Sprechen Sie Deutsches Mit Einer Tauben Welt*
Written by a German in a brutally honest, harsh-lit multi-part article in Der Spiegel. The dirty secret the world doesn’t want to know. America, in heavy sacrifice of blood and treasure, is doing something right in Iraq. Quick version follows below. Scroll past that for thoughts on what this says about the American media’s shameful failure in Iraq: Â
Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq — it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq — not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers — are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn’t hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious “Sunni Triangle,” is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.
… The world has become deaf to the word “peace” — at least when conversations turn to Iraq. It is as if the world were blind to the possibility that the situation in this country straddling the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers could be anything different from the constant stream of increasingly devastating films of the latest car bombings. For most people, Iraq has become nothing but a series of attacks, a collection of images of bombings and victims, a tale of failure, a book about historical guilt and a symbol of the moral decline of the United States of America.
But the real story in Iraq cannot be summed up in short news clips and quick, shaky television images. Body counts and names of the dead tell only part of the story of Iraq today. Research for this story took me on a three-week journey throughout the country, my fourth trip to Iraq in as many years. Under the protection of the US military, it led us to the northern city of Mosul and its suburbs, to Ramadi and to Baghdad. The military did not choose our destinations, SPIEGEL did. Apart from a few technical and strategic details, nothing was censored.
… A nurse is on her way home, changing flights at BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). A short, rotund woman, she is surrounded by admiring young infantrymen.
She says she has completed seven tours — three in Baghdad, two in Afghanistan, one in Kuwait and one in Germany, where she worked in the intensive care units of military hospitals. She speaks loudly and without interruption, chain-smoking Marlboro Menthols. She says she can no longer listen to the crying or look at the men. “I send them away, I yell at them and I tell them: ‘If you want to cry, then get out of here, go outside, I can’t listen to this anymore, I don’t want to look at it anymore.’” She takes a drag on her cigarette and coughs. “I’m done,” she says. “Never again. I’m handing in my papers tomorrow.”
America is paying a high price for the future of the new Iraq. In addition to the 3,659 deaths, more than 26,000 US soldiers have been wounded, scores very seriously. According to official government reports, an estimated one-in-three soldiers who have been stationed in Iraq suffer from emotional disorders, most of them exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome. This would mean that tens of thousands of men and women are returning home with serious psychological problems, because they have suffered too much, seen too much, smelled too much, heard too much and killed too many people.
These figures and consequences alone are enough to illustrate why the United States cannot afford a defeat in Iraq. Much is at stake for America — far more than its reputation on the global political stage. The American people will demand a solid explanation for all the sacrifices of the war, including the financial. They will want to know why their government spends roughly $370 million a day on the Iraq war, especially if, as some predict, it will only turn into another Vietnam. But despite all this, there is much more at stake for Iraq itself.
Those who believe that a speedy withdrawal of US troops would result in the problem capable of resolving itself are deeply mistaken. Though this premise might have rang true in late 2003 or early 2004, when terrorism had not yet stirred up the infernal forces of religious hatred, the situation today is different.
Points such as whether a withdrawal in 2003 or 2004 would have resulted in a “problem capable of resolving itself” are academic and in my view sorely mistaken. But given the clarity of Fitchner’s view of the present, I’m happy to overlook that. Speaking of the present:
There is no doubt that the greatest enemies of success in Iraq are in Tehran and Damascus. Many of the jihadists enter the country through Syria, and Iran supports the terrorists with weapons and money. During their operations, US troops often find brand-new mines and grenades produced in Iranian weapons factories, sometime still in their original packaging. Fighters from the Iranian Al-Quds Brigades are active on Iraqi soil, and there are terrorist training camps across the border in Iran. “Iran,” says Crocker, “wants to defeat the West on more than one front, and it also wants to make sure that Iraq will never pose a threat to it again.”
… But anyone who travels in Iraq is moving through a world far away from Washington, Berlin, Paris or Brussels, a world where having the last word is irrelevant. Anyone who experiences the country will find himself despairing in one place and feeling hopeful in another, and in no city are the two extremes closer together than in Mosul.
…
Every child in the city knows the story of how, on May 16, 2007, terrorists attempted to stage a massive attack. Using four car bombs, they first blew up two bridges across the Tigris River in the city’s northwest. A short time later, three other car bombs exploded in front of the headquarters of the district police. They, too, were packed with explosives, ripping craters into the ground the size of swimming pools. An eighth bomb struck a police station in the southeast. The attackers followed each of the bombings with an assault with rockets, machine guns and Kalashnikovs. It was clear, on that May 15, that the terrorists were intent on scoring a major coup. But they failed, and in doing so they lost their war.
The Iraqi police officers and soldiers, who until then had not been expected to perform well in combat, threw themselves into battle. Even the wounded refused to be carried off the battlefield, continuing to fight as best they could. Heroes were born on that day in May, the kind of heroes that the entire country sorely needs — not Sunni, not Shiite, not Kurdish or Assyrian or Turkmen heroes, but Iraqi heroes.
You run into these heroes in the streets, when you’re tagging along with 2nd Battalion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. Its commander is Lieutenant Colonel Eric Welsh, who looks like a skinhead but is a true idealist at heart. He speaks freely of values, patriotism and freedom. He says: “Yes, it hurts, and yes, it’s tough, and of course everything’s dangerous here. But we’re not doing this for fun. We have a purpose. We want to give the people here a chance, that’s the truth, and let’s be honest about it: It will take decades for us to find out what is really going to happen here.”
… Welsh is eager to talk about the big picture once again. He asks: “Have you seen the movie ‘The Patriot?’” But then the conversation ends abruptly when the door opens and a staff officer nervously pokes his head into the room.
“We had a helicopter crash,” he says, “we have one confirmed dead and one wounded.” Welsh rubs his hands across his face. “There you have it,” he says, “the good and the bad, they constantly go hand-in-hand here.” That’s the situation in Iraq. A race is underway. Now every day on the calendar is historic. The future can be won or it can be gambled away.
So now we see that a former grunt and a German are capable of doing a better job in Iraq than our own professional press, managing to talk to real people and unafraid to talk about the good as well as the bad, the progress that is being made, the utter necessity of blood, sweat and tears that is being expended. Again, why are the great American media organizations unable to manage this? They’ll be handing out Pulitzers for 2007, the year when the leading forces of American journalism failed an entire people, sought to condemn an entire region of the world, and were willing to see slaughter and chaos. I can’t wait to see what the august judges settle on as the exemplars of this year’s greatness. They don’t have a Pulitzer for shame. They don’t have one for sloth and cynicism. But then, they don’t really have Pulitzers for passion, moral purpose and people who buck genteel drawing room sensibilities, either.Â
Thanks, Gateway.
* “Speak German to a deaf world.” But there is one key step our friend Ullrich fails to make, focused on the present, on more likely realities. And that is that if this future is ours to win or to gamble away, let’s see more players at the table. It is never too late for Europe to start doing the right thing.
Protein Wisdom: so much for that bogus story the nutters were chasing to avoid the facts.
Avast, Captain’s scurvy crew, RCP of the Blogging Main, Proteinly Wise, etal. Important to navigate straight or you’ll find yourself going the Wrong Way. The only man more foolish than he who dreads sea monsters is he who won’t see them. Now there’s a pair of monsters if I ever saw one. We all ventured out to see something strange and exotic. But if you came for glory, you came to the wrong place. Here’s a cookie. Any remittance men among you?  Â
Topics: Europe, Iraq, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:56 am on Tuesday, August 14, 2007
10 Responses to “Sprechen Sie Deutsches Mit Einer Tauben Welt*”
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August 14th, 2007 at 7:40 am
[...] Be sure to read the entire article; I started last night and it’s well worth the time. Jules Crittenden has some excellent thoughts about the failure of media to do its job in [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 9:02 am
[...] Captain Ed Instapundit Jules Crittenden [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 10:30 am
[...] report from Iraq. The American military apparently can do more than patrol the border at Fulda. Jules Crittenden has a take on it. Hat tip: [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 11:31 am
[...] Writes Jules Crittennden: So now we see that a former grunt and a German are capable of doing a better job in Iraq than our own professional press, managing to talk to real people and unafraid to talk about the good as well as the bad, the progress that is being made, the utter necessity of blood, sweat and tears that is being expended. Again, why are the great American media organizations unable to manage this? They’ll be handing out Pulitzers for 2007, the year when the leading forces of American journalism failed an entire people, sought to condemn an entire region of the world, and were willing to see slaughter and chaos. I can’t wait to see what the august judges settle on as the exemplars of this year’s greatness. They don’t have a Pulitzer for shame. They don’t have one for sloth and cynicism. But then, they don’t really have Pulitzers for passion, moral purpose and people who buck genteel drawing room sensibilities, either. [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Did Another Rat Just Jump Off The Ship?
Over recent weeks we have noticed that, not only progress, but optimism has infiltrated our medias reporting of Iraq, I likened this with rats jumping of a sinking ship as well as those left stranded on that sinking ship getting mightily annoyed at t…
August 14th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden asks, and perhaps answers, one heck of a question. So now we see that a former grunt and a German are [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
2007.08.14 Politics and National Defense Roundup
Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq By Ullrich Fichtner in Iraq When describing Iraq, the word peace is seldom used. Truth be told, the Americans have restored order to many parts of the county. But Iraq remains fractured, and where new schools are built …
August 14th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
This looks like one of the hotter artitcles on the web right now.
I’m also forwarding to all my blog buddies some research that rebuts leftist claims of widespread U.S. noncombatant casualties of Iraqi civilians in the war:
http://burkeanreflections.blogspot.com/2007/08/civilian-casualties-and-us-conduct-in.html
Take care!
August 15th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Turnaround
It seems that even Der Spiegel is acknowledging that the surge is working. Jules Crittendon brought this to my attention: Written by a German in a brutally honest, harsh-lit multi-part article in Der Spiegel. The dirty secret the world doesn’t…
March 6th, 2008 at 10:26 am
[...] above weaknesses notwithstanding, you’ll remember Ullrich Fittner from his prior good work re Iraq. You may also remember Donkey [...]