Night patrol in Anbar

Ralph Peters:

...

And an M-1 tank coming down the road toward you has a very persuasive effect - the point is to demonstrate strength so you don't have to use it.

As the convoy pushed into the countryside, dusk faded toward darkness. With al Qaeda gone, children played by the roadside, something that hadn't been seen here in years. Instead of running away, the kids waved and yelled for attention, trotting alongside the Marine vehicles.

SHANTIES gave way to a stretch of Iraqi McMansions, new homes erected by truckers making their fortunes in the cross-border black-market trade. Deformed at birth, the garish homes wore necklaces of debris. The brute glow of old-fashioned fluorescent lights pulsed through their windows.

The road turned to dirt and sand, and the lead tank kicked up a screen of dust that made it hard for the following drivers to see. At checkpoint after checkpoint, Iraqi volunteers in the Provincial Security Forces (PSF) - locally recruited supplements to the police - and unpaid community-watch volunteers with Kalashnikovs stood guard to prevent the terrorists from returning to create more havoc.

The neighborhood-based security effort has been a great success - the locals know who should be there and who doesn't belong. But the convoy was headed beyond the pacified zone. The current approach of our Marines and soldiers in Iraq is to secure one area, ensure that it stays secure, then expand the pacified territory village by village. It's one of the few "classic" counterinsurgency techniques that really works.

In the dust-thickened night, we maneuvered through a barrier complex guarded by new allies who, just months before, fought against us as members of a hardcore insurgent force. They still don't love us. But they hate al Qaeda. And they want a role in their province's future. Fighting against us cost them dearly, on all counts.

At last, the convoy reached a village in a still-contested area. We had gone back to the Middle Ages, albeit with a few battered cars in evidence. Marine sentries, kneeling with their rifles ready, could have been moonlit recruiting posters. You couldn't help feeling proud of the disciplined contrast they offered to the unkempt world around them.

LIMA Company's 3rd Platoon had arrived at 2 a.m. in a surprise operation. Using Internet satellite imagery, the platoon commander had identified the family compound he wanted to use as his outpost base. When the Marines showed up in the darkness, the family was asleep in their yard, a common practice in the summer heat. Startled at first, a dozen or so relatives quickly cleared out to neighboring homes.

There was no jackboot behavior. The Marines pay $25 per day to use a home - an enormous amount to a poor Iraqi farmer. And the Marines also pay for anything they damage (which leads to hilarious claims). Capt. Jones' standard is that his Marines will leave any home they occupy in better condition than they found it in.

Frankly, that isn't hard. One of the first things 3rd Platoon did after establishing its security perimeter was to clean up the litter in the yard. It was a major project.

The platoon commander, 2nd Lt. William Over, was running on adrenalin when we showed up. This is a conflict that belongs to junior leaders, to men like Over and his nuclear-powered platoon sergeant, Staff Sgt. Kent Pendleton.

Lt. Over reported that the villagers had been even more welcoming than usual. No problems. The tack-tack of rifle fire had sounded intermittently to the north, across a creek, but the Marines hadn't been attacked directly. Pushed from other areas, al Qaeda was known to be concentrating in a small town a few kilometers away.

(One of Capt. Jones's challenges earlier that day had been restraining the Iraqi security forces from launching a premature attack on the new al Qaeda base - the Marines have a plan to do the job right, but the Iraqis want the terrorists dead now).

...

The Marines in that hamlet don't think of themselves in grandiose terms. But they're turning the tide against Islamist terror. Home may be far away, but the strategic defeat al Qaeda is suffering in Iraq is vital to our own security. Lt. Over and his men aren't just securing another hardscrabble Iraqi village in the killing heat of Anbar. They're protecting you.

Peters is a good writer as well as an astute observer. The Marines he describes are people that should make you proud that they represent America on the other side of the world. What the story also demonstrates is how nearly completely al Qaeda has been defeated in Anbar. On a strategic level they are already dead. They may be holding on for some tactical attacks, but they will be purely for their PR effect and to give Democrats who want to lose some talking points. The Democrats who want to lose what these men are winning should be ashamed.