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06/01/2004: "Fallujah being passified"

From Brendan Miniter at Opinion Journal, a piece about success in Fallujah.

In Iraq, apparently no news is good news. Two months ago everyone was talking about Fallujah. Four American citizens had been brutally murdered, and then a raging mob dragged their bodies through the streets and strung them up from a bridge. Every mosque in the city was calling for jihad, while the local police and fire departments ceased to exist. Then two days into offensive operations, the Marines suddenly seemed to halt their advance. Fallujah quickly became a metaphor for everything that was going wrong in Iraq.
[...]
Among other things, this brigade [of former Iraqi soldiers] became a liaison between the coalition and the local imams, sheiks and Fallujah city fathers. One by one these groups were peeled away from the insurgents. Now none of the mosques in Fallujah are calling for jihad, local politicians are coordinating with coalition forces in rebuilding city infrastructure--the Marines have approximately $500 million to spend in Iraq--and the Fallujah Brigade is patrolling the streets. Ninety percent of the intelligence the Marines get on insurgents comes from Iraqi sources.
[....]

Of course, according to Mike Carlie at S.M.S.U., Fallujah is not the world's only troubled city.

Field Note: A police gang unit commander said "The culture of the prison is now the culture on the street. It's spilled over because so many gang members do time then come home. The culture is '**** you. You get in my way, you're dead.' And they don't even think twice about it before they kill someone, or think about it again after they've done it."

Dr. Carlie also says that gang infested neighborhoods are characterized by:

• substandard schools (no matter how hard the teachers work);
  
• few faith institutions (several had moved to where congregants with money moved);
  
• a dilapidated business district where liquor stores and adult video shops now dominate as other businesses move to where the money is or simply close up shop due to vandalism, thefts, and a dwindling customer base;
  
• struggling social- and health-related services; and
  
• little local government involvement (the neighborhoods are neglected and have become disenfranchised).
  

I initially made this comparison because it seems that our pacifying the worst parts of Iraq seems as difficult as passifying the worst of our gang infested neighborhoods. In both cases, we have an enemy that is violent, has little regard for rights of the innocent, and cowers behind a mask of anonymity when cornered.

But what struck me was the reference to faith based institutions. Fallujah does have its Mosques. I see two related questions. 1) Is Islam a religion of Peace? 2) Can we pacify Fallujah? It seems that the answer to both questions is yes.

It also seems that the media has another way to deflect credit from our military.