[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: More on Basra..

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
More on Basra..
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1196371984.shtml


   From Michael Yon's [1]"Men of Valor":

     To interpret events in al Basra, context is critical. When we
     invited the British to join us in this war in 2003, the U.S., with
     the bulk of troops and assets, was the senior partner. In essence,
     we were the driver of a bus filled with several dozen partners:
     Poland, Australia, Japan, Georgia, Korea, Albania and so on.
     Although several key countries had opted to stay home, no nation
     stepped up to the task like Great Britain, taking responsibility
     for southern Iraq. But they could not have not planned for the
     seemingly precipitous and arbitrary decisions made by the mostly
     American bus drivers in Washington and Baghdad, who took many turns
     without consulting an accurate map. Egos and strained competencies
     only magnified and compounded errors. Nobody paid more for these
     mistakes than Iraqis and Americans, but the Brits and others have
     also paid tolls for their seats.

     Counterinsurgency experts cautioned Coalition members from the
     outset that military forces would have a limited shelf-life. There
     can be a finite expiration period during which popular perceptions
     shift, and liberators become viewed as occupiers, and eventually as
     malignant beings that must be expurgated. While the American
     shelf-life in some regions was measured in weeks and months,
     tolerance for the British was measured in years. But when American
     stewards made early and notable missteps that extended the war, the
     British outlived their welcome in the southern provinces...

     ....By 2007, when the U.S. military had made a rapid metamorphosis
     and was meeting the insurgency head-on, despite that the
     transformation was stunning in both speed and outcome, it came too
     late for the British, whose expiration date in Basra had passed.
     Increasing tensions in Basra between rival political factions were
     beginning to undermine an otherwise successful mission in that
     region. With fewer forces on hand at a time when the British might
     have been planning final withdrawals, Basraâs many feuding factions
     galvanized hostilities around a central target: the British.

   ..and

     But for the most part, the work of British soldiers in southern
     Iraq went largely unnoticed by the media and unappreciated by
     anyone else. On both trips with the British, I made a point of
     asking British soldiers how they were treated back in the United
     Kingdom. They said they are mostly ignored; occasionally expressing
     a muted desire to get the treatment they imagine American soldiers
     get. British soldiers seem to imagine our soldiers get big parades
     and so forth, and hugs from strangers at the airport. And to be
     sure, many do, especially in Texas, they say.

     American soldiers get care packages from people they do not even
     know, and those packages are morale boosters. American soldiers get
     cards from kindergartens from sea to sea, and the soldiers paste
     the cards all over the walls of their headquarters and hospitals. I
     donât know what it is about those homemade cards, with their
     squiggly letters, stick figures and smiley-faced suns, but whenever
     I am in hospitals in Iraq, those cards from the kids greatly lift
     my spirits. Iâve seen the British get cards and packages like this,
     but nothing like the quantity, variety and frequency of what
     American soldiers get. And, of course, not everyone was indifferent
     to British efforts in Iraq. As for the British fighting, the enemy
     was always present in the background, but it was not until Telics 9
     and 10 that the enemy truly came alive...

   ...more

   [2]Men of Valor I

   [3]Men of Valor II

   [4]Men of Valor III

References

   1. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/men-of-valor-part-ii.htm
   2. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/men-of-valor-part-i-of-about-viii.htm
   3. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/men-of-valor-part-ii.htm
   4. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/men-of-valor-part-iii.htm