Newsweek: A War in the Dark

[huckleberry]

Who Is The Enemy? U.S. soldiers still don’t really know who they are fighting. Culture clashes, communication gaps and poor preparations have hurt intelligence on the ground. And any way you cut it, the difficulties don’t spell s-u-c-c-e-s-s

By Evan Thomas, John Barry and Christian Caryl
NEWSWEEK Nov. 10 issue

(The following paragraphs are from the last part of the article - very interesting take on a "solution")

....Rather than try to create a Western-style modern democracy, the Bush administration might be wise to find a way to accommodate the religious and tribal politics of Iraq. At least in the short term, an old-fashioned Chicago-style machine, dispensing patronage in return for favors, is a more viable model than one man, one vote. In—deed, some of the savvier American ground commanders already recognize this reality. Lt. Col. Hector Mirabile of the First Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment, the Florida National Guard unit patrolling Ramadi, is a major in the Miami police force in civilian life. He appears to instinctively understand colonial policing as the British practiced it a century ago. “This is an ultratribal area,” Mirabile explained to NEWSWEEK. “We understand that there’s no winning this battle without winning the hearts and minds of the people, and you don’t do that without winning the sheiks.”

Mirabile described just what that entails: first handshakes, then tea, then 10 minutes of pleasantries. “And from there you talk business. Contracts are our No. 1 method of control.” Mirabile hands out lucrative contracts to rebuild schools or provide other community services (with a tidy profit, up to 20 percent, built in for the sheik). But if violence breaks out—like the mortar attack that occurred just the day before—”I’ll be calling on the sheik and asking, ‘Why did that happen?’ ” says Mirabile. “If they can’t deliver, we’ll reduce their contracts. If he doesn’t help, we’ll go to him and say, ‘Your area is not really safe yet—people can’t work here.’ And he’ll say, ‘S—t, this is affecting the bottom line’.”

A practical way to keep the peace. But for Mirabile’s troopers, the culture gap still yawns in ways that feel not only alien but threatening. In their wrap-around shades and body armor, the soldiers look like creatures from outer space to the Iraqis (who generally do not wear sunglasses and suspect that the Americans’ Ray-Bans have been engineered to look through women’s clothes).

more at
http://www.msnbc.com/news/988072.asp?0cv=CA01

[FloridaPat]

1. Iraq already has a "Chicgo style machine" - Bush and the

defense contractors. And they are not going to give that up without a big fight.

Imagine if the Iraqis really did greet us with open arms. If they got right in there and set up a government. Bush won't pull out until he has the oil. They fighting gives him a good excuse to stay; it gives him a good excuse to force congress to give him more money so more money can go to Halliburton; he can bid his time and make everyone so sick of the whole thing that no one will care if he put the country up for sale and stole the oil.