School of the Soft Knocks

The past few weeks since the speed bump* have gone by quickly, Steel Platoon is back out in the town doing missions instead of grounded on Taji for safety standdown. The information flows in quickly, people are fed up with the punks and outsiders trying to ruin stability in their region. We are constantly getting phone calls and anonymous tips from locals about who, where, and when the bad things are occurring. The best part is it takes out the hours of blindly stumbling around looking for a nugget. So far the key to any success we have had has been information coming in from the people in town. (*long story short a safety standdown on Taji for a negligent discharge at the clearing barrel)

A few lessons about counterinsurgency that I have read about before and definitely agree with now that I have seen them in action are the importance of information from the populace, making military goals and plans subordinate to the civilian government's, the less firepower you use the better, and the only progress you make is in areas the population supports.

The first one I have already pointed out above, but is really the most important. These people know who the bad guy is, what he has done, and where he can be found. We come out on patrol and see a 'population' and not a bad guy with horns and a tail. They walk around all day with the knowledge of exactly which one of their neighbors has plans to do harm to Coalition Forces. The only way to get that information is provide a means for them to communicate it to you without exposure. They will not walk up to you on the street or in the base, they won't cough in their neighbors direction on patrol, no--information comes in the form of a cell phone call after dark. Another key is to give them a reason to call, or better yet, not give them a reason not to call. Rough treatment, having a general prejudice against the population, disrespect towards the culture, and threats of violence will not coerce the late night phone calls from the willing. They have to see the hope we bring and want the change brought about.

The second lesson deals with priorities. As a military we have a certain way we want things done and a certain timeline we want them done in. Civilian governments often execute in the realm of promises, compromise, negotiations, and procrastination; these words are greek to the operations officer. We know situation, mission, execution--see the problem, know the endstate, make it work. Something also referred to as square peg round hole syndrome. And then right before we execute the plan here comes Murphy with his 'wait the city council says they are going to do this with that road.' The military can be a monster at times, it is thrown at a problem and then watched from a distance. The civilian government(in this case the Iraqi government) must have priority and control in all matters. It is their country, it is their progress, it is their endstate. Not only does understanding this principle reinforce the government's willingness to work with the military, it reinforces the power of the government which in turn rallies the support of the population, which in the end is the endstate.

Precision and restraint are the two maxims we apply to any and all reactions to hostile force. It is important to defend yourself and imperative you don't allow your force to get sniped at or bullied without some reaction, but the key is to eliminate the threat, not the threat area or the threat's family or the threat's way of life. Find exactly what you are targeting and hit it quick and surely. Support for military operations from the local population is grounded on the assumption that the military acts against the enemy and not that population. They support our targeting of those who target us, the minute we slip or deviate from that explicit target is the minute the support of the populations slips away.

And in the end, the support of the population decides the victor in an insurgency. The population is the prize(to quote FIASCO), they get all the votes, the war is fought in the court of public opinion just like steroid scandal. He who gets the most support wins. Our fight is just as much as a PA/PR campaign as it is a war on terror, in fact at this stage I would say even 70% so. We must take into account the reaction of the population to all actions before we act, ignoring their vote would be disastrous to our campaign. You don't have to kill all the bad guys, just eliminate the support they garner from the local population. Without it, they can't hide, they can't move, they can't attack. They just get handed candy and a PA flyer as our patrol drives by on the way to another meeting. What a war.

Daily Grind

Never thought I'd have to commute to work in Iraq, but sure enough I do. Working out in a town everyday means we have to drive through and deal with traffic, checkpoints, aggressive local drivers, and the other joys of travelling the largest highway in Iraq in the fifth year of war. It takes us a little over a half hour one way. And you don't even get to listen to sports talk.

But once we're there we'll do plenty of walking around. The first thing about being in town is the kids. 'Mista give me chocolate' is the most used phrase in the history of the English language. And even after you tell them no and wipe your hands to symbolize none, they'll fire back another 'mista give me chocolate' without hesitation. After they decide you truely have no chocolate they'll move on to 'mista give me football' or 'mista give me pencil' ad nauseum until you just tune them out or give high fives hard enough to get them to pester someone else. But they enjoy being around soldiers and our convoys and flash everything from thumbs up to peace signs and, now that the Tropic Lightning is in town, throwing up the 'shaka' hawaiian style. They'll even say 'mahalo.'

The adults generally wave and respond to greetings in English. The best part is when you are finished with a conversation and shake their hand and say your goodbyes they'll always say 'okay hello mista.' But they are friendly and seem to like our presence, they don't find our searches or questions at all intrusive. They'll even bring out chai for us to drink after we are done searching them or their homes.

My name isn't easy for them to pronounce(who'd of thought that with Smith, the one name on the first day of school the teacher confidently calls for roll) or remember so they started calling me Mulazam Mohanad. Mulazam is Lieutenant and mohanad is the name my interpreter decided on when they said I should have a good Arabic name. We've gotten out with the people enough in a lot of areas that I won't have to reintroduce myself they'll go straight into the 'ok hello Mulazam Mohanad.'

They ask for a lot of help; everytime I talk to an adult, even if it's just a friendly non-business conversation they will start peppering me with the usual 'when will you fix electricity' or 'the water is bad' or 'can you give us fuel for the heater?' or 'can you give me a job?' They still rely on us to provide much of their basic needs and seem content for whole families(adult siblings often live together) to survive off of one member working a government or security job.

Anyways, these are just some observations from about a month out in the town. I love working with the people ten times more than my old job which had me on the FOB for much of the day. We are working long hours and definitely enjoy the evening we get a week to chill out back on Taji but I prefer it that way, keeps the time going by.

Story Corner #1

As we pull up we see a car completely destroyed and on fire, a body under a blanket--or what you could call a body, it was more of a torso with one arm, the entirity badly charred--a group of about 10 locals, and three Iraqi Army(IA) tanks and their crews. At least the latter explains the shooting we heard well after the explosion. The locals, friends/employees of the deceased, are all shouting and demanding and confused and bewildered at the same time; my interpreter tries to translate bits of ten separate monologues to me but the only thing I really comprehend is the emotion they use. My men secure the area, put out the fire in the car's trunk and engine compartment, and try to piece together the events that led to the car exploding shortly after we left that exact area less than a half hour before. I am told the bomb was on the roadside but after looking at the area the bomb supposedly detonated at and at the damage done to the car I conclude it was probably inside the man's vehicle. An assassination.

After a quick investigation and the threat of this guys family attacking the town for revenge subsides the IA leave and my platoon is left with the friends who are still demanding answers and solutions to problems that aren't even yet defined. But their speech slows; they smoke cigarettes and stare at the wreckage. We have nothing to do now but to wait for the bomb squad to come out and investigate, a proposition that could take hours. Long after the car stops smoking, the body smolders.

The bomb squad arrives finally and determines that one or two rockets rigged up under the driver's seat was the method of assassination, Soviet made 57mms. They jump back in their vehicles and depart, leaving the Iraqis to pick up the pieces of anatomy strung about the area. They do this by getting a pot from a nearby home and then walk around using our flashlights to locate pieces which include lengths of intestine, small chunks of organs, bloody bits of skin. They place the pot beside the blanket covered body and wait. After a few hours they go to a nearby home to warm up and sleep. The smell of the dead man fills the area.

For the next few hours we guard the remains. We aren't friends or family, we aren't even Iraqi or Muslim. We barely knew him--he was a man paid by us to employ locals to stand up checkpoints in town. Now his body was on the street under a blanket 150 meters south of one of his own checkpoints, left unmanned now that the employer was dead. And we were his company.

What struck me about death, this being the first dead man I have seen in Iraq or for that matter the first violently killed man in my life, was the finality of it. He was completely out of the picture and never coming back. Take a single peanut out of a large jar of peanuts and set it aside, look at the jar and you don't notice the difference; it is still a jar of peanuts to be eaten, thrown away, or left to stale. But look at the discarded peanut for some time and you realize the empty place left in the jar and wonder why this particular peanut was chosen from the lot.

It was past daybreak when higher allowed the Iraqis to take the body. They brought a hatchback car and lifted the blanket into the back. Then they took the pot, opened the blanket, and dumped the small bloody chunks of the man onto him. They discarded the pot and drove away into the countryside. A small boy walked up and I told him to go away, not wanting to be bothered for chocolate after hours of guard. He told my interpreter he was sent by his mother to retrieve her pot. It is still a jar of peanuts.

Something New

There seems to be a rising popularity in starting a blog when you are over in Iraq, so I figured I'd give it a try. Please know this is a private blog and the views expressed are my own. But feel free to send it on to anyone who might be interested.

I am a Platoon Leader of an Artillery platoon and for the time being(hopefully for the duration) we are attached to a Cavalry unit operating in a town north of Baghdad. Everyone's experience here is different so please don't make broad based assumptions rooted in my perspective.