The Country Pundit

A Flag Flies (Or Doesn't) in Kirkuk

Something's come up in Kirkuk, part of our psychological strategy in terms of convincing the Iraqis that we're not there to keep the place. It appears that the air base in Kirkuk has received orders that prohibit the regular display of the flag of the United States of America.

Venomous Kate linked your humble correspondent to a story in the Washington Times which details this. It's actually more of an entry in a column, but I'll call it a story for the time being. This excerpt, with a little work by me, comes from the Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough story:

A copy of the order states, "[A]ll outside U.S. flags need to come down per [Central Command Air Force] guidance." The order states that American flags can be displayed indoors and that "we are allowed to put the flag up for special days or events, but we can't have it up all the time implying that we are occupying Iraq."

I agree wholeheartedly with a policy that tries to measure how the Iraqis perceive our actions and suggests ways to minimize avoidable friction. It is important that the Iraqis believe that we are there to help and that we are not a hostile occupation force.¹ Consequently, I understood the orders issued when a brave young man took an American flag to the top of a Saddam statue. His sentiment was absolutely proper for the perspective of the American fighting man, and I nodded tightly with a grin on my face when he did it. It was also proper for the order to be given to remove the flag. We did not seek a total military victory over the government and people of Iraq. Our mission was to destroy the government, and we have done that.

Since we are not a conquering army, we must do things differently. We actively seek the peaceful cooperation of the Iraqi people, even if bums like Moqtada al Sadr aren't inclined to give it. Therefore, we must take into consideration their mindset, and images that inflame the responsible Iraqi (or give easy fodder to the Sadr types) should be minimized. I would call this sort of mindset 'resource denial' because it doesn't give the bad guys anything to work with.

That being said, I wholly disagree with the specific policy that bans the regular display of American flags at an American installation inside Iraq. The thing that would argue for reconsideration of that position would be objective showing of some concrete affiliation in the living Iraqi memory that links the display of a foreign nation's flag to some sort of outside dominance. I do not believe that this sort of thing can be shown, but I remain open to that possibility.

The best solution, in my opinion, is to fly our flag on our bases per standard guidelines (embodied in 4 U.S.C. § 7(g)) and fly alongside it the flag of the new Iraq. This may be in contravention of established military practice, and if so I'll have to figure out a new solution. My goals here are a) to keep our flag flying and b) to signal to the Iraqis that they are our partners in this new experiment of Arab statehood.

In closing, Kate asks people to display the American flag on their blogs to "show our soldiers the blogosphere's support". Inasmuch as I back our boys, here's the flag; I'll be trying to figure out how best to incorporate a smaller flag into the sidebar in the near future. Suggestions appreciated.

¹ It may very well be that we are, under law, some sort of occupation force, but I see a distinct difference between "We're here to help and leave" and "All your base are belong to us".

Posted by Country Pundit at April 8, 2004 01:37 PM