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| Iraq |
| Yon: Replacing Fatalism with Hope |
| 2008-04-21 |
| Lopez: What will be Deuce FourÂ’s place in the history of this war? Yon: I have called al Qaeda a gang. Another way of saying that is that al-Qaeda is a cult. It requires slavish obedience to an evil code and it is horrible in many ways but it gives young men especially something with which to affiliate. The Deuce Four battalion, led by LTC Erik Kurilla in Mosul in 2005 when Mosul was one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, was a counter-cult, a warrior cult, brave, dangerous, honorable. Kurilla, who is one of the great weapons in the U.S. arsenal, was the cult leader. And he knew it. He modeled courage and honor and death for the enemy. He became a legend in Mosul and his example inspired not only his own troops but Iraqi Army and police who wanted to be like him. The book has lots of Kurilla stories. But the point is you have to give the young men a model to aspire to that isnÂ’t the al-Qaeda model. And then you have to kill lots and lots of al-Qaeda and never give in to them, because the young men have to understand that your model wins. And that you should always treat the locals with respect and dignity. Lopez: Will David Petraeus be president of the United States? Yon: He would make a great president. But the best thing the U.S. is going to get out of Iraq is a great generation of leaders who have had a unique experience in American history of trying to help freedom and democracy and the rule of law take root in a culture that has never known them. Someone should write a book about what that experience could mean for American democracy. Even more so than WWII. The new Greatest Generation. |
| Posted by:KBK |