‘Re-Liberators’

THIS small, rural village in Diyala Province north of Baghdad experienced a revolution a month ago. Hamada had been controlled by al-Qaeda and its band of teenage killers, who terrorized the place. Qaeda imams took over the mosques and people stopped going. The mayor of the nearby city of Muqdadiya lived here-until al-Qaeda blew up his house and he fled. The village became a ghost town. Then, for the first time in five years of war, U.S. troops showed up. They captured key Qaeda leaders, and the rest ran away. Local citizens formed a makeshift security force, and people returned to the streets. Suddenly it was a new day. Hassen Nssaif Jasim, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi army who leads the local security volunteers, hosts us, his American visitors, in his dirt front yard. He looks rugged in a brown knit cap, with a mustache and a day’s worth of stubble on his face. His handful of security volunteers stand by along the road, holding rifles, with a strap of reflective material thrown over their shoulders to denote their quasi-official status. “I told everyone this is a golden opportunity,” he says of his message to fellow villagers. “Don’t lose it.” Isolated towns like this one, with a population of 750 and a dirt road off a small canal as the main thoroughfare, are highly vulnerable to al-Qaeda. “It’s easy to intimidate them,” explains an American officer. “They get up in the morning and there are a bunch of heads in the soccer field.” At the village level, the War on Terror is less a grand ideological struggle than an elemental fight to replace men with guns who want to prey on the local population (al-Qaeda) with men

with guns who want to help it (us). No romanticism about human nature is required to see that most people will prefer the latter.

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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THIS small, rural village in Diyala Province north of Baghdad experienced a revolution a month ago. Hamada had been controlled by al-Qaeda and its band of teenage killers, who terrorized the place. Qaeda imams took over the mosques and people stopped going. The mayor of the nearby city of Muqdadiya lived here-until al-Qaeda blew up his house and he fled. The village became a ghost town. Then, for the first time in five years of war, U.S. troops showed up. They captured key Qaeda leaders, and the rest ran away. Local citizens formed a makeshift security force, and people returned to the streets. Suddenly it was a new day. Hassen Nssaif Jasim, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi army who leads the local security volunteers, hosts us, his American visitors, in his dirt front yard. He looks rugged in a brown knit cap, with a mustache and a day’s worth of stubble on his face. His handful of security volunteers stand by along the road, holding rifles, with a strap of reflective material thrown over their shoulders to denote their quasi-official status. “I told everyone this is a golden opportunity,” he says of his message to fellow villagers. “Don’t lose it.” Isolated towns like this one, with a population of 750 and a dirt road off a small canal as the main thoroughfare, are highly vulnerable to al-Qaeda. “It’s easy to intimidate them,” explains an American officer. “They get up in the morning and there are a bunch of heads in the soccer field.” At the village level, the War on Terror is less a grand ideological struggle than an elemental fight to replace men with guns who want to prey on the local population (al-Qaeda) with men

with guns who want to help it (us). No romanticism about human nature is required to see that most people will prefer the latter.