Major E. reported today from Camp Victory in Baghdad with "thoughts after a midnight tank patrol." Major E. writes:

A recent midnight tank patrol near Sadr City met my definition of a good patrol: enough excitement to make it interesting and easy to stay awake but not so much that I could not sleep after the shift.

The unit at a checkpoint several hundred yards down the road took small arms fire and then returned the favor—with larger weapons and more effect. Later, as a chase developed, US and Iraqi forces transited our position, back and forth, for a good hour or so. There was also an intensely bright, but strangely silent, explosion. "Transformer probably blew," the tank commander said, and was later confirmed by a radio call.

The temperature stayed in the 80's outside and hovered just over 100 degrees inside the tank. The combination of heat, helmet, and heavy protective gear meant that each time I sat down inside, sweat would begin to stream down my face within a minute or two. The rest of the patrol remained quiet, other than the odd rifle crack.

The situation in the Sadr City area has moved significantly in our favor since militant Shia leader Muqtada Al-Sadr has told his militia to stand down so that he can be involved in the political process. Not to overstate the positive, there are still deadly roadside bomb attacks. The level of violence, though, is far less than what was going on there before Sadr chose the political road.

Good things are happening here in Iraq. While the political process moves forward, the enemy has shifted to more eye-catching attacks, and the television film crews are all too happy to oblige them and then broadcast all that is not going well to those back home. I already wrote about the Al-Jazeera television crew that followed the terrorist car bomb cell around Baghdad, but I will focus on the Western media. The traditional media obsession with bad news was apparent to me when I flew home for some R&R last month. I began conversing with a BBC TV personality who happened to be sitting next to me as the C-130 buffeted through the windy skies.

After the requisite elitist sneer or two toward President Bush, his comments about the state of Iraq were constantly negative, but it seemed that he could not see the forest from the trees. At the time, a Shia had just been appointed as Prime Minister of Iraq, while a Kurd was sworn in as interim president and a Sunni and a Shia shared the vice-presidency.

These are undeniably historic developments considering the decades of Saddam's oppression of the Shia and his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, in stark contrast with the new government's democratic inclusiveness considering the fact that the Sunnis were still meaningfully represented. He said that was "well and good," but that the selection of "the cabinet is going to bring the whole government down" because there was disagreement and jockeying for power among the different players hoping to become cabinet ministers. I replied that all governments have disagreements and jockeying for power, with the possible exception of Saddam's former regime, where the consequences were too terrible to consider, for the "jockey" as well as his political allies, family, and tribe.

"Picking the president was the easy part," he continued, as if it had been as simple as catching a floating lotto ball stamped with a name, "but trying to put together a cabinet is futile--and civil war is just around the corner." He said every word with the calm confidence so often portrayed by the media elite as they push their opinions while trying to appear objective. I explained that I disagreed and reminded him of Churchill's advice regarding the ugliness of the making of laws and sausages. "I agree that that the process is not perfect, but things keep moving in the right direction," I maintained.

His comment that "...civil war was just around the corner..." struck me because it seemed far-fetched. After the flight, we parted and I went on vacation, where time spent on a tropical beach with my beautiful wife was followed by a trip to our doctor at home where he informed us that, Lord willing, we will have a baby boy in several months.

A few days later, though, the BBC man's remark seemed even more far-fetched as the press reported that the Shia/Kurd/Sunni leadership of Iraq announced its new cabinet composed of, you guessed it, Shia, Kurd, and Sunni ministers.

But BBC broadcasts and online reports for those ten days could easily persuade a viewer that my BBC acquaintance’s "sky is falling" prediction was the most accurate. In fact, even when reporting the results, the network focused not on the achievement of yet another milestone in Iraq’s transition from tyranny to democracy, but instead on some minor Sunni minister who was unhappy with his post. I think it was the Minister of the Environment, so perhaps his next step will be to contact Christine Todd Whitman's literary agent.

Anyway, the episode reminded me of how the media tends to view such events—always as potential cataclysms, rather than as small, positive steps forward. Portraying events that way probably gets more television viewers and sells more newspapers. But the growth of alternative media indicates that the public is learning that they may not be getting the story as objectively as claimed, which creates a thirst for other sources of information, whether it be Fox News, emails from troops, or blogs. Speaking of thirst, I am still dehydrated from the tank patrol. But since I have given up drinking Pepsi and Gatorade, hopefully only a temporary measure, I am stuck with Kuwait's finest "Abraaj" bottled water, mixed with fruit punch.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and for all of the support you and your readers give to the troops.

In Christ,
Major E.
Camp Victory

Major E. includes two photographs with his message. Above he "heads out in the mighty Abrams tank."

Above he is "stuck in traffic, praying that is not a blue bus bomb."

Posted by Scott at 05:55 PM  |    |