Winning in Anbar – a footnote to Iraq

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“Everyone made fun of Captain Patriquin’s moustache,” my brother tells me over a few beers. The Army Officer Corps, despite regulations that say they can maintain a moustache that reaches the corner of the lips, has historically frowned upon such “low-level” facial hair. Captain Patriquin–a fluent speaker of Arabic, Dari, Urdu and Pashtun–tried to encourage officers in Iraq to grow a moustache. He repeatedly tried to point out that, culturally speaking, the locals had difficulty trusting a man without one.

Patriquin died on the 6th of December, 2006 from wounds sustained during an IED blast to his High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee…a ‘hummer’ is a blowjob, and no GM marketing will ever change that). Patriquin was devoted to a sound understanding of Iraqi culture, and blessed with a gift for entertaining sarcasm. These two traits combined to make the Powerpoint presentation entitled “How to Win in Anbar”.

Conversations like the one I was having with my brother about the late Captain Patriquin are the reason why I submitted the draft that would ultimately become “Why One Casualty in Iraq is One Too Many“. Men like my brother frequently remind me that we cannot easily divest ourselves from war–the human element does not allow it. Soldiers cannot be turned back into civilians at the flip of a switch, just as wars zones cannot be hastily converted to neighborhoods.

“That powerpoint has become our actual strategy that is winning in Anbar,” my brother tells me. I had to look it up.

Sure enough, Patriquin makes a sardonic–if not downright condescending–presentation about how to “win” in Anbar. A presentation that seems to be widely recognized by the world, if Google search results are any indication. I highly recommend that everyone read it, because it points out a glaring flaw in the original modus operandi in the Iraq conflict–a lack of understanding of the culture.

I bring this up, because I’m constantly trying to wrap my head around war. I try and steer clear of obvious generalities (e.g. “No blood for oil!”) and look at war through an objective lens. I tried to convey this line of thinking with the “Casualties” article and–somehow–it still came off as an anti-war piece.

War happens, and when it does, men like Patriquin and my brother are the ones who step up and offer expertise where we–the general unsuspecting public–are lacking. However, it seems that only their demise warrants our attention.

A Presidential “Pullout Strategy”, to me, seems like the American public trying to once again align themselves with a winning ideology (much like they did in 2002, when 75% of American surveyed did not feel Iraq was a mistake)–as if “getting out of there” has something to do with referendum and not the hard work of the people we sent there in the first place. It’s almost as if we can take an eraser to our collective guilt by bringing everyone home as quickly as possible. Once they’re all back here, will we simply not discuss it at the dinner table? Will we never speak of war again?

For those who think the Iraq war was a bad idea, I recommend that you leave its conclusion to the professionals. Focus, instead, on the flaws that allowed a weak and pitiable leader to mishandle the mighty asset that is our Armed Forces. Ask your representives to demand that the War Powers Act be revisited. Hell, ask them to not draft resolutions that effectively give our president carte blanche to fight an enemy that has neither a definable country nor headquarters.

In fact, vote out every sorry and weak leader that voted in favor of resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. If you hate the Iraq war, speak out against those 77 fools in senate and 296 in Congress (give or take, for those who have been ousted since 2002). The more we focus on Iraq, the less we focus on the future.

And the future is the only thing the average voter has any hope of changing, without putting on a Army Combat Uniform (ACU).

If we simply hold only Bush accountable for the war, then we’ll become complacent in the knowledge that all will be well come January 20, 2009; that everything will be fine once the last boot returns to American soil. For my part, I believe that to be a baseless and dangerous assumption, regardless of who becomes president. Regardless of what we think of Iraq conflict.

-To the dead, and those who have the unthinkable burden of surviving them.