Winning in Iraq: Travis Patriquin Style

With some risk of duplicating what you have already read elsewhere in the news, I considered this information worthy of replicating.

If you go to the Icasualties website to statistic number 3163, you will see Travis Patriquin on the grim spreadsheet of those killed in Iraq.

Captain Patriquin is getting some posthumous attention because of a simple 18 slide Powerpoint Presentation he made regarding how to win the war in Iraq, a concept I find increasingly difficult to understand or define. The presentation is gathering attention, and it should.

Directly from a David Kerley's ABC News post: Travis could tell you about the tribal factions, not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan as well. I’m not talking basic Shiite-Sunni differences, he knew about the tribes. He’d been in many a sheik’s home, shared meals and conversation. He could talk about history, politics, and archaeology. And he could about those subjects in several languages. He was a student of the world, of its cultures, who happened to wear a green uniform with U.S. Army Captain bars.

Read it yourself, but the presentation introduces tribal distinctions that seem to be missing from the mainstream media. I lack the expertise necessary to effectively criticize or praise the presentation, but it has a certain ring, and based on what is being said about the individual who produced it, I am inclined to believe it has merit.

The hindsight of history is likely to scrutinize the war in Iraq with sufficient energy to produce a thorough and accurate understanding. My prediction: The Bush Administration will ultimately be seen as a top down driven set of cement heads who lived in their own reality and acted in arrogance without regard for the advice or direction of the knowledgeable.