Some of us in America will be in observance of Memorial Day 2007. While some of us reflect on those who have died defending our country almost every day, some of us will take the opportunity to reflect because the holiday dictates such. There are also some who wish to use this day to continue their protest of the war while there are people in harm’s way.

In this case, I speak of New York Times writer Michael Kamber and the Times in general. While fewer and fewer people are reading the New York Times, one can only hope those trying to kill our soldiers aren’t reading the online version of Kamber’s latest….

May 27, 2007
Doubts Grow as G.I.’s in Iraq Find Allies in Enemy Ranks
By Michael Kamber

“BAGHDAD — Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.

“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”

“But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.”

“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’” said Sergeant Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”

While I was in the service, we were told not to talk to the media without a briefing first. Some may think this was a First Amendment violation, but in retrospect I can understand the reasoning.

Being disgruntled in the military is nothing new. No one likes doing the repetitive things. No one likes cleaning everything every day. No one likes the drills almost every day. But when it all becomes real, those repetitions become second nature, the cleaned equipment works, and it all makes sense. That’s something civilians can’t understand.

It must make a reporter with an agenda’s heart race when he hears a soldier nowadays in theater start to doubt the mission and be willing to go on record saying so. Now while Staff Sgt. Safstrom is no coward, the questions Kamber wrote and is presenting must be music to the ears of our enemy.

I’m sure we’ll get a follow-up piece in the Times with quotes from the insurgent’s disgruntled. I’ve been waiting a couple of years now….

“His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.

“A small minority of Delta Company soldiers — the younger, more recent enlistees in particular — seem to still wholeheartedly support the war. Others are ambivalent, torn between fear of losing more friends in battle, longing for their families and a desire to complete their mission.”

These have been asked before, but they beg to be asked again.

During our conflict in Haiti, were there similar stories complete with the quoted doubts expressed by our military in the mission? During our conflict in Mogadishu, were there similar stories complete with the quoted doubts expressed by our military in the mission? During our conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina, were there similar stories complete with the quoted doubts expressed by our military in the mission?

Let me ask another series of questions in response to one commonly asked during protests of this conflict….

What were our national security interests, thus the reason to go into Haiti? What were our national security interests, thus the reason to go into Mogadishu? What were our national security interests, thus the reason to go into Bosnia?

The answer to the first set of questions was few to none. Just because I don’t remember seeing any, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But surely not with the regularity we are seeing today, because as we never see stories about the homeless during a Democrat administration, we seldom have the liberal media passing on national security leaks or the quotes of disgruntled soldiers in a war zone a Democrat Commander-in-Chief sent them to.

As far as the second question, those missions were primarily humanitarian and there’s nothing wrong with trying to stop Third World genocide. The overthrow of Saddam’s regime was a humanitarian mission, but the terrorist backlash wasn’t anticipated in the original game plan.

One constant seems to be whenever we go in and try to help people, they end up shooting us in the back. Remember that when you hear the crescendo for us to intervene in Darfur.

Our people are in the Middle East today where Ninth Century thinking prevails. Can anyone at the New York Times tell me of what news value quoting a few soldiers could be at this juncture of the war? The only good that could come from this would be to boost the morale of those leaving roadside bombs for our soldiers to drive over.

“With few reliable surveys of soldiers’ attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period with this 83-man unit, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.”

Funny, while I was in I don’t remember any surveys conducted of my attitude. I don’t remember any stories of surveys conducted by our military while in the previously mentioned missions. Who would be happy in a war zone? The only reason for such a survey would be to drive down the resolve of the readers back home which, incidentally, is precisely what Osama bin Laden predicted would happen.

“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sgt. First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”

To add some air of “objectivity” Kamber reminds us that this quote came from a “conservative Texas Republican.” Again, I can remember of no Democrat soldier that advocated an “American withdrawal” or retreat during a recent Democrat Administration. This is a recently new phenomenon.

Personally, I think more could be done to secure this country from the bad guys if we told our troops to fall back and let the B-52’s do what B-52’s do: blow up the bad guys in mass quantity. But we can’t do that because the bad guys hide amongst the civilians they torture, maim, and kill. I did say Ninth Century thinking….

“It is not a question of loyalty, the soldiers insist. Sergeant Safstrom, for example, comes from a thoroughly military family. His mother and father have served in the armed forces, as have his three sisters, one brother and several uncles. One week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he walked into a recruiter’s office and joined the Army.

“You guys want to start a fight in my backyard, I got something for you,” he recalls thinking at the time.

“But in Sergeant Safstrom’s view, the American presence is futile. “If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy,” he said. “It would go straight into a civil war. That’s how it feels, like we’re putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here.”

Of course Kamber had to remind us that we shouldn’t question the quoted soldiers loyalty. I would love to hear from those soldiers and hear what they told Kamber that wasn’t published, and what published quotes he may have twisted.

That’s the reason we were told not to talk with the press, especially when our enemy has access to what was supposedly said.

“Their many deployments have added to the strain. After spending six months in Iraq, the soldiers of Delta Company had been home for only 24 hours last December when the news came. “Change your plans,” they recall being told. “We’re going back to Iraq.”

I don’t wish to seem insensitive, but long deployments are nothing new. However, we seldom read the complaints from the soldiers in the New York Times, and I can’t reiterate enough that we don’t read this about our enemies, but our enemies read this about us.

“Captain Douglas Rogers acknowledges the skepticism of many of his soldiers. ‘Our unit has already sent two soldiers home in a box,’ he said. ‘My soldiers don’t see the same level of commitment from the Iraqi Army units they’re partnered with.’”

“Yet there is, he insists, no crisis of morale: ‘My guys are all professionals. I tell them to do something, they do it.’ His dictum is proved on patrol, where his soldiers walk the streets for hours in the stifling heat, providing cover for one another with crisp efficiency.”

It’s cover-your-ass time.

Kamber writes that the Captain knows his men are publicly expressing doubt in the mission, “Yet there is, he insists, no crisis of morale.” Will someone please show me one quote from a terrorist insurgent describing the doubts his people have in the jihad?

If there is a crisis in morale, it’s being enflamed by the New York Times and every liberal who endangers every service person in the crosshairs of a combatant, a combatant who is now invigorated by the published, and quite possibly distorted, whining of those on the front lines.

A couple sentences were devoted to remind us there are a couple of good things happening in that hellhole. The rest of the piece attempts to put our soldiers’ daily routines in perspective. The perspective of them doing their jobs despite watching their buddies die and the Iraqis they train turning on them.

As we recognize another Memorial Day, I would hope just for once, a “respected” news organization would stop working for that Pulitzer prize at the expense of the many American lives that are lost when a terrorist insurgent decides to stay and fight another day because the New York Times quotes our soldiers who sound like they’re ready to give up.

I’d have no point to make if publishing the supposed quotes of our battle-weary was a consistent practice. But as it’s not and there is an obvious political agenda at work, the New York Times (as well as the American left) need be reminded of a few certainties.

Should we prematurely withdraw from Iraq and the jihadists claim they succeeded in driving us out, they will bring the battle to our streets. Let’s see how much use for the New York Times they would have.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Bob Parks, Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.