Soldiers Who Challenged War Spin Die in Iraq
Less than a month ago, on August 19, 2007, The New York Times published a letter from seven U.S. soldiers who wrote the newspaper as they were finishing a 15-month deployment in Iraq.
The letter contradicted claims about the supposedly improving character of the occupation that was already being circulated by General David Petraeus and his aides in anticipation of the U.S. commander in Iraq’s testimony this week to Congress.
No, wrote the soldiers, they were not greeted in Iraq as the “liberators” Vice President Dick Cheney imagined four years ago. Rather, they said, they had came to recognize their presence as that of “an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome.”
No, wrote the soldiers, the occupying force was not winning the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. And to believe that this might be possible, they suggested, was “far-fetched.”
No, wrote the infantrymen and noncommissioned officers of the 82nd Airborne Division, they did not believe the hype about how the war had turned a corner and was now going better.
“(We) are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day,” confided Buddhika Jayamaha, an Army specialist; Wesley D. Smith, a sergeant; Jeremy Roebuck, a sergeant; Omar Mora, a sergeant; Edward Sandmeier, a sergeant; Yance T. Gray, a staff sergeant; and Jeremy A. Murphy, a staff sergeant.
The letter from the soldiers offered an honest, spin-free account of what is really happening in Iraq, straight from men serving in the thick of the fight. And it called into question virtually every statement that Petraeus would make to Congress.
So there was agonizing irony in the news reports that, while Patraeus was patrolling the safe corridors of official power in Washington, two of the truth-telling soldiers had been killed when a cargo truck in which they were riding crashed in Baghdad.
According to press accounts from Iraq, Staff Sergeant Gray, aged 26, and Sergeant Mora, aged 28, died less than a month after the publication of the letter that said the United States had “failed on every promise” made with regard to the occupation.
Their deaths follow the earlier wounding of another of the seven soldiers, Staff Sergeant Murray, who was shot in the head during the period when the letter was being prepared. Murray is expected to survive.
At a time when the sloganeering pundits of talk-radio and rant-television attack critics of Petraeus for daring to challenge the general’s politically-convenient account of circumstances on the ground in Iraq, the letter from Gray, Mora and their comrades delivers the most powerful critique of the commander’s claims.
Titled “The War as We Saw It,” the letter reads:
Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the ”battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.
Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.
However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.
In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a ”time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.
The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.
Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.
At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. ”Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, ”We need security, not free food.”
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.
We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.
Staff Sergeant Yance Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora will not make it home alive from the deployment they thought they were finishing when they wrote the Times. But they have, indeed, seen their mission through.
Members of the U.S. Armed Forces swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic (and to) bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”
By seeking to reveal the truth about the disastrous war in Iraq, Gray, Mora and their comrades bore true faith and allegiance to the Constitution that they had sworn to defend. The soldiers died with their honor intact, and their country has lost a pair of honest American heroes.
John Nichols’ new book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.’â€
Copyright © 2007 The Nation
Just an accident. Right.
Just coincidences. Right.
I have a bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn up for sale at a bargain price. Right.
The toll continues to rise as this administration assassinates the opposition:
MO Gov. Mel Carnahan, 2000
MN Sen. Paul Wellstone, 2002
Pat Tillman, 2004
Now these two soldier/critics. I’ve said it before, and will continue to say it, Cindy Sheehan, Greg Palast and others should watch their backs and stay out of small planes as well.
Let us keep in mind that these two soldiers where young parents doing there best to honor, protect and serve their country and provide for newly christened burgeoning families at home. I think they had more conscience of what they perceived there mission to be and the consequences of their actions in Iraq then most average soldiers serving in this field of combat due to this fact. These men should be lauded as true American heroes to the public at large. They had a lot of heart to come out and state what they where collectively thinking about their situation. I am sure they stayed up worrying in their bunks many nights afterwards upon the release of their article to the public. There is no point in discussing whether their commanders where directed to increase their daily missions in order to send a message to others who might be inspired to express similar opinions to the public at large. They have spoken truth to power and should be applauded for their honesty; now that they have paid the ultimate sacrifice we the people should honor them for their unbound courage and also be outraged at what has occurred.
The question we should all be asking ourselves is when will this drawn out military endeavor be turned over to the likes of the U.N. and become a more like a peace keeping and humanitarian mission. This is perhaps the only way that we will be able to begin reconciliation with the Iraqi society. The current path we are on just seems to be creating more chaos and division year after year. We must realize might doesn’t always make right; look at the situation we have created over there neighboring countries in the region have perceived our military as being WMD in Iraq. Our military has set up shop there and seems intent on continuing to use Iraq as the proving grounds for their modern weaponry systems, watch out Syria and Iran. What the hell are we thinking? Not about bringing peace, love and understanding to the region that’s for sure.
In light of the soldiers’ deaths
Senator Boxer calls on Bush to change course in Iraq Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sent the following letter to the President:
September 12, 2007
The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
I have just learned the heartbreaking news that Staff Sergeant Yance Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora– two of the seven American soldiers who authored the August 19th New York Times Op-Ed “The War as We Saw It”– were killed near Baghdad this week.
The tragic irony is that before their deaths, these two soldiers were not only trying to give us direction on how to end this war honorably, but they were also calling on us for help.
At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday, I read General David Petraeus this passage from their Op-Ed:
“…we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are – an army of occupation – and force our withdrawal… Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit.”
I hope you will follow this advice and institute a new policy in which the Iraqis take center stage in defending their own country, thus avoiding the stigma of occupation that is now attached to our troops. This would allow for the immediate redeployment of the vast majority of our soldiers.
I also ask that you reconsider your decision to extend the surge for one more year. If you insist on extending the surge, it should be done with Iraqi security forces. The U.S. taxpayers have spent $20 billion to train more than 350,000 Iraqi Security Forces in counterinsurgency– surely, there are 30,000 Iraqis that are up to the task of securing their own country.
Mr. President, you didn’t listen to Staff Sergeant Yance Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora while they were alive. I hope that you will listen to them now, as they have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
I totally agree, truthteller. I have always felt there was some devious act behind the airplane crash that killed Paul Wellstone but I kept those thoughts to myself for the sake of not getting involved in some conspiracy theory debate. The same goes for 9/11; why so much difficulty in launching a fullscale, non-partisan investigation of the events of that day? Why wouldn’t everyone want to know the facts unless there was something to hide? Cindy Sheehan ought to be very careful nowadays. Up until her annoncement to run against Pelosi, she could be brushed aside as a nut case. Now, however, she’s making an attempt to get on the inside of the beast with a very good possibility of defeating Nancy Pelosi. Those who are truly the “deciders” in this country simply can’t allow such a powerful threat to get into a position of power. Dennis Kucinich is already there, so they just make sure his name is mentioned by the MSM as little as possible. However, if he should become a viable candidate for the presidency, then he too will need to have some trustworthy people “watching his back.” Probably the only thing stopping those in a position to “take out” Sheehan is the fear that such an act would really turn the masses into a wide awake and very pissed-off millions of people.
It’s a shame that the people trying to make the world better have to go about their day as if they were in a prison and had to have some fellow gang members watch their back for them. But even in prison, there is no stopping the guards from coming into your cell and taking you to the hole or shall we say “Black Site?”
I really hope I’m wrong about all of this but from where I live - which isn’t the States anymore - the USA is on the brink of turning a book of fiction (1984) into a reality.
Proof once again that the Busheviks are incompetent bumblers; there are still 5 living and breathing.
Recent Death Announcement Posted by Department of Defense for Sept. 12, 2007
12 Sept 2007
DoD Identifies Army Casualties
The Department of Defense announced today the death of seven soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi
Freedom. They died Sept. 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related vehicle rollover.
They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne
Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Killed were:
Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, of Ismay, Mont.
Staff Sgt. Gregory Rivera-Santiago, 26, of St. Croix, Virgin Islands.
Sgt. Michael C. Hardegree, 21, of Villa Rica, Ga.
Sgt. Omar L. Mora, 28, of Texas City, Texas.
Sgt. Nicholas J. Patterson, 24, of Rochester, Ind.
Spc. Ari D. Brown-Weeks, 23, of Abingdon, Md.
Spc. Steven R. Elrod, 20, of Hope Mills, N.C.
The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.
For more information on these soldiers, the media may contact the 82nd Airborne Division public affairs office at
(910) 432-0661.
Not to sound cold and callous, but defending our Constitution from domestic enemies requires more than an op-ed that was down the memory hole 24 hours after it appeared.
When the house is burning, the fire department doesn’t sit down and pen a letter to the editor about the mayor’s failure to supply enough hoses. Police do not gather and write an op-ed when the “bank robbery in progress - shots fired” call comes in.
You’re an American soldier walking down the street, and you come upon Bush and Cheney holding a gun to the head of Thomas Jefferson: what do you do? Write an op-ed? Email your Congressperson? While you’re contemplating, domestic Constitutional enemy Cheney warns: “Back off, soldier, that’s an order. And, by the way, you’re going back to Iraq for your fourth tour in as many years.” “Yea, what he said,” adds the Loonitary Decider, reading off a piece of paper.
What do you do?
In Memorium to these fallen Soldiers
(The following is a passage taken from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address)
“ The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” — A.L.
(The following is a revision to the commentary that I had posted earlier)
Let us keep in mind that these two soldiers where young parents doing there best to honor, protect and serve their country and provide for their newly christened burgeoning families at home. I think they were more conscientious of what they perceived their mission to be and of the likely consequences of their actions then the average foot soldiers serving in Iraq due in part to this fact. These men should be lauded as true American heroes to the public at large. They had a lot of heart to come out and bravely state what they where collectively thinking about their predicament. I am sure that they had many worrisome thought afterwards upon the release of their commentary concerning the consequences of their actions. Is there any no point in discussing whether their commanders where directed to increase their daily missions in order to send a message to others who might be inspired to express similar opinions to the public at large? The fact is they have spoken truth to power and should be applauded for their honesty and candor; now that they have paid the ultimate sacrifice we the people should honor them for their unbound courage and commitment and at the same moment be outraged at what has been allowed to happen.
The question we should all be asking ourselves is when will this ill conceived military endeavor be turned over to the likes of the U.N. and become a more like a peace keeping and humanitarian mission. This perhaps is the only way that we will be able to begin a period of reconciliation with the Iraqi people. The current path we are on just seems to be creating more chaos and division year after year. We must realize might doesn’t always make right; look at the situation we have created over there, neighboring countries in the region witness our actions and perceived our military as being the WMD in Iraq. Our military has set up shop there and seems intent on continuing to use Iraq as the proving grounds for our modern weaponry systems, with this message in mind “watch out Syria and Iran you could be next”. What the hell are we thinking? Not about bringing peace, love and understanding to the region that’s for sure.
Comparing their letter with Betrayeus’s “testimony” reveals a degree of articulation wholly absent from the General’s, as well as the nth degree of nuanced analysis by the Sergeants. But I disagree that they fulfilled their mission. Nichols’ notes the oath they and I took, which is every servicemember’s primary mission–to defend the constitution from ALL enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. They failed. They are not heroes. They were intelligent enough to understand their immediate dilemma, but unable to understand the larger picture that projected them into the Iraq Holocaust and defend the republic from the very real and easilly seen enemies residing within.
I just heard a news report, that a high ranking Iraqi citizen, who was also openly protesting the war to President Bush last week and was one of those mentioned by name in the New York Times newspaper article, was just shot and killed by a masked gunman.
That makes it four of eight or 50%, killed or seriously wounded. At those odds, we would have over 65,000 dead troops in the Iraq conflict so far. Smell a rat? ____Okay, a skunk.
How horrible. Oh yeah - coincidence — riiiight.
I just saw a news story about a group of soldiers going back to Iraq for their third tour of duty. Considering that they are there 12-22 months, this seems excessive to me. Their families and lives are disrupted over and over again and every time they go back they seem to stay longer. Each time that they return to Iraq they have a greater chance of not coming back. This is a horrible thing to do to these people for an oil grab based on a pack of lies.
I think the letter writers’ view that the shiites are not rebelling against the occupiers (Is it true?) right now because they want no resistance from them later when they will take advantage of their numerical superiority to claim ownership of Iraq is a little rosy. The U.S. doesn’t abandon anything, unless it involves absolutely no gain for it. Having control over Iraq will hold the same gain for the U.S. after it’s soldiers pull out as it holds for it now. Whatever forces - and they do appear to be Shiite in nature - will finally dominate in Iraq, will also want to continue to dominate. Like Arab royalty, they will work with the big don, the U.S., and the U.S. ruling class will call it ’stability’, as long as that Iraqi rulership continues to be of service.
Will that Iraqi rulership need Iran?