The long wait for an Iraqi government is over. An agreement was reached and the new government will form with Maliki once again nominated as Prime Minister...
...oh for fuck's sake. Iyad Allawi's coalition walked out of Parliament the next day when promises were not kept for the first day of session. The whole situation would be comical if the country wasn't falling apart while the politicians bickered.
Moving on. Over at Stryker Brigade News there's a short article about an article from the Christian Science Monitor about COL Harry Tunnell, the commander of 5-2 SBCT while they were in Afghanistan. A little while ago I had written a blog about this officer and how it's possible his attitude, command climate, and ideas about how to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan led to a platoon of soldiers murdering civilians.
The article contains a quote that when I read it a few days ago I started yelling at my computer screen. The quote is from a paper he wrote while recovering from being wounded in Iraq in 2003-04. Every time I read it I still twitch a little:
...oh for fuck's sake. Iyad Allawi's coalition walked out of Parliament the next day when promises were not kept for the first day of session. The whole situation would be comical if the country wasn't falling apart while the politicians bickered.
Moving on. Over at Stryker Brigade News there's a short article about an article from the Christian Science Monitor about COL Harry Tunnell, the commander of 5-2 SBCT while they were in Afghanistan. A little while ago I had written a blog about this officer and how it's possible his attitude, command climate, and ideas about how to fight the insurgency in Afghanistan led to a platoon of soldiers murdering civilians.
The article contains a quote that when I read it a few days ago I started yelling at my computer screen. The quote is from a paper he wrote while recovering from being wounded in Iraq in 2003-04. Every time I read it I still twitch a little:
Military leaders must stay focused on the destruction of the enemy. It is
virtually impossible to convince any committed terrorist who hates America to
change his or her point of view – they must be attacked relentlessly.
Really COL Tunnell? The insurgents you faced in Mosul hated America? They were
actively attempting to reach the United States to defeat our way of life?
I will admit that in many places in Iraq...and definately Mosul...there were foreign jihadists who were there to specifically attack American soldiers and establish a fundamentalist caliphate in Iraq. However, the vast majority of "terrorists" were primarily fighting to remove the occupation forces and then defeat the "puppet government" that we had established. A very small percentage of those fighting U.S. forces saw the conflict as a continuation of the global fight against "American Imperialism".
The attitude of COL Tunnell, and unfortunately too many others in positions of power in the military, directly leads to a heavy hand that alienates the population, drives people into the waiting arms of the insurgency, and prevents the military and government from creating a cohesive strategy that focuses on the local issues that fuel the insurgency.
I don't even want to think about how people like COL Tunnell make the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan much more difficult for the rest of us. May I never had to serve under this man.
Ok, off the soapbox now
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