The big Op-ed being floated around the Internet this week is from a group of enlisted and junior NCOs from the 82nd Airborne Division. The Op-ed was published in the New York Times and here is the overall conclusion these soldiers have drawn from their time in Iraq:

To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. [New York Times]

I really do not have a problem with their opinion, but what I do have a problem with is the facts they are using to back up their opinion with. Take this paragraph for example:

What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

Now I would be fine with this if they said this was case in their Area of Operations, but they are making an overarching analysis that this is how all of Iraq is like. Would the Marines in Anbar say there has only been changes on the margins? Would the soldiers serving in Mosul where security has improved enough that only one Stryker battalion remains there say that changes have only been on the margins? Should soldiers and Marines from these units write Op-eds based off their experiences in their Area of Operations to create generalizations about all of Iraq? No, for the same reasons why I say these soldiers should only speak to what happened in their AO.

Here is another example of faulty facts:

Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

How does a few enlisted and junior NCOs know that the hundred some odd Iraqi battalion commanders cannot be trusted? Does General Petraeus report to them to let them know? Probably their only experience is with the one or two Iraqi Army battalions in their Area of Operations. Could those two battalions be loyal to militias? Quite possibly but that does not mean every Iraqi Army unit in Iraq is loyal to a militia. This is a determination that should be left to General Petraeus not an Army specialist and a few junior NCOs.

In the article the soldiers did not mention where in Iraq there were serving, but did say they were part of the 82nd Airborne Division. What I find interesting about this, is that reporter Michael Totten embedded with a unit from the 82nd Airborne that has had a vastly different experience in Iraq than what these soldiers describe in their Op-ed:

General David Petraeus fared better than other American commanders in cracking the code of Iraqi society and reducing the insurgency in Mosul from an explosion to a simmer. I saw some of the results of his strategy’s expansion to Baghdad with troops in the 82nd Airborne Division. Instead of staying on base and training Iraqis while security disintegrated outside the wire, they moved into a neighborhood in Baghdad where they now live and work among the civilian population 24 hours a day. [...]

Lieutenant Pitts shrugged and shook his head. American soldiers in areas cleared of insurgents act like police officers in many ways – Baghdad P.D. as one soldier put it – but they can’t be bothered with trivial matters like these. That’s for the Iraqi Police who probably don’t care much about drunk drivers either. There are so many more critical problems in Baghdad.

For hours we lounged on the sofas and discussed minor community matters and touched on subjects that were utterly trivial. [Michael Totten]

Make sure to read the whole article, but this unit from the 82nd Airborne are acting as local policemen and are not being attacked.

The brigade that the seven soldiers in the New York Times belong to is the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne which is in two of the worst parts of Baghdad, Adihamiyah and Sadr City. Both these areas are still dangerous and have not been cleared by the surge yet. These soldiers are probably frustrated by it, especially if they are in Sadr City where the US military does not want to have an all out fight with the Mahdi Army yet; there time will come though.

Like I said before I have no problem with the article if they wrote about the tactical conditions in their AO, which as soldiers and junior NCOs they can accurately talk about. However, they instead chose to use their tactical knowledge of their AO and apply it as a strategic failure across all of Iraq. That is something I do have a problem with.

Secondly I find the timing of the article quite curious since it was released just three weeks before General Petraeus’ report to Congress to a paper known to be strongly against the war in Iraq. Is this just coincidence? I think not because I have been reporting for some time that attacks on Petraeus would materialize in the media before his report to destroy his creditability and this is part of that campaign.

This is what I found most suspicious about the article, it is extremely well written. The person that wrote this is an experienced and talented writer. The first name on the article is Specialist Buddhika Jayamaha followed by the names of six NCOs. This ordering leads me to believe the SPC Jayamaha wrote the article and than had the NCOs sign off on it in order to give it more creditability than just a specialist writing the article. It is not every day you find an Army specialist with this kind of writing talent that just happens to end up in the New York Times. Thus I did a little research of SPC Jayamaha.

It turns out the SPC Jayamaha was a student at Marquette University. According to the MSNBC article he is friends with Barrett McCormick who just happens to be a professor in the Political Science Department of Marquette University. This leads me to believe SPC Jayamaha was probably a political science major or at least studied political science. Professor McCormick also just happens to be an outspoken critic against the war in Iraq. If you would like to read what he really thinks about the war then read this open letter he signed against the war with other university professors.

SPC Jayamaha also happens to be published in a book titled Civil Wars of the World which he focuses on insurgency in Sri Lanka. His educational background and prior writing experience explains why the New York Times article is so well written. Additionally this is what someone claiming to be Buddhika Jayamaha had to say on the BBC webpage in response to the military coup in Pakistan in 1999 when Pervez Musharraf came to power:

Everyone seems “gong ho” about restoring democracy. Yet they forget, democracy is not an end in itself that ought to be upheld at all costs. It is the conventional norm that a “democratic system of governance is the least evil”. Yet, if democratic systems are used by opportunistic politicians to come to power and enrich themselves disregarding their responsibilities as Bhutto & Shariff did, it’s definitely time they try other means to restore order, stability and revive the economy.
Buddhika Jayamaha, USA [BBC Talking Point]

I’m pretty sure this is the same Jayamaha because Professor McCormick has wrote an entire paper on the faults of democracies that echo the sentiment in the above Talking Point. By the way if you read the paper you will see McCormick has no love for President Bush, Rupert Murdoch, or Fox News among a host of other conservatives.

So basically you have an Army specialist that studied at Marquette University, where he probably studied political science, was a contributor to a book on civil wars, is not completely sold on democracy, and is friends with a liberal, Bush bashing, Fox News hating, anti-war professor. Then this person joins the Army for some reason and ends up being published in the New York Times with an article against the current counter-insurgency tactics and the effort to establish democracy in Iraq right before General Petraeus’ report. Could this all be a coincidence?

I think not, I smell a Beauchamp with a brain and real writing talent. SPC Jayamaha is actually more like another Jonathan Hutto or Linsay Burnett who are college students that joined the military to have the “moral authority” to write articles and speak out against the war in Iraq. This article explains why the NY Times published the Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack article that had a positive view of the surge because they have been sitting on this article that would discredit it before Petraeus’ report. This article is all part of the information war that is going to be fought over the coming weeks to discredit General Petraeus and it is getting uglier and uglier.

I recommend everyone read this Op-ed that will never be in the NY Times from seven soldiers that dispute what the NY Times seven says. Grim has another great response over at Blackfive along with Greyhawk at Milblogs who’s opinions will never grace the pages of the NY Times.