Saving the "Decent People"

Frederick W. Kagan in the Weekly Standard has another good reason to stay the course in Iraq:

On a recent trip to Iraq, I saw the human stakes in this
struggle. I spoke with the commander of the 8th Iraqi Army Division in
Diwaniyah, Major General Othman. He is a Shia, commanding a heavily Shia unit in
an entirely Shia area. I asked him what was the most serious challenge he faced.
He answered at once: Shia militias. General Othman stands strongly for an Iraq
ruled by law, in which the government holds a monopoly on the use of force, and
in which Sunni and Shia are treated equally. He has put his beliefs to the test
of battle. When he saw that members of Moktada al-Sadr's Shia militia, the Mahdi
Army, had taken control of the city of Diwaniyah, he conducted a large-scale
clearing operation with the help of American forces and drove them out. General
Othman now holds Diwaniyah, where the people can breathe free again, subject
neither to that militia nor to any other. There is no turning back for General
Othman. The Mahdi Army is determined to kill him and his family, and they will
do so if we do not continue to support him. The life of this decent man is in
our hands.

In Iskandariyah, I met Major General Qais, the commander of
the Babil Province police forces. I asked him the same question, What is your
greatest challenge. Without hesitation, he, too, said: Shia militias. The Iraqi
police are known to be infiltrated by Shia militia fighters, but General Qais
has molded a force that he uses against those very militias on a daily basis. He
has survived attempts on his life, and he and his family are under constant
threat. They, too, rely on America to help them fight the agents of Iran who
seek to defeat us. Across Iraq today, decent people are standing up and
identifying themselves. They are reaching out to us, working with us, and
fighting alongside us against our enemies, even against the powerful Shia
militias. If we abandon them now, they will be tortured and killed, along with
their families, by the militias. We will have exposed every decent person in the
country to destruction.

At a downtown Charleston laundromat, I met a Vietnamese gentleman, whose daughter was the owner, that spent years in a communist prison before coming to America to be with his family. I was really sorry he had to endure this, as well as the thousands like him who fought for freedom, but then was carelessly shoved aside by an indifferent US government. Lose in Iraq and we all suffer, the Iraqis, our troops, all of us.