Rhetorical Outbursts

The irony of this familiar discussion about Christian pacifism is interesting. Much of what opponents of the American presence in Iraq would halt by forcing an early pull-out has nothing to do with the use of force. For a fascinating portrait of all the complex ways that the U.S. military seeks to establish order through soft power as well as traditional force, read Robert Kaplan’s eye-opening book, Imperial Grunts (here’s an excerpt). For some specifics on what’s going on in Iraq more recently, there’s a great video essay on Hot Air:

But [Army. Captain Stacy] Bare’s mission here is complex and subtle. He takes territory from the insurgents and militias a neighborhood at a time, by asking questions and fulfilling promises rather than by applying direct force. In the Al Salam neighborhood a mile or so from [Forward Operating Base (FOB)] Justice, in fact, the use of force in what the military calls “kinetic activity” has become counterproductive according to Bare’s commander, LTC Steve Miska.

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Setting aside the weapon and body armor is one of many signals that Bare and his troops give to show their Iraqi hosts that they have come for peaceful reasons and that they trust their hosts. Today he’s here to meet with the NAC, or Neighborhood Advisory Council, a group of local citizens who have come together over time to make life in their community better by asking the Americans for help, and by helping the Americans when asked. Similar groups all over Baghdad meet with American troops weekly, but Al Salam’s NAC is one of the most successful to date in turning their neighborhood around.

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Though Al Salam and Haifa Street aren’t far apart geographically, they might as well be in separate countries. Masked insurgent gunmen fire on Coalition forces from every imaginable sniper nest on Haifa; in Al Salam, the American Army rides in to a friendly reception. If there are hostile forces in Al Salam, they are nowhere to be seen today and haven’t caused much trouble in a month or so.

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Through his terp, Armyspeak for interpreter, Bare first delivers two boxes that represent promises made and promises kept. Local women have decided that they want to learn sewing in order to find work. The boxes contain two brand new Brother sewing machines. Fatima, the council’s lone woman member present, smiles broadly and says “shukra”–”thank you” in Arabic. Local women will learn to sew, find work, and help make their families and their community stronger. And they will remember that the Americans made it possible.

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CPT Bare, who has been working on several issues with leaders of local elementary schools, suggests dropping those floundering projects in favor of finding contractors to bid on providing meals for a school breakfast and lunch program. Surely a shop in Al Salam can fulfill the contract. The NAC agrees. A little bit of Head Start comes to Baghdad. If only the liberals back home knew what the Army’s finest were up to over here.

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It’s much less about firepower than it is about the power of basic services to bring about peace. It’s about bringing “good government” and civil liberties and human rights to war torn Baghdad, a city that has seen none of those things in decades, if ever. At least half the war’s most vital action takes place in meetings like this one in Al Salam to discuss works projects, school re-buildings and urban renewal. It’s all part of the complex mission in Iraq, a mission that morphed from the defeat of an entrenched dictatorship to one focused on building a civil society that will survive after the Americans leave. CPT Bare and the rest of the US military are trying to build a nation that Saddam Hussein broke, both by keeping the Iraqi people under his boot heel for 35 years and by leading it into needless wars to establish himself as a latter-day Nebuchadnezzar.

Sewing machines and elementary schools. Come on! How can you be against that?