thedrifter
08-29-07, 08:17 AM
BAGHDAD TREAT
By RALPH PETERS
August 29, 2007 -- BAGHDAD IT may be the world's ugliest ice cream, a random mix of a half-dozen melting flavors swirled together in a chaos of chemical colors. But it's a hit at the Yarmouk market in the heart of Baghdad.
Much of the city - though certainly not all - is coming back to life. The optimism of the neighborhood entrepreneur who opened that ice-cream shop may be a better indicator of progress than another empty promise from Iraq's government.
And it's a good sign when a U.S. security patrol can make an ice-cream stop.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, the commander of the Multinational Division-Baghdad, joined the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Field Artillery on Tuesday as they made the rounds of the Qadisiyah neighborhood and other stretches of Baghdad.
Gen. Fil doesn't walk, he prowls. Evoking a mountain lion that woke up hungry, he has the animal's alertness, observing everything around him on the move. He doesn't growl, though. A "new-school" commander forged by this war, he knows that you can't micro-manage a counterinsurgency.
Fil listens. Then he decides. And he gives his subordinates maximum freedom of action. He's the kind of commander under whom you want to serve.
The Red Dragons of 3-82 are a story, too. Artillerymen, they patrol the streets of a broad slice of Baghdad in a traditional Infantry role - and provide steel on target from their 155mm howitzers for six brigades strewn across a vast area of operations.
That versatility is one of the qualities Fil admires most in America's soldiers. Asked what years of conflict have taught him, the "big cat" swept a hand back over hair pressed flat by his helmet and wet with sweat before answering: "The incredible adaptability of the American soldier - he can turn a corner just like that."
AND the artillerymen have to be versatile. Although much of central Baghdad has begun to thrive again, the crazy quilt of neighborhoods they patrol still has its troubles. Those who knew the area pre-surge are impressed with the recent progress, but Gen. Fil and his subordinates know they still have a long way to go.
On the positive side, the "gated communities" approach, complete with security guards and controlled access for neighborhoods, has cut violence dramatically. The Red Dragons' sector hasn't suffered a roadside bomb attack since April; when a pair of drive-by shootings occurred during the recent Shia pilgrimage to Karbala, the locals were furious.
Given the chance to sound off to Gen. Fil, a local elder waved a forefinger and told him, "These killers are not from here! They are not from our neighborhood. We don't want these people here." The old man was surrounded by a vibrant market; he doesn't want to live out his remaining years on a street desolated by terror.
THE zone patrolled by 3-82's soldiers is complex. One stretch is wonderfully green and quiet, home to doctors, lawyers and academics, primarily Sunni - as is most of the sector. But Shia squatters have moved in along the southern rim, crossing a highway to find new homes after last year's wave of ethnic cleansing. The artillerymen have the mission of keeping Muqtada al-Sadr's thugs out of the slum.
So far, they've been successful. The Mahdi Army fighters slip in for short visits now and then, but haven't been able to establish a firm foothold. The rest of the zone, with its middle-class neighborhoods - and that ice cream parlor - is enjoying the new peace.
But that peace isn't unblemished. The residents complain about the local Yarmouk Hospital, where Sunnis can't get treatment - if they're brave enough to set foot inside the door - because Shia partisans control the Ministry of Health. (Last year in Baghdad, Sunni patients were dragged from their beds and murdered.)
And the hospital's a wreck. The neglect dates back to the Saddam era, when palaces were in vogue, but not medical facilities for the average Iraqi. When 3-82's commander, Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, assumed responsibility for the sector, he found that, in addition to being a Shias-only facility, the hospital lacked both a trauma unit and a burn ward - essential, given the terrorists' choice of weapon, the bomb targeting civilians.
There are still electricity shortages, but, on the positive side of the scale, schools are open again, and women and children feel safe in the streets.
Things are working at the local level. Some fault-line districts of Baghdad are still sick with violence, but the surge and the new counterinsurgency approach has made a positive difference in much of the city.
THINGS have gotten better - but the residents of Qadisiyah share the anger of the U.S. Congress at the al-Maliki government.
Seconded by his fellow elders, the old man who was so anxious to speak to the general looked to the Americans for help, not to his own government. He railed against the ministry officials responsible for electricity, for television and for health care - and he didn't stop there.
"These ministers steal! They send our money to Canada, to Europe. Because" - he slapped the back of a broken chair - "they know they will not sit in their seats very long."
The contrast between his enthusiasm for the American soldiers and his fury toward the al-Maliki government echoes the views of many U.S. officers. One told me straightforwardly, "Our biggest challenge is getting the Iraqi government to govern."
There's no way to avoid the truth any longer: The Maliki government is a failed government. But things have begun to work at the local and regional level. If Iraq's going to make it, the change may have to come from the bottom up.
ALL that's beyond the pay- grade of the soldiers of the Red Dragon battalion. They've got their mission, and they're doing it superbly. In a paradox of this turn-and-turn-again conflict, our stock has gone up with our former enemies and many simple Iraqi citizens, while elements among the Shia - who were assumed to be our natural allies - look more and more like enemies.
Grim problems remain. Yet, opinion is virtually unanimous that Iraq is a more hopeful place than it was six months ago. Perhaps the best way to describe the mood of those who wear our country's uniform is "chastened optimism."
Whether the effects will endure after the concrete barriers come down around those "gated communities" and whether Iraqi's national-level leaders can stop soiling the sandbox [to put it politely] are other questions entirely.
But each American reading this column can be certain of one thing: America's soldiers in Baghdad have made an enormous difference. The real humanitarians aren't the coffee-bar philosophers on the left, but our troops. Only the future will tell us if the Iraqis can build a decent country on their sacrifices.
As for that ice cream, it's a best seller in the 116-degree heat. The brisk business is very good sign in a city that, six months ago, was a slaughterhouse.
Ellie
By RALPH PETERS
August 29, 2007 -- BAGHDAD IT may be the world's ugliest ice cream, a random mix of a half-dozen melting flavors swirled together in a chaos of chemical colors. But it's a hit at the Yarmouk market in the heart of Baghdad.
Much of the city - though certainly not all - is coming back to life. The optimism of the neighborhood entrepreneur who opened that ice-cream shop may be a better indicator of progress than another empty promise from Iraq's government.
And it's a good sign when a U.S. security patrol can make an ice-cream stop.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, the commander of the Multinational Division-Baghdad, joined the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Field Artillery on Tuesday as they made the rounds of the Qadisiyah neighborhood and other stretches of Baghdad.
Gen. Fil doesn't walk, he prowls. Evoking a mountain lion that woke up hungry, he has the animal's alertness, observing everything around him on the move. He doesn't growl, though. A "new-school" commander forged by this war, he knows that you can't micro-manage a counterinsurgency.
Fil listens. Then he decides. And he gives his subordinates maximum freedom of action. He's the kind of commander under whom you want to serve.
The Red Dragons of 3-82 are a story, too. Artillerymen, they patrol the streets of a broad slice of Baghdad in a traditional Infantry role - and provide steel on target from their 155mm howitzers for six brigades strewn across a vast area of operations.
That versatility is one of the qualities Fil admires most in America's soldiers. Asked what years of conflict have taught him, the "big cat" swept a hand back over hair pressed flat by his helmet and wet with sweat before answering: "The incredible adaptability of the American soldier - he can turn a corner just like that."
AND the artillerymen have to be versatile. Although much of central Baghdad has begun to thrive again, the crazy quilt of neighborhoods they patrol still has its troubles. Those who knew the area pre-surge are impressed with the recent progress, but Gen. Fil and his subordinates know they still have a long way to go.
On the positive side, the "gated communities" approach, complete with security guards and controlled access for neighborhoods, has cut violence dramatically. The Red Dragons' sector hasn't suffered a roadside bomb attack since April; when a pair of drive-by shootings occurred during the recent Shia pilgrimage to Karbala, the locals were furious.
Given the chance to sound off to Gen. Fil, a local elder waved a forefinger and told him, "These killers are not from here! They are not from our neighborhood. We don't want these people here." The old man was surrounded by a vibrant market; he doesn't want to live out his remaining years on a street desolated by terror.
THE zone patrolled by 3-82's soldiers is complex. One stretch is wonderfully green and quiet, home to doctors, lawyers and academics, primarily Sunni - as is most of the sector. But Shia squatters have moved in along the southern rim, crossing a highway to find new homes after last year's wave of ethnic cleansing. The artillerymen have the mission of keeping Muqtada al-Sadr's thugs out of the slum.
So far, they've been successful. The Mahdi Army fighters slip in for short visits now and then, but haven't been able to establish a firm foothold. The rest of the zone, with its middle-class neighborhoods - and that ice cream parlor - is enjoying the new peace.
But that peace isn't unblemished. The residents complain about the local Yarmouk Hospital, where Sunnis can't get treatment - if they're brave enough to set foot inside the door - because Shia partisans control the Ministry of Health. (Last year in Baghdad, Sunni patients were dragged from their beds and murdered.)
And the hospital's a wreck. The neglect dates back to the Saddam era, when palaces were in vogue, but not medical facilities for the average Iraqi. When 3-82's commander, Lt. Col. Mike Tarsa, assumed responsibility for the sector, he found that, in addition to being a Shias-only facility, the hospital lacked both a trauma unit and a burn ward - essential, given the terrorists' choice of weapon, the bomb targeting civilians.
There are still electricity shortages, but, on the positive side of the scale, schools are open again, and women and children feel safe in the streets.
Things are working at the local level. Some fault-line districts of Baghdad are still sick with violence, but the surge and the new counterinsurgency approach has made a positive difference in much of the city.
THINGS have gotten better - but the residents of Qadisiyah share the anger of the U.S. Congress at the al-Maliki government.
Seconded by his fellow elders, the old man who was so anxious to speak to the general looked to the Americans for help, not to his own government. He railed against the ministry officials responsible for electricity, for television and for health care - and he didn't stop there.
"These ministers steal! They send our money to Canada, to Europe. Because" - he slapped the back of a broken chair - "they know they will not sit in their seats very long."
The contrast between his enthusiasm for the American soldiers and his fury toward the al-Maliki government echoes the views of many U.S. officers. One told me straightforwardly, "Our biggest challenge is getting the Iraqi government to govern."
There's no way to avoid the truth any longer: The Maliki government is a failed government. But things have begun to work at the local and regional level. If Iraq's going to make it, the change may have to come from the bottom up.
ALL that's beyond the pay- grade of the soldiers of the Red Dragon battalion. They've got their mission, and they're doing it superbly. In a paradox of this turn-and-turn-again conflict, our stock has gone up with our former enemies and many simple Iraqi citizens, while elements among the Shia - who were assumed to be our natural allies - look more and more like enemies.
Grim problems remain. Yet, opinion is virtually unanimous that Iraq is a more hopeful place than it was six months ago. Perhaps the best way to describe the mood of those who wear our country's uniform is "chastened optimism."
Whether the effects will endure after the concrete barriers come down around those "gated communities" and whether Iraqi's national-level leaders can stop soiling the sandbox [to put it politely] are other questions entirely.
But each American reading this column can be certain of one thing: America's soldiers in Baghdad have made an enormous difference. The real humanitarians aren't the coffee-bar philosophers on the left, but our troops. Only the future will tell us if the Iraqis can build a decent country on their sacrifices.
As for that ice cream, it's a best seller in the 116-degree heat. The brisk business is very good sign in a city that, six months ago, was a slaughterhouse.
Ellie