I recently read Fiasco, a damning account of the Iraq war by award-winning journalist Thomas Ricks. Reading the idiotic policies which led to our current situation in Iraq made me so mad at times that I wanted to throw something. It seems that if there was a chance for us to royally screw something up, we took it: with gusto. There are few ways we could have miscalculated as badly as we did in Iraq.
In spite of apparently losing the war, there were some battles that we did win; a few Americans there who understood how Iraqis think. One of them was Travis Patriquin, an Army captain who spoke several languages, including fluent Arabic. Capt. Patriquin worked in the violent city of as Al-Anbar, where his skills actually brought some semblence of peace to the area. Through Patriquin’s work with local sheiks, the citizens of Al-Anbar worked together to oust insurgents, providing a model for other areas to follow.
Capt. boiled down his approach into a PowerPoint presentation so simple even the President could understand it. You need to see it. Right now.
It’s nothing more than simple wisdom and stick-figure illustrations yet its approach is so radically different from the Shock-And-Awe norm, especially in that its actually been successful. His slides have been very popular with the rank-and-file, circulating widely.
If only the rest of the Army had taken the approach that Capt. Patriquin took, perhaps we wouldn’t be mired in the utter disaster we face today. Perhaps we’d have drawn down troops long ago, leaving the Iraqi people in charge of their destiny. Instead our arrogance and ignorance of Arab culture has brought us what we have today. Patriquin showed it didn’t have to be that way.
As brilliantly promising as Patriquin was, he won’t ever see the fruits of his success spreading in Iraq. He was killed by an IED in downtown Ramadi on December 6th.