New Year’s resolutions are hard to keep. I am already struggling to keep this year’s resolution. I promised myself I’d give the headlines more than a scant passing as I rush about my daily activities. This year I vowed to look beyond the black clouds of death and destruction rising over Baghdad and other parts of Iraq and seek their meaning before passing judgment.
Thucydides, the renowned historian of the war between Athens and Sparta, warned us long ago that “little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.” It is no easy task to avoid adopting that vulgar simplicity while watching the seemingly endless bombings in Iraq. My resolution attempts to focus my attention; in part I do this to honor the sacrifice of the fallen, but also to discern meaning from the endless flurry of the 24-hour news cycle.
On Jan. 5, during the vetting of Iraqi police volunteers, a suicide bomber exploded his vest, killing 76 and wounding over 100. The major news agencies instantly carried the update showing the obligatory frenetic hospital scenes and bewildered victims. The story was soon eclipsed by the death of 11 Americans, and almost as quickly as the blast itself, the story was relegated to the back pages. But there is so much more to this story than just wailing mourners and confused emergency rooms — if only we had time.
This bombing occurred in Ramadi, a former insurgent stronghold. The victims were mostly Sunni men applying to join the Iraqi police. The attacker was most likely a Sunni extremist demented by a virulent Islamist ideology. After the evacuation of the wounded and the dead something truly newsworthy took place. Unfortunately, the cameras were long gone by then. What happened was that the stunned volunteers got back in line. Standing among the scarred concrete blast barriers on a blood-strewn street, the predominantly Sunni men of the city of Ramadi got back in line.
Now some will instantly discount this act as a stark symptom of poverty in a country that averages 30 percent unemployment. Others, however, may see a different story. Sunni Arab men waded through the charred remains of their friends to continue their petition for service in the police at the start of what most consider the critical year for Iraq: a year in which the success or failure of the new government will rest increasingly upon the police. These Iraqis — mercilessly reminded of the dangers they will face — got back in line and refused to be cowed by the insidious act of a lone bomber.
These are men from the Sunni Triangle, with the support of their families and tribes, risking their lives to make a stake in the future of Ramadi and of Iraq. They could just as easily choose to fight for the insurgency with little more danger and likely more pay. But they didn’t.
Did they get back in line simply because of the high unemployment and a desperate need for dollars, or is this yet increasing evidence of an emerging Iraqi nationalism? I don’t know and neither does anyone else. We will never know unless we follow these men through training and back to the streets of Ramadi in the distant future — if only we had time.
Understanding war is not a part-time profession. Seeing through the blur of misery to eke out the underlying truth requires discipline, effort and time. Learning the real story behind what seem to be outwardly random acts is the key to assessing change.
In this case, we see Sunni men braving death to serve a key function for the new Iraq. This is the real story but it was lost in a cordite cloud filled with steel ball bearings. The bold courage that speaks volumes of those who got back in line is masked in the unending flurry of “breaking news” and our own impatience. We are too easily distracted by the next tidbit of morbid titillation and allow the real story to die away before we comprehend.
This year I will keep my resolution and fight to rise above vulgar snapshots of information. I will look long enough to find meaning through the destructive gloom. I will remember that they got back in line and take time to ask why.
Major Charles Moore is an Army officer serving in Baghdad.
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