Return To The Middle East

I have been posting quite prodigiously lately on my politics and have drifted away from the original concept of the blog, which was to explore some of the issues and bust any myths about the Middle East, Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Largely because I feel that we, the common people, are not armed with enough information to fully understand the nature of the enemy, the nature of the war and what obstacles must be overcome to win any such fight.

I believe regardless of my personal politics, it is only through desisting in partisan politics, that we will be able to overcome this enemy. It is in the true sense of the words, "E Pluribus Unum", (out of many one) or in the words of Abraham Lincoln 1858, "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand". Or the better known euphemism, "Divide and Conquer". Which is exactly how we appear to the enemy. Therefore, I will simply be supplying information that should be used by any person, of any political persuasion, to understand what we are up against.

In regards to that, I believe I will be starting a second blog that will be just for my personal rants and analysis on politics. Although, in essence, there is a direct correlation from our current political situation to the continuation of this fight in the future, most of my political rants are about the "party" as a whole. Whenever I post on any political situation directly related to the Middle East, etc. I will provide a link in this blog to that entry. Stay tuned for the announcement of the second blog launch.

In the meantime, we now return you to our regularly scheduled program: Everything You Wish You Didn't Have To Know About The Middle East

Recently I was reading a military blog The Greenside from a Marine currently stationed in Iraq. The site is basically letters from the Marine to his father and is written in a format that I find reminiscent of Civil War letters. The letters are few and far between, but I recommend that you read what he has to say about the nature of the enemy. He is very matter of fact and is frankly able to define the current enemy in Fallujah in a way that you will not get from the Media or other "analysts":

Today the city is dominated by three different elements. The most dangerous are the extremists who are religious ideologues. These would be your classic Islamic Terrorist who's twisted view of the world is one that cannot coexist with anyone who does not only agree with their beliefs, but who willingly submit to the severe limitations of individual freedoms that the beliefs entail. To be frank, these elements will never accept a peaceful coexistence with free people. Their rhetoric and will to enforce their extremist beliefs are mutually exclusive with anything but direct conflict. We will be fighting them until a clear winner is determined.

Like so many of history's failed villains, these terrorists truly believe that free people can be broken and do not possess the will to persevere in the face of real adversity. For this very reason, they have adopted terrorist tactics and publicly celebrate their violent acts like filming beheadings and flying airliners into buildings. (...)

They specifically target disenfranchised young men who feel as though they have no real hope of ever overcoming their current circumstances. (...)

It is very similar to how gangs recruit and survive back in the states.(...)

However, these "gangs" are much more lethal and committed to a global agenda of spreading their fundamentalist ideas. There is no reasoning with these groups. (...)

Later, he goes on to say what must be recognized by all parties, if we are to insure our security:

The first group we will fight. There is no doubt that we must win this fight. I was going to say that if we lost, the fight would follow us home. However, the reality is that it already has. Hopefully this group will continue to underestimate our resolve. We will continue to destroy them where ever we find them(...)This week we have found many and eliminated them from the fight.

He identifies the remaining elements in Fallujah and makes the simple case of why it is essentially on hold from an all out barrage of the IP, ING and Coalition Forces:

The second element in the city is the criminals. There are many of them. These are no different than the criminals that run loose in all of our cities except that they are better armed. The city is known throughout Iraq as a haven for criminals, smugglers and hijackers. It has been this way forever.(...)

The third and final element is the unemployed men and those who have had family members killed by the coalition. These guys fight us for a variety of reasons: to overcome their humiliation of watching their country be "occupied" so quickly; to avenge the death of a brother or son; or simply because they have very little else to do.

He goes on to explain, what must be at base, the current strategy for overcoming the last two elements:

There is simply no way that on our watch, we are going to change the criminal culture of the city. We will have to endure the second group until we can build up the Iraqi Security Forces to the point where they can police themselves. (...)

We are working hard to reach out to the third group and overcome the world media that fans the hatred and resistance in these men. To date we have been relatively ineffective in communicating our vision for Iraq to this element (one of a free and prosperous people who are completely autonomous)(...)

And the final analysis on cutting at least a third of the "resistance" from the ground:

What they need now are jobs and opportunity to do something other than hang out and fight us.

If you won't take it from me, take it from a Marine on the ground. Semper Fi!