Ralph Peters

Ralph Peters Is Mad:

He writes mad better than most, but this time, he's really mad.

I am absolutely astonished by the calls for withdrawal, coming as they do at this time. Of course, they've been coming all along from certain parties, but I can't see any reason why now would be the time you decided to believe that it wasn't going to work. As I wrote in an email to certain parties (with certain details redacted):

In April '04, we had insurgents holding eleven cities across Iraq openly against the US Army. In September '04, the Army had shut all that down, but there were still strongholds in Anbar. In November '04, after Fallujah, those strongholds started to fall one by one. By this summer, we're seeing Sunni tribes who had been somewhat loyal to the insurgents breaking off and supporting the government. Now, we're seeing even some of the more serious tribes negotiating with the government, and we've got clear-and-hold operations throughout Anbar.

Last winter, we were having insurgent attacks in force against American military posts -- remember when the general officers had to take up arms in Ramadi? When was the last time they tried to overrun a US firebase? January? I know the *** is demoralizing, but they do *** because they can't do assaults.

All the evidence is that our boys are rolling them up, and the new Iraqi government is starting to get its feet under it. I don't see why anyone has any doubt that we're winning, and winning big. Meanwhile, al Qaeda's use of murder squads aimed at civilians is cutting the heart out of their support among Muslims. Zarqawi was disowned by his tribe today; last week, we had the largest Muslim organization in the world condemn suicide bombing. If we get to the point that Muslims in general are opposed to groups that carry out suicide attacks, we've won the GWOT for all intents and purposes. After that, we just need to focus on penetrating and capturing the cells in the West, while encouraging democracy and openness abroad.

That's not to say that it isn't still a long road with some dark places along it. But it is to say -- what are people thinking? How can anyone stand up and say that the war isn't winnable, when we are so clearly winning it?

That's the question that baffles me. I realize those who know nothing at all about military science get their opinion of the progress from the media, which apparently also knows nothing about military science. Their reports mention every explosion, but contain no context of increasing stability. Even the Jordan bomb, so clearly a disaster for al Qaeda, was reported as proof of their influence. The image you might take away is of an insurgency that's no less powerful today than it was last year, or a year and a half ago: an enemy that makes no mistakes, whose every attack is an unqualified success.

Still, why have these calls suddenly jumped to the front page and the top of the agenda? Why now? There have been no events on the ground in Iraq to explain a sudden sense of failure. There has been no Tet offensive to misread as an enemy victory. Even if you judge only from the media, without any context to explain the progress being made, surely things don't appear to be getting sharply worse. They just don't explain how it's getting better.

Is it just because Bush's poll numbers are bad, and so the political opposition -- as Peters suggests -- is piling on for that reason? Can it really be that the opposition is so uninterested in national security and the success of America's military and her foreign policy? Can it really be that the only thing driving this is domestic politics -- that the leadership of one of our two policital parties is willing to lose a war purely in pursuit of domestic politics? Whether or not that is so, it's certainly driven the leadership of both parties into playing high-profile games with what ought to be an issue of serious thought.

I want to hear a convincing argument that this is not the case. I will be happy to embrace it, if someone can make it to me. So far, I'm not seeing it. What I'm seeing is a political class that needs an education. It's not just senior officials saying that the dispute is hurting morale -- I've been hearing it from fighters in the field and from their families. The New York Times decided to ask some soldiers, and reports that the dispute between Congress and the President has little effect on morale. Maybe that's true, and I've just heard from people who feel differently than most.

Still, in the last line of the article, they mention this: "Many in uniform say it is the job of the nation's political leaders to communicate the importance of the mission and the need for national sacrifice to a new generation of soldiers." I agree -- the leaders do need to communicate that. They need to show that they understand how important it is to succeed in the mission. These political games need to end. You can't play at standing behind the soldiers and their mission. You have to really be behind them.