A battle of narratives in Iraq and war on terror

Bing West:

The National Review On-Line recently posted an interview with LtGen James N. Mattis, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marine Corps Forces CENTCOM. Mattis is widely-known for his boldness and ferocity in combat. Yet Mattis did not discuss operations. Instead, he focused on perceptions. "I noticed (in the newspaper) today that 'a bomb went off in Baghdad'... the moral bye, the passive voice by our media, makes it appear like what the enemy is doing is just an act of God of some Godamned thing...getting our narrative out will be as important or more important than tactics."

The jihadist narrative is well developed. In an analysis entitled "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas", Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo of Radio Free Europe examined 966 statements posted on websites by insurgent groups. They concluded that the statements "used religion-based, pejorative code words for the targets of the attacks." The insurgent groups coalesced around a narrative that depicted US forces as Christian crusaders, the Iraqi Army as traitors to Islam and the Shiites as heretics - all deserving death in the name of religion. Mattis called this narrative, "tyranny in a false religious garb".

Mattis is correct in pointing to the lack of a united American response. Americans are as divided about the narrative of Iraq as we were about Vietnam. Some believe Saigon fell because the South Vietnamese government and military were hopelessly incompetent; others believe we lost our will and, by reducing our aid, enabled North Vietnam, amply armed by China and the Soviet Union, to win by force of arms.

In the Iraq case, On June 10, former Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the issue: " As the national intelligence estimate characterizes al-Qaeda, it says they are the accelerant. They have the most effective bombs, the more vicious soldiers.... But it is not just an al-Qaeda problem. It's much bigger than that. It is a sectarian conflict that I choose to call a civil war."

Therein lies the rub. Mr. Powell presented two narratives side by side: defeating al Qaeda by military force, and interjecting in a civil war that cannot be won by American military force. Mr. Powell endorsed elements of both narratives, while tilting in favor of depicting Iraq as a civil war driven by religious hatreds that transcend terrorist provocations.

The term "civil war" conjures up an image of fighting on a scale far larger than currently exists. Secretary Powell, presumably well-briefed by US Army generals who are his colleagues, suggested the civil war will increase in intensity, posing the question, " Are we delaying the inevitable conclusion of this civil war that ultimately will be fought out between Sunnis and Shias, Shias and Shias, Sunnis and al-Qaeda?"

There was no such ambiguity in General Mattis's interview. He said, "If this is important, we can win this. We know we can win it. There's nobody more convinced of that than the young troops who have spent the most time over there."

How could two generals reach such differing conclusions? Mattis's turf is Anbar Province, where conditions have improved remarkably, proving wrong the military's own predictions of a year ago. Excepting al Qaeda, most guerrillas do not roam from province to province. Because the insurgency is locally based, it's possible for conditions to improve inside Anbar and not improve elsewhere.

General Mattis was correct that the press issues a "moral bye" each time a story reads: 'a bomb killed 40 civilians' rather than 'a suicide bomber murdered 40 civilians'. The problem is that America is divided into two camps about how to write the narrative of Iraq.

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I posted on the Mattis interview in the North County Times several weeks ago. He is much closer to being right about this war than Powell whose doctrine has left the army in a weaker position to fight it. There is much more in the piece and it deserves to be read in full.

Our counter narrative should be about enemy war crimes. It is more than "a suicide bomber murdered 40 civilians." It is that the enemy engaged in another war crime by disguising one of its operatives as a civilian who explodes himself among non combatants in a heinous war crime. In Tal Afar on two occasions it loured its victims by pretending to be giving away free or cut price flour to women in the market place. This kind of duplicity to kill non combatants is unprecedented.

Whether it is pretending to be giving a bargain on merchandise, pretending to be a worshiper or pretending to be a recruit all such pretensions are for the purpose of committing war crimes. Yet the war crime aspect is never mentioned in any report and our military does not push that narrative either. They should be keeping a running tab on the number of war crimes committed by the enemy and the number of people killed in thsoe war crimes.

The reason the narrative is important is that we have discovered that the center of gravity in this war is not in the hearts and minds of Iraqis. The enemy lost that battle years ago. It is in the hearts and minds of Americans and it is here that we are losing the battle. The Democrats have been faint hearted about the war from the beginning showing no core belief beyond the latest polling data.

The anti war pukes who have a visceral reaction to the use of force under any circumstances have come to dominate the narrative in that party and push their agenda to the point that it has become a litmus test for Democrat candidates. The Bush administration has been far to passive in dealing with this narrative and has allowed it to undercut the will to win this war. It is now suffering the effect of that passiveness in congress where the Democrats are determined to lose the war in Iraq.

The military too has been too passive in explaining the importance of the new counterinsurgency doctrine being implemented, because that appear to be the major concern of the senators who oppose current operations and want to go back of the old discredited Casey strategy of protecting the troops in forward operating bases and turning the security over to Iraqis who were not up to the job.

Jules Crittenden looks at the different battle narratives.