Dignity:
The prison problem is symptomatic of a larger issue. Our soldiers have tried in many cases, but failed by the very nature of their job to preserve, let alone restore Iraqi dignity. House to house searches, tearing down fences, ruining roads (some eventually fixed but still destroyed), intrusive checkpoints, etc. has engendered immense ill will. Iraqis pulled me aside on raids and said, ?This is not the way.? In America, we complain if we have to take our shoes off while going through security. We honestly have no concept of the level of humiliation. You win wars with the military, not hearts and minds.
Mission: There is a 30 June ?hand over,? but I have not seen anything about what the mission of the US military will be at that time. I think this a train wreck waiting to happen. After the 30th, the Iraqi governing body (whatever that might be) will be technically responsible for Iraq. How will the US military fit into their governing structure? What does it mean to ?govern? if you are still occupied by 130,000 troops? I think this is a ?lose lose? for the US military and the Iraqi governing body. It was clear from the beginning and clear from my trips to Iraq that the DOD leadership wanted FULL control of Iraq. The CPA was held captive in the Green Zone due to security concerns. Our military tried to do it all and was doomed to fail given the enormous ?mission creep? that was brought on by the DOD itself, in my mind. What is their new roll and who will exercise control? They are doing so many missions now, when and how will their mission be tailored to the new government? Having been a member of the military, I never thought I would say this, but I think that given the DOD?s mismanagement, I think there needs to be more civilian control and oversight of the entire US mission in Iraq.
War: It is clear that we are still fighting a war in Iraq by the admission of this administration. This makes defining the role of the US military all the more necessary as we move into June.
Personnel: US troops are ill-suited to do reconstructions work for the psychological reasons stated above on the part of both the Iraqis and the soldiers. In my opinion we need to hire and empower Iraqis to rebuild as well as people from the local nations. I was in Jordan prior to the war, where I met several Iraqis who were working in Jordan (I was told there were about 250,000). I also met Jordanians who had worked and trained in Iraq. Why not formalize this exchange? We were very quick to privatize the Iraqi economy. This resulted in mass unemployment as the Iraqis saw it. They lived in a Soviet/Centralized economy where everyone had a job, even if it was a lousy job. Now they have no job and are sitting around complaining about the US and in some cases doing more than complaining. I would recommend putting Iraqis and locals back to work on the government payroll and get the non-security US military out of Iraq.
Training: First redefine what the mission of the Iraqis prison system is versus what it should be and review the cases of people in prison to expedite release. Then train the personnel to support that mission and include Iraqis, (what will happen after 30 June?). And insure that they personnel are supervised and there are enough personnel to do the job commensurate with incarceration standards elsewhere. A lack of training and supervision have historically been at the root of abuse.
Perspective: The only positive sides to this are that our nation is not burying this in secret investigations (thanks to Congress). Also, we should remember that yes, US soldiers did this, but it was also a US soldier who gave these pictures to his/her commander and to the press. This distinguishes us from the former Iraqi regime.
One last note, when I was sitting on the border of Iraq with the Marines waiting to invade, I turned to the 19 and 22 year old I was with and said, ?The future of our country is in your hands.? They asked, ?Why do you say that?? I replied, ?Because your judgment and your conduct in this war and after the war will dictate in the end whether this war was just or not in the minds of the world.? There was a long silence after I said that. Today I feel like these men were sold short with too much mission, too few people and too little training.
Of course, time will tell if her worries are well-founded (my opinion is that they are correct). But that doesn't mean that the military and the government shouldn't start looking at her recommendations immediately.
Hopefully, Representative Eshoo will take Ms. Espinoza's letter, temperment, and balanced evaluation to heart. Our troops deserve no less.
Last, but not least...
SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE NEWS
Maybe you?d like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists and naked Iraqis.
Maybe you?d like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991. Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and about-to-be father. First lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United States can bestow.
That?s a big deal.
But you won?t see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in Brian?s hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it was more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like animals.
The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it?s not covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are doing.
Oh, sure, there?s a body count. We know how many Americans have fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And we?re almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us.
We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don?t hear about the heroes.
The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue.
The ones we completely ignore.
Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee.
When all hell broke loose.
Ambush city.
The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to him.
So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire.
It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish.
And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his driver to floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them.
Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines. Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride.
And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers.
And he killed them all.
He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man?s AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man?s AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo.
At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion.
When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched Iraqis from his platoon?s flank. He had killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more.
But that?s probably not how he would tell it.
He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on.
?By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.?
That?s what the citation says.
And that?s what nobody will hear.
That?s what doesn?t seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts of American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress ? to report or to deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies.
But I guess it doesn?t matter.
We?re going to turn out all right.
As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform.
