Paul J. Nyden
Using his on-the-ground experience as a Marine Corps adviser working with Iraqi troops, First Lt. Wesley Gray offers a stark vision of the immediate future in his new book, Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army.
Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army
By Wesley Gray.
Naval Institute Press. 259 + ix pages. Hardcover, $28.95.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- America is promoting anarchy in Iraq. Its policies are creating a further disintegration of that torn nation, not democracy.
Positive changes to that war-torn nation's political structure seem almost hopeless.
Using his on-the-ground experience as a Marine Corps adviser working with Iraqi troops, First Lt. Wesley Gray offers a stark vision of the immediate future in his new book, Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army.
Gray portrays a disjointed society in Iraq, especially from the perspective of advanced industrial economies.
The new book rarely mentions the long history of cultural and economic divisions in Iraq between the Shia, Sunnis, Kurds and smaller groups.
But Embedded makes a unique contribution by portraying how Iraq's disjointed politics and social relations influence its own military structures.
The lack of discipline and organization in the military is part of the problem in Iraq.
Over seven months, the battalion of Iraqis trained by Gray and his fellow Marines dropped from 500 soldiers to 185. They "had low morale, no initiative, no desire to protect the Iraqi foundations of democracy and a strong desire to collect their paycheck. ...
"The main reasons Iraq continues to falter is not because the U.S. military isn't trying its best but because of Iraqi culture, which sets them up for failure," Gray writes.
Iraqis have never experienced Western-style democracy. Iraq has never been integrated into the world economy except as a major exporter of oil to advanced industrial economies.
For seven months, Gray lived and fought beside Iraqi troops in Haditha Triad, one of the country's most dangerous provinces. They disabled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and went on missions to find insurgents.
"At their core," Gray writes, "Iraqi soldiers are not much different from U.S. Marines."
Gray's remarkable success in befriending Iraqi soldiers came partly from his ability to speak Arabic - unfortunately a very rare skill among Americans stationed there.
Linguistic abilities and cultural knowledge helped Gray forge close friendships with Iraqi soldiers, who came to call him a brother and affectionately named him "Jamal."
Gray believes the U.S. policymakers should pay more attention to how Iraqi society functions, rather than believing they can quickly impose any new form of government.
Most Iraqis joining the army are not driven by major religious or philosophical motives. They want to feed their families and become respected members of their "tribal communities."
The key to motivating Iraqi soldiers is providing enough money to help their families survive.
Gray believes U.S. policymakers made a major blunder in disbanding Saddam Hussein's army and police forces after the 2003 invasion.
Most top Iraqi military leaders may have been attached to Hussein's repressive regime. But most foot soldiers were simply trying to eke out a living in an impoverished and fractured country.
Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army
By Wesley Gray.
Naval Institute Press. 259 + ix pages. Hardcover, $28.95.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- America is promoting anarchy in Iraq. Its policies are creating a further disintegration of that torn nation, not democracy.
Positive changes to that war-torn nation's political structure seem almost hopeless.
Using his on-the-ground experience as a Marine Corps adviser working with Iraqi troops, First Lt. Wesley Gray offers a stark vision of the immediate future in his new book, Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army.
Gray portrays a disjointed society in Iraq, especially from the perspective of advanced industrial economies.
The new book rarely mentions the long history of cultural and economic divisions in Iraq between the Shia, Sunnis, Kurds and smaller groups.
But Embedded makes a unique contribution by portraying how Iraq's disjointed politics and social relations influence its own military structures.
The lack of discipline and organization in the military is part of the problem in Iraq.
Over seven months, the battalion of Iraqis trained by Gray and his fellow Marines dropped from 500 soldiers to 185. They "had low morale, no initiative, no desire to protect the Iraqi foundations of democracy and a strong desire to collect their paycheck. ...
"The main reasons Iraq continues to falter is not because the U.S. military isn't trying its best but because of Iraqi culture, which sets them up for failure," Gray writes.
Iraqis have never experienced Western-style democracy. Iraq has never been integrated into the world economy except as a major exporter of oil to advanced industrial economies.
For seven months, Gray lived and fought beside Iraqi troops in Haditha Triad, one of the country's most dangerous provinces. They disabled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and went on missions to find insurgents.
"At their core," Gray writes, "Iraqi soldiers are not much different from U.S. Marines."
Gray's remarkable success in befriending Iraqi soldiers came partly from his ability to speak Arabic - unfortunately a very rare skill among Americans stationed there.
Linguistic abilities and cultural knowledge helped Gray forge close friendships with Iraqi soldiers, who came to call him a brother and affectionately named him "Jamal."
Gray believes the U.S. policymakers should pay more attention to how Iraqi society functions, rather than believing they can quickly impose any new form of government.
Most Iraqis joining the army are not driven by major religious or philosophical motives. They want to feed their families and become respected members of their "tribal communities."
The key to motivating Iraqi soldiers is providing enough money to help their families survive.
Gray believes U.S. policymakers made a major blunder in disbanding Saddam Hussein's army and police forces after the 2003 invasion.
Most top Iraqi military leaders may have been attached to Hussein's repressive regime. But most foot soldiers were simply trying to eke out a living in an impoverished and fractured country.
Looking to the future, the U.S. should not attempt to disband the local and regional militias that have re-emerged in recent years. Tribal and regional violence has long been a part of Iraq history.
"Part of the final solution in Iraq would involve accepting militias," Gay writes, countering views widely held by many U.S. foreign policy analysts.
Embedded also includes humorous, often off-color incidents.
One involves a local Iraqi military interpreter - "an unshaven, 130-pound weakling" - having erotic telephone and video conversations over a computer at his military field base with a married woman from West Virginia in her mid-40s.
Is immediate democracy possible?
Colonel Abass, commander of the Iraqi troops, a rotund Sunni and 24-year Iraqi army veteran, became close friends with Gray and offered some of the book's most interesting insights.
Abass says his fellow Iraqis were caged lions.
"The Americans dropped freedom in their laps and they acted like freed lions. The Iraqis have never lived with freedom or lived as a civil people."
But, Abass added, "Americans do not have our freedom. They are simply free to operate in a highly constrained civilized system. ...
"The freedom granted to Iraqis is the truest of freedoms. It allows everyone to do anything they want without repercussions. In one word, anarchy," Abass said. "Anarchy is what America has granted Iraq."
Gray believes Americans should listen to Abass "even though everything he says spits in the face of the logic and rhetoric that comes from the Bush administration. ...
"America has made a huge strategic blunder in assuming that Iraqis would perceive freedom and democracy in the same way Westerners do."
During his stay in Iraq, Gray came to accept some forms of torture to gain information from detainees, but warns against its indiscriminate use.
"The issue is more complicated than simply saying torture is bad. ... War, at its heart, is about killing people until they agree with your viewpoint."
Once U.S. forces leave Iraq, Gray predicts, the country is likely to "revert to an ass-backwards tribal society in the desert."
But the sooner U.S. military transition teams work themselves out of their jobs, "the sooner America could quit wasting time and resources in Iraq," Gray writes.
Over the years, the Naval Institute Press has published a wide variety of fascinating and informative books, including two by defense analyst Jeffrey Record, who served in Vietnam and worked for former Sens. Sam Nunn, D-N.C., and Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas.
Record's Dark Victory: America's Second War Against Iraq, published in 2004, called the neoconservative ideology that drove foreign policy under George W. Bush a doctrine that reflects the "pursuit of the inherently unattainable goal of absolute security ... a prescription for endless conflict."
Record's The Wrong War: Why We Lost in Vietnam, published in 1998, argues no U.S. military strategy could have guaranteed the survival of South Vietnam, which, by 1975, was "little more than a professionally feckless oligarchy of corrupt senior military officers masquerading as a sovereign state."
Medics at War: Military Medicine from Colonial Times to the 21st Century, published in 2005, offers a powerful and moving collection of photographs and stories about saving American soldiers wounded in combat.
Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.
Post a comment