Blue Crab Boulevard

A Letter From Kuwait

A letter from Blue Crab Boulevard’s one and only foreign correspondent. This is directly responding to a recent AP article.

A Letter to Miriam Fam

As I was flipping through the Stars and Stripes today, I came upon your article from the AP "Suicide bomber kills 40 at recruiting center"), and after reading it fairly casually, I thought to myself, "wow, that’s some scary stuff."

You see, I’m a sergeant serving with a unit that’s about to go to Iraq, and the idea of Sunnis and Shiites facing off with US troops in the middle definitely isn’t a palatable one. You also mentioned that the US may have been involved with a shooting incident in a mosque, which also registered as bad news. After reading your article, though, I flipped the page to find two other stories, both written by Stars and Stripes reporters, people who are actually in the field with the soldiers on the ground. After reading these two articles, combined with what I already know about the areas in question, I came to a simple conclusion: ma’am, you do not have the slightest clue what you’re talking about.

You see, this isn’t my first time in this particular combat zone, and some of the areas you mention I’ve actually seen in person. First, addressing the issue of the tribal violence that’s being reported, I believe your political bias has clouded your journalistic integrity. You see, if you’d done any actual research, talked to any of the grunts who patrol those areas on a daily basis, you’d know that the execution-style killings and rampant bombing isn’t being done by "Shiite militias or death squads" as you so directly put it. Many, if not most of these acts are being committed by the same people we’ve been trying to hunt down from day one of the insurgency, i.e., the foreign extremists who’ve been using Iraq as a personal playground of death and destruction. Now they’re attempting to snare the US military into a civil war whose flames they are stoking ever higher.

Next let’s discuss your report of the "mosque" shooting incident. First of all, the compound that was attacked by the joint Iraqi-US Special Forces team WAS NOT marked as a mosque. Second, the raid was aimed at breaking up a kidnapping/execution squad, you know, those wonderful people that get their jollies snatching westerners and lopping their heads off in front of cameras; it wasn’t just some door-to-door shakedown.

Lastly, the person who’s screaming the loudest about the "innocence" of the people in this so-called mosque is Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi cleric and admitted murderer whose personal army engaged US forces in and around Najaf back in 2004. Needless to say, this man does not like us. Overall, the impression I got from your article was that the US has installed a puppet government in Iraq. You off-handedly remark that the "Shiite death squads" are likely tolerated by the local police as well as the government, which has a Shiite majority. Ma’am, if we’d had a hand in the election of Iraqi officials, do you really think we’d have allowed three dozen or so al-Sadr supporters to take office in the Iraqi parliament?

I think from now on I’ll draw my conclusions from the reports of my fellow soldiers, written by the reporters who actually live with and around them. It beats the conjured conclusions of someone sitting in a pressroom with an agenda any day.

Sincerely yours,

A US soldier

UPDATE: Thank you to Hugh Hewitt for linking here. Please do take a look around.

Foreign Correspondence, Media, War | Gaius Thursday, 30 March , 2006

By Mike's America, Thursday, 30 March , 2006 @ 11:21 pm

That’s GREAT!

I read something similar on Flopping Aces:

http://www.floppingaces.net/?p=1465

It’s just a shame that the perspective of the soldiers on the ground is rarely if EVER reported.

But then the press folks are just too busy covering bad news.
By Gauis Arbo, Thursday, 30 March , 2006 @ 11:35 pm

Yeah, I know. The press is so fixated on making this into another Vietnam that they won’t even report on troops that have won medals - including a Congressional Medal of Honor.
By Timbo, Friday, 31 March , 2006 @ 6:53 am

We need an army of soldier-writers like this one. It rings of truth.
By KSM, Friday, 31 March , 2006 @ 8:29 am

I support the war and Bush and the troops, but do you have something more substantial to back up your statement “Many, if not most of these acts are being committed by the same people weâ€™ve been trying to hunt down from day one of the insurgency, i.e., the foreign extremists…” I hear conflicting reports, and I need some stats, some actual incidences, or at least some anecdotal events to give your statement more backing.

If you tell me why you elieve what you said, then I can evaluate whether or not I should believe it as well.

You also say “if weâ€™d had a hand in the election of Iraqi officials, do you really think weâ€™d have allowed three dozen or so al-Sadr supporters to take office in the Iraqi parliament?”

If the elections were honest (and I think that they, while not perfect, were mostly honest), then there is the real possibility that we might not like the outcome. To the degree that voters do not share our values, the people they elect might not share our values. So, unless we rigged the election (and we did not), it is possible that Sadr supporters got into office.

I wish the Iraqi governemnt WAS a puppet government for now. Then we could set direction better. But as it is, it is independent.

God Bless! Thanks for your service!
By Gauis Arbo, Friday, 31 March , 2006 @ 9:00 am

KSM, I’ll pass along your question. I am not sure how much he can actually write due to security. I do know he reads the Stars and Stripes, which you can access on line yourself. They have actual reporters on the ground, not holed up in a bunker in the Green Zone.

http://www.estripes.com/
By Sarge, Friday, 31 March , 2006 @ 11:02 am

KSM, I don’t have the statistics and unfortunately I already threw away that newspaper (the Stars and Stripes website seems to be down today too), but I do remember one of the articles stating (and not conjecturing) that there were between thirty and forty members of the Iraqi parliament that are self-declared supporters of al-Sadr. I’ll see about those numbers for you, and thank you for your support. And thanks to all for not trashing my first published editorial.
By ann & neatie, Sunday, 2 April , 2006 @ 10:43 am

Thanks for this site and what you are doing. We search the internet to get the truth. And once finding it use it to hopefully produce something a little more than just talk. The comment you got on “an Army of Soldier Writers” was a good one and we have already come to the conclusion that we now have that, albeit, a small army right now. We thank you men in uniform not only for keeping us secure here at home and fighting our very wicked enemies around the world, but for getting the truth out to us. Few civilian writers on the ground are your equal. The only one who comes to mind right now from the hell holes of this world is Michael Yon. I hope you read him, by the way. He will be an encouragement to you - - -promise.
Your new readers,
Ann and Neatie
Newton, Tx
By Gauis Arbo, Sunday, 2 April , 2006 @ 12:25 pm

Sarge will be posting whenever he gets a chance, so do keep checking back.