ARABIAN NIGHTMARES
By RALPH PETERS
November 15, 2006 -- YESTERDAY, 80 terrorists in police uniforms raided
an Iraqi research institute in Baghdad, rounded up 100-plus male
students, loaded them into vehicles in broad daylight and drove away.
They couldn't have pulled it off without the complicity of key elements
within the Iraqi security services and the government: "our guys."
The students probably will be executed and dumped somewhere. Partly for
the crime of wanting to study and build a future, but primarily just to
step up the level of terror yet again.
Apart from highlighting the type of regime of which both Shia and Sunni
Arab extremists dream - a land of disciplined ignorance and slavish
devotion - the mass kidnapping also highlights the feebleness of our
attempts to overcome ruthless enemies with generosity and good manners.
With Iraqi society decomposing - or, at best, reverting to a medieval
state with cell phones - the debate in Washington over whether to try to
save the day by deploying more troops or withdrawing some is of
secondary relevance.
What really matters is what our forces are ordered - and permitted - to
do. With political correctness permeating our government and even the
upper echelons of the military, we never tried the one technique that
has a solid track record of defeating insurgents if applied
consistently: the rigorous imposition of public order.
That means killing the bad guys. Not winning their hearts and minds,
placating them or bringing them into the government. Killing them.
If you're not willing to lay down a rule that any Iraqi or foreign
terrorist masquerading as a security official or military member will be
shot, you can't win. And that's just one example of the type of
sternness this sort of fight requires.
With the situation in Iraq deteriorating daily, sending more troops
would simply offer our enemies more targets - unless we decided to use
our soldiers and Marines for the primary purpose for which they exist:
To fight.
Of course, we've made a decisive shift in our behavior difficult. After
empowering a sectarian regime before imposing order in the streets, we
would have to defy an elected government. Leading voices in the Baghdad
regime - starting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - would demand
that we halt any serious effort to defeat Shia militias and eliminate
their death squads.
Killing Sunni Arabs would be fine, of course. The Maliki government's
reason for being is to promote Shia power.
Reportedly, our CENTCOM commander, Gen. George Abizaid, just had a "come
to Jesus meeting" (metaphor fully intended) with Maliki, warning him
that our continued support is contingent on the government moving to
impose public order and protect all of Iraq's people. The result is
predictable: A few law-enforcement gestures by daylight, some reshuffled
government appointments - and more sectarian killing.
>From the Iraqi perspective, we're of less and less relevance. They're
sure we'll leave. And every faction is determined to do as much damage
as possible to the other before we go. Our troops have become human
shields for our enemies.
To master Iraq now - if it could be done - we'd have to fight every
faction except the Kurds. Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to
kill mass murderers and cold-blooded executioners on the spot?
If not, we can't win, no matter what else we do.
Arrest them? We've tried that. Iraq's judges are so partisan or so
terrified (or both) that they release the worst thugs within weeks -
sometimes within days.
How would you like to be one of Iraq's handful of relatively honest cops
knowing that any terrorist or sectarian butcher you bust is going to be
back on the block before your next payday? And yeah, they know where you
live.
Our "humanity" is cowardice masquerading as morality. We're protecting
self-appointed religious executioners with our emphasis on a "universal
code of behavior" that only exists in our fantasies. By letting the
thugs run the streets, we've abandoned the millions of Iraqis who really
would prefer peaceful lives and a modicum of progress.
We're blind to the fundamental moral travesty in Iraq (and elsewhere):
Spare the killers in the name of human rights, and you deprive the
overwhelming majority of the population of their human rights. Instead
of being proud of ourselves for our "moral superiority," we should be
ashamed to the depths of our souls.
We're not really the enemy of the terrorists, militiamen and insurgents.
We're their enablers. In the end, the future of Iraq will be determined
by its people. The question is, which people?
Our naive version of wartime morality handed Iraq to the murderers. Will
our excuse for a sectarian bloodbath be that we "behaved with
restraint?"
Any code of ethics that squanders the lives of tens of thousands and the
future of millions so we can "claim the moral high ground" is hypocrisy
worthy of the Europeans who made excuses for the Holocaust.
If we want to give Iraq's silent - and terrified - majority a last
chance, we would have to accept the world's condemnation for killing the
killers. If we are unwilling to do that, Iraq's finished.
Ralph Peters' most recent book is "Never Quit the Fight."
