Article

2007-08-28 Iraq

Another report from a blogger who's actually there.

. . . Most American soldiers I spoke to about the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police, not just in Mushadah but also in Baghdad, have a dim view of their local counterparts. (The situation is strikingly different in Anbar Province, and Ill get to that in future articles.) I wanted to know what the colonel thought.

Do you trust them? I said.

He paused for a long time and answered very carefully.

We wont tell them about sensitive operations until the last second, he said. I trust some individuals, though, because I know them. Id share a foxhole with them as far as ideology goes, but Im not sure how good their skills are when they are shot.

Pride is much more important in Arab culture than it is in the West. Humiliation is therefore more painful. I wondered if this created problems when Americans train Iraqi soldiers and police officers. What must it feel like for local men to be yelled at by foreigners who showed up uninvited and knew their job better than they did?

Colonel Steele insists it isnt a problem.

They dont want to be babied, he said. They want to be treated as equals and adults. Their shame culture actually helps. Our new recruits recently complained about having sore feet during a march. When they noticed our female soldiers are in better shape than they are, they never complained again. Also, when we first had them try on our body armor, it nearly broke their spines. They want to be physically capable of wearing it, too.

Its at least possible that some of the infiltrators may be turned over time. Some former insurgents elsewhere in Iraq are now openly siding with the Americans.

There also is this: We give them rudimentary skills and a work ethic, he told me. They attend the same classes on character and honor and professional conduct becoming a soldier that our own people attend.

Is he optimistic?

I am optimistic, he said. But only for one single reason. Because I talk to the average Joe in Iraq. I meet the children and parents. Iraqi parents love their children as much as I love mine.

I knew what he meant. Counterintuitive and contradictory as it may seem, I never felt more optimistic in Iraq than I did when I walked the streets and interacted with average Iraqis. Iraq looks more doomed from inside the base than it does outside on the street, and it looks more doomed from across the Atlantic than it does from inside the base.

Major Mike Garcia said this view of Iraq is typical. Soldiers who dont leave the FOB [Forward Operating Base] are more likely to be pessimistic than those who go out on patrol. Theyre less aware of whats actually happening and have fewer reality checks on their gloom. . . .

Go read it all.

Posted by Mike 2007-08-28 13:07|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 Breaking through cultural molasses to find the hard working and respectable individual underneath is never easy.

You can't just tell them a better way, and show them a better way, then see if they can do it that way--it's not enough. If you turn your back on most people, they will go and do it the way they are used to doing it, even though they have seen and done it a better way. This befuddles many American trainers, who are used to American trainees doing it right once they know how.

You have to keep at them. Only with endless repetition, doing it right endless numbers of times, and catching them trying to do it the old way when they don't think you are watching, and correcting them on it, will you finally get through to them.

And their leaders have to be just as persistent as you, once you leave, in insisting they do it the right way, not the cultural way. Even at that point, it still takes generations of training to get it through to the culture as a whole. It is amazingly difficult.

On the plus side, for generations, parts of the Iraqi military will be like odd reflections of the professionalism of the Army, Marines and other US personnel who trained them. Osmosis from the Americans to parts of their military culture not in conflict with the old ways will be profound.

To their last day in uniform, there will be Iraqi officers and senior NCOs who will push hard to do things the American way in every way the Iraqis can. Literally thousands of things that both matter and are just decorative will be integrated into the Iraqi military way of doing military business.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-08-28 13:53|| 2007-08-28 13:53|| Front Page Top

#2 He paused for a long time [A Zen moment?] and answered very carefully.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-08-28 16:26|| 2007-08-28 16:26|| Front Page Top

#3 Our new recruits recently complained about having sore feet during a march. When they noticed our female soldiers are in better shape than they are, they never complained again. Also, when we first had them try on our body armor, it nearly broke their spines. They want to be physically capable of wearing it, too.

Pretty typical the world over when looking at soldiers vs western soldiers. Despite our soft lifestyle, our solders are well trained, physically fit and highly motivated.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-08-28 17:45|| 2007-08-28 17:45|| Front Page Top

#4 Despite our soft lifestyle, we generally accept whatever pain and injuries that result from a freely made choice as the cost of doing business. Mr. Wife is walking around these days with probable stress fractures in the fingers, hand and wrist bones of his right hand. He tried to punch through one board too many ten days ago at his Tae Kwan Do belt test... and he isn't nineteen any more. One of these days he'll go to the doctor to have it x-rayed, but in the meantime he wears his old wrist brace, takes some Tylenol, and looks forward to getting the new belt.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-08-28 18:39|| 2007-08-28 18:39|| Front Page Top

#5 Moud has just reportedly said that Iran is ready to step into any power vacuum in the ME left by the weakening USA - IOW, there will be no democratic Iraq, no "Iraq for Iraqis", etc. only an extension/proxy of Iran.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-08-28 20:47|| 2007-08-28 20:47|| Front Page Top

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