Angeles Times reporter states the military's goal is to disrupt Zarqawi's organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and establish Iraqi government control of the border, driving a wedge between the militants and the Iraqi population and eliminating a "safe haven" for insurgents.

The battle plan calls for U.S. troops to launch a series of raids, secure the area and bring in Iraqi security forces. Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun Dulaimi referred briefly to the operation after meeting Thursday with President Jalal Talabani.

"Our forces will start from the Syrian border … till we reach Ramadi, then to Fallouja," he said. "We have taken precise measures on the ground and acquired the president's approval to start the operation."

As in Fallouja, in western Iraq, where U.S. forces fought in November to oust insurgents, U.S. military officials have asked the Iraqi government to issue emergency laws that could include a curfew and a travel ban.

The operation, the largest in western Iraq since May when 100 alleged foreign fighters were killed in Operation Matador, is key to fulfilling an order from Casey: that Iraq's borders be secured by November.

This operation is meant to sever the operational rear of the insurgency. The Iraqi government will gain control of the border area over the next 60 days and its influence will begin to slowly creep eastward. Terrorists will have to choose -- to die in battle, to flee to Syria, or to displace further and further east as the Coalition steamrolls behind them. This will not be a single decisive battle, like Fallujah, but will instead be a campaign of decreasingly lethal skirmishes. US Marines and some Army troops will form a shock force, but will leave the after-battle cleanup and establishment of law and order to Iraqi battalions and brigades -- a joint operation that will highlight the competencies of the US and the Iraqis both. In the process, the Iraqi units will gain valuable combat experience. There's even more good news:

The 2nd Infantry Division's Stryker Brigade Combat Team is leading the operation and is the first to take up a permanent presence in the area. Officials say it has been difficult, if not impossible, for U.S.-led forces to control the region without such a commitment.

"It's a huge, desolate place and if somebody wanted to hide out it would be a good place to hide out," Marine Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, commander of coalition forces in western Iraq, said in an interview in Fallouja.

As the operation unfolds, Marines would continue to hold the region south of the Euphrates, while the Stryker Brigade, which has been based in Mosul, pushes south, putting insurgents in a "vice," a senior U.S. military strategist said.

That's right, you read it correctly, somehow, we've managed to free up an entire Stryker brigade and send it south to Anbar. This is a regimental-sized unit, but nearly completely mobile (readers, correct my mistakes here, please). Given the terrain, the Stryker brigade will own the area north of the Euphrates. General Casey has certainly decided to make Quick Strike his main play for the autumn.

Why has this decision been taken?

The factors are three:

1. The Iraqi political timetable -- with more elections planned for December, pacifying now-lawless areas of the Sunni Triangle and Anbar province will allow even more Sunnis to participate in the elections. The Iraqi government will gain a great deal of legitimacy if it is able to dramatically increase Sunni participation and a key factor will be a security environment stable enough for voting to take place. The US is also probably looking to another successful election to provide further momentum toward democracy in the rest of the region. The momentum of the first election sort of petered out when it took the Iraqis so long to form a government . . .

2. The competence of Iraqi forces -- there is much to be made of the idea that the nature of the operational campaign in Anbar province up until this point (see Bill Roggio's excellent summary) can be characterized as a delaying action. The US intended to keep the insurgents off-balance, to destroy their sanctuaries when they coalesced (Fallujah) and to seek to impose order -- all the while knowing that victory would only come with large numbers of competent Iraqi forces. Another possibility is that competent Iraqi forces have been able to take responsibility for security in other parts of the country, freeing up the US to shuffle units into Anbar. A final possibility is that General Casey has judged Sunni participation in the election to be so important that he has chosen to be weak elsewhere. The truth may be a combination of all of these possibilities. In any case, everything up until Quick Strike constituted an entirely different campaign than the one that begins with Quick Strike.

3. US domestic politics: General Casey has recently been talking up the possibilities of beginning to withdraw US troops from Iraq, as have other generals, civilians in the Pentagon, and members of the Administration too. Is he being pressured from above to make quick results? How much is domestic politics concerning the President now, who certainly does not want to see the GOP lose seats in the 2006 elections -- the campaigns for which are just beginning to creep into the public's consciousness, and the news media as well, but which will really get going in early spring of next year.

From the three factors above, we have the new Campaign for Western Anbar. Let us hope that those in charge, and our fellow voters as well remember Shakespeare's evil genius Iago: "How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?"

Written by Chester at 12:11 AM | Link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Print Article

August 4, 2005

Separation of Mosque and State

Before he was killed, Steven Vincent wrote extensively about the city of Basra, and these writings were destined to be the focus of a book.

There is no Sunni and foreign insurgency in Basra, yet his descriptions are troubling nonetheless:

Not surprisingly, given Basra's dilapidated condition, contracting is big business. Not only for the city's numerous contractors, but also for the crooked politicians, parasitical religious parties and criminal gangs who take their cut from every construction job, creating a business climate that combines the accountability of Tammany Hall with the law and order of 1920s Chicago . . .

Not that I didn't know anything about Basra-style corruption. In our travels across the city, Layla and I have fielded ceaseless complaints of extortion, protection rackets, employment featherbedding, nepotism, bid rigging, influence-peddling--it's impossible to talk to Basra businesspeople and not hear such woes.

The corruption is not limited to the business world. As Vincent explained in his last article in the New York Times, the security sector is undergoing a sort of criminalization as well, albeit of a different sort:

As has been widely reported of late, Basran politics (and everyday life) is increasingly coming under the control of Shiite religious groups, from the relatively mainstream Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to the bellicose followers of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Recruited from the same population of undereducated, underemployed men who swell these organizations' ranks, many of Basra's rank-and-file police officers maintain dual loyalties to mosque and state.

In May, the city's police chief told a British newspaper that half of his 7,000-man force was affiliated with religious parties. This may have been an optimistic estimate: one young Iraqi officer told me that "75 percent of the policemen I know are with Moktada al-Sadr - he is a great man." And unfortunately, the British seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Perhaps from these observations we can glean a bit about the necessity of keeping Iraq unified as a nation, and not letting too much of its national power devolve into federalism. Zalmay Khalildad, the newly appointed US Ambassador to Iraq, writes in an opinion piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal [caught it in the print edition at work and have no subscriber link, sorry]:

Iraq needs a "national compact" enshrined in its constitution. One of the biggest challenges facing Iraqis is overcoming the loss of trust among its communitites. This underlies current political and sectarian tensions. In part, it underlies the insurgency. Fostering hatred was central to Saddam's rule. His was a personal tyranny, rooted in a narrow clique, not in a wider community. To overcome this dark legacy, Iraqis need to build bridges, not burn them . . .

This process of forging a national compact begins with an agreement on a new constitution; but it does not end there. If Iraq is to succeed, it needs to build truly national institutions . . . it is vital that Iraqis build institutions that all communities can have confidence in -- that are not instruments of revenge or fiefdoms of patronage of one group or another.

Taken together, what Vincent's microcosmic look, and Khalildad's macro-view suggest is that an Iraqi federalism will lead to more Basras dominated by Shi'ite religious police and Anbars ruled by Sunnis and foreign jihadis. Only national institutions will have the ability to draw in all members of Iraq's diverse community and forge a unified nation-state -- with all of the trappings of freedom that are the ardent goal of the Americans.

There seems to be some logic to this. All national institutions will be centered in Baghdad, the most diverse and largest city in the country. There, elements of all of Iraq's regions, ethnicities, sects, and religions already live together, yet their stabilizing security situation has not led to the introduction of religious police and such as is seen in Basra (though business corruption may very well be another story). Could it be that the diversity of Baghdad will lead to an incipient separation of mosque and state? That a civil society might develop there?

Could it further be that such a civil society is one of the goals of our intervention? Nowhere else in the Arab world do such diverse groups exist in such close quarters -- Lebanon is perhaps a close second, but Iraq has the distinct advantage of being at the geographic center of the region, not on its periphery. Basra may never be an Iraqi melting pot, but Baghdad might be, and its influence might be pressed throughout the country in the form of national power.

Written by Chester at 10:54 PM | Link | Comments (0) | Print Article

August 3, 2005

Rest in Peace, Steven

In December, I learned through National Review of a journalist named Steven Vincent who had traveled to Iraq on his own dime and written a compelling account of his journey.

In January I discovered his blog and emailed him to ask some detailed questions about something I had recently read about Iraqi domestic politics. He got back to me in 24 hours with an equally detailed response. I thought that was very charitable of him. Shortly thereafter I invited him to write some guest posts here on Adventures and was flattered when he agreed. I was just a little ole blogger after all, and he was a published writer. We agreed that he would do four guest pieces for the weekend of the Iraqi elections.

During all of this, I really enjoyed working with Steven. He was extremely polite, had a great sense of humor, and was generally extremely nice to write guest posts on an insignificant little spot of the internet like mine. And, as anyone can tell, he was an excellent writer. When I asked him to do one post a day for the election weekend, he responded that I was quite a demanding editor. But he did three, and each is lovely.

This morning, Bill Roggio emailed me with the news that Steven was murdered in Basra. I can't begin to express the range of emotions I feel. I'm angry that the bastards killed him. I'm sad to have lost a friend, albeit one I didn't know very long or very well. And I'm heartbroken for his wife, Lisa. As he writes in the acknowledgments of his book, "without her courage and resolute assistance, my travels, this book, and the self-knowledge I gained from both would not have been possible."

Steven surely knew that his profession was a dangerous one. "I won't pretend I wasn't afraid -- actually, there were moments when my nerve seemed to fail me and I wondered what the hell I was doing leaving my comfortable position as an art journalist to venture off into a war."

Yet he went anyway, inspired by a friend of his who had gone "mainly to duplicate Homer's achievement, to create a body of art based on life in a war zone." When his friend returned and he heard his tales, he "kept hearing an inner voice challenging my complacency: Do you want to participate in this world-historical event? Participate! Do you want to enlist in the war against Islamofascism? Enlist! Do you want to help give meaning to the victims of 9-11? Go to Iraq!"

And go to Iraq he did, three times, all the while remaining independent, unedited and cut off from the mass of milquetoast reportage that normally characterizes our link to the fight.

Steven was an inspiration to me. He inhabits a long tradition of extremely independent observers who have looked upon world-changing events from afar and known that they must, must see them closer and be a part of what is happening. It is a grand tradition indeed -- de Tocqueville, John Steinbeck, Winston Churchill, Marco Polo -- these are but a few of these epic travel writers, who wrote about war, or faraway lands and their transfomations -- all from firsthand experience. I know that I do not exaggerate when I say that Steven's place in their noble numbers is certain.

In one of our last correspondences, I wrote him that "Marines should probably get to know more art critics." If I could write that again, I would add, "thanks for being my friend."

Rest in peace, friend, and know that you will not be forgotten.

----------------
These are the guest posts Steven Vincent wrote here at The Adventures of Chester:
The Shadow of Karbala
A Prayer for Iraqis About to Vote
The Voting Rights Act, 2005
Going Forward
THE GOD COMPLEX I
THE GOD COMPLEX II

Written by Chester at 8:57 PM | Link | Comments (0) | Print Article