An email from Iraq

The following letter has received widespread email distribution, and appears on a number of sites. Some people immediately presumed it to be a fake.

Hi everyone,

I just received a message from Bryant, following the President's address on Iraq . I wanted to forward it to you all. He has settled into the job of medic over the last two months +, and though we don't hear from him near enough, he does let us know he's "good" whenever he can.

Mike

Here's the rest of his letter to us:
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:17:06 -0800 (PST)
From:
Subject: My view of Iraq

Following the article I sent about Bush's national address and troop increase, I thought it was a good idea to let you all know what the perspective is over here. I'm tired of hearing the media's skewed version, the politicians squabbling over what they read in a report, and the average ill-informed American ranting about things he knows NOTHING about.

I've been over here a couple of months now, and I've learned more about this country than a year's worth of watching CNN. I've sat in mission briefs with Colonels, talked with village elders, had tea with Shieks, played with the kids. And I agree with the President. We need more troops and we need to take greater action.

There are 3 major factions here. The Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The Shiites are in the majority, but Saddam was a Sunni, so he kept the Shiites in check. Everyone hates the Kurds, who are Christian and in the vast minority. The Kurds received the brunt of Saddam's murderous tyranny. Now that Saddam is gone, the Shiites have taken control of Baghdad. The largely peaceful Sunnis are now the victims of radical Shiite terrorism. So the young Sunni men, who can no longer go to work and support their families, do what all young men would do. They join the Sunni militia and battle the Shiites. And thus the country sits on the brink of civil war.

But this war is between them. They largely do not concern themselves with the U.S. troops. The insurgents who battle the Coalition Forces are from outside the country. And the biggest problem down here isn't the insurgents. Its the politicians. The local politicians. Even though the country is controlled by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, downtown Baghdad is controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Shiites follow al-Sadr and thus the Prime Minister does what al-Sadr says. Think of it as if a warlord controlled New York and blackmailed the President into diplomatic immunity.

When 1st Cav (mainly 2/5 Cav) came here in 2004, they took downtown Baghdad (known as Sadr City ) by force. It cost many lives, but after a year, we held an iron grip on the largest insurgent breeding ground in Iraq . The insurgents were afraid of the Horse People, and rightfully so. But when 1st Cav left, al-Sadr influenced the Prime Minister to kick out the Coalition forces from that area of Baghdad . He said the Iraqi military forces could hold the city. But all that happened was al-Sadr regained control of his cty, and it is now a heavily guarded fortress. A place where insurgents and terrorists can train and stockpile arms. And we cannot go back in becuase the Prime Minister won't let us. Our hands are tied.

So where does al-Sadr get his backing? From Iran and Syria. Iran supplies him with money and Syria supplies the terrorists. The insurgents that battle the Coalition Forces are from Syria , Somalia and dozens of other places outside of Iraq. Iraq is literally a terrorist breeding ground. They have terrorist and sniper schools here. Why not? They train by teaching them to attack the military forces here. And they have an endless supply of these training tools. They have factories in Sadr City to build bombs. Both Iran and Syria have openly proclaimed their number one goal in life is to destroy the great Western Devil and the little Western Devil (America and Britain). Iran wants to control Iraq to further this purpose. Al-Sadr will get to "run" the country and live like a king, but in reality Iran will pull the puppet strings. Iran will have access to thousands of radical Shiites who will do whatever al-Sadr tells them to. And Iraq will be used as a breeding ground for terrorism. Terrorism that will be targeted directly at America and Britain . The Iraq Study Group advised we should let Iran and Syria help with rebuilding? Bravo to President Bush for striking that idea down and vowing to keep those two countries out of Iraq .

So how do the Iraqi people feel about everything? Of course they don't want the Americans here. But they would far rather have us here than the Iranians. My platoon visited an average Sunni village on a patrol a few days ago. Their only source of income was to farm, as they could not go to the city to work for fear of violence. Many of the young men had already run off to join the militia for no other reason than to feed their families. They had no school or hospital near them and the community was dying. The village elder's granddaughter was very sick and I was able to treat her. Afterwards he invited me and my Platoon Leader to sit in his house and have tea with him, and we talked about the situation.

The people want peace. The Shiites kill the Sunnis because al-Sadr tells them to do so The Sunnis fight back because they have no choice. They are glad Saddam is dead (Sunni or not), but do not want to replace him with another dictator in a politician's clothes (which is what al-Sadr will become). And they especially don't want Iran in charge. Many innocent Iraqis will die if this happens. These are the words that came out of the elder's mouth:

"We do not want America here, and America does not want to be here. But you cannot leave because the militias control the country. America must use the might of its giant army and sweep through, root out and destroy the militias. Then Iraq can be free and you can leave."

What appears to have happened within our diplomatic community, is that Prime Minister finally realizes that his days are numbered. If al-Sadr remains, he will be kicked to the curb. So hopefully he is about to allow us to reenter Sadr City , root out and destroy the enemy. A dramatic troop increase will allow us to do this. And the Horse People are back and ready to finish what they started over 2 years ago.

If leave now, it will be a failure for democracy. Iran will control Iraq and the end result will be more terrorist attacks on America . The American people don't want soldiers dying over here, but its better than American civilians dying over there. Do NOT forget 9/11. They will do it again. The moment we loosen our grip on the noose, they will do it again. And the only way to root out the evil here is to stop beating around the bush, increase troops and destroy the insurgents once and for all. The Iraqi government cannot do this on their own. The Iraqi security forces are inadequate for this task. We are the only ones who can stop al-Sadr.

Feel free to share this with whomever wants a real soldier's opinion about the war.

SPC "Doc" Shurley
2/5 Cav, 1st CB

My responses to this letter -- and my brief investigation of its origins -- come after the jump. (Please read the rest before commenting.)

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

Now, I have no doubt that there are soldiers from Texas serving in Iraq right now who support both the war and the President who started it . What arouses suspicion immediately is the lack of personal detail in this letter combined with the willingness to hit the administration's propaganda points.

1. The misidentification of the Kurds as predominantly "Christian," which they are not. But they are (usually) our allies, and it might please many war supporters back home to think of our allies as Christian.

2. "The largely peaceful Sunnis are now the victims of radical Shiite terrorism." This phrase will strike many as bizarre. Al Qaeda is a wholly Sunni phenomenon. According to Larry Johnson, a terrorism expert formerly employed by the CIA, Sunni insurgents are responsible for 92% of the American combat deaths in Iraq. As we have seen elsewhere, there is good reason to believe that the Sunnis are aided by Saudi Arabia -- whose rulers are closely linked to the Bush family.

Al-Maliki is as pro-Iran as he dare be, and his security forces are infiltrated by insurgents.

3. The emphasis on Al Sadr. From Johnson:

With Zarqawi dead and buried the Bush Administration has christened Moqtada al Sadr as its latest villain. But this is another lie. Moqtada al Sadr is the least Iran friendly of the various Shia clerics. Moqtada is no friend of the United States but he is first and foremost an Iraqi nationalist. He is not an Iranian toady. That distinction goes to Mr. Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim. Remember him? He's the guy who was sitting with George Bush for a photo op in the Oval Office in December.

So let me see if I have this straight. The Iraqi Shia cleric closest to the Iranians, who are responsible for killing some of our soldiers, gets an invite to the White House for a grip and grin. Meanwhile the Iraqi Shia cleric least favorably disposed to Iran becomes our new public enemy and now has sought refuge in Iran. Great! Rather than drive a big wedge between Iran and al Sadr we give him a reason to reach out to Tehran.

4. Contrary to Shurley's claims, virtually all other sources hold that the Sunni insurgency has motives that go far beyond antipathy toward Sadr. Many Sunni fighters are Salafists. (Salafism is the militant branch of Wahhabism founded by Sayyid Qutb, whom we have discussed in previous posts.) The most public spokesman of the Sunni resistance is Sheikh Hareth Al-Dhari, head of Iraq's Sunni Clerics Association. These quotations from Al-Dhari (which comes to us by way of MEMRI, nobody's idea of a left-wing source) make clear that he feels his primary enemies are America and the current Iraqi government, not Sadr:

"We call upon all the Iraqi people to participate in the referendum on the constitution, and reject it, thus showing those who are behind it that they formulated it against the will of the Iraqi people, and so that the world will know that the Iraqi people is dissatisfied with the occupation and all its plans, and primarily with the distorted constitution, the constitution-monster that, Allah willing, is dead."

And:

"When I was asked about terrorism, I said it has many sources, which, based on research, I managed to narrow down to five. The first is the occupation, which is the source of terrorism. The second source is the successive governments – the temporary government and the current interim government. The third source is the militias belonging to the parties which make up the administration one way or another, whether they belong to the security forces or not. They too constitute a major source of harming civilians today. The fourth source is the intelligence of the foreign countries, including the American intelligence and its deeds, the Israeli intelligence and its deeds, and the intelligence of some neighboring countries and their deeds – and they are all wreaking devastation on Iraq. [The fifth source] is some groups that claim to belong to the resistance, even though they do not."

Numbers five and three in that list may well be partial digs at Sadr. As you can see, he hardly seems to be the only thing on Al-Dhari's mind.

5. The attempt to link Shi'ites with memories of 9/11 is also bizarre. As we all know -- or should know -- the hijackers were entirely Sunni. Al Qaeda is, as mentioned, fiercely Sunni, and fiercely anti-Shi'ite. Bush administration propagandists have tried to their damnedest to play upon American unfamiliarity with the factions at play in that part of the world.

I could make further comments about Shurley's views, but those five point -- all matters of checkable fact, not opinion -- should suffice.

We should also take into account the more subjective factors, such as the tone and writing style. "The Kurds received the brunt of Saddam's murderous tyranny" may strike readers as a bit too literary. Wouldn't a fighting man write something more along the lines of "The Kurds got the worst of it under Saddam" or even "Saddam kicked the shit out of those poor SOBs"?

So: Is it real?

Much evidence demonstrates that this administration has made extensive use of psychological warfare on the American people. I hope you've read James Bamford's excellent piece on John Rendon, "The man who sold the war." And we've all noticed that the fake emails that end up debunked on Snopes and similar sites usually serve some right-wing propaganda purpose. See, for example, this scurrilous attack on alleged "radical Muslim" Barack Obama, which was distributed via email -- in much the same fashion as the "Doc" Shurley letter above.

So that's why some people cried "Fake!"

But they were wrong.

The people involved are real. There is a Mike Shurley in San Angelo, Texas who was an Aggie, Class of '72, data consistent with what we find on some versions of this letter's introduction. The Go San Angelo site prints both the letter and a photograph of Bryant "Doc" Shurley.

So I called up Mike, and discovered that, yes, the letter is real. His son is indeed a medic and did write those words.

Oddly enough, Bryant Shurley worked as a graphic artist for about five years, and has written a lot of ad copy. (I'm in the same fields, though I'm -- ahem! -- rather older.) That work history explains why this young man is so erudite.

At any rate, I assured the father that even though we disagreed about the war, we all have enormous respect for the medics who are out there doing their best to save lives. They do some of the toughest jobs in the world -- and one day, they ought to have their own statue on the Washington mall.

(I also want to apologize to the elder Shurley. My damn internet phone service conked out on me while he was talking, and the cell phone was with my ladyfriend, leaving me no way to call back. Hope he didn't think I was being rude.)