# Posted 4:02 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

HEARTS AND MINDS -- NYT AT THE FRONT: Correspondent Eric Schmitt describes the remarkable ability of American soldiers to adapt to the challenges of nation-building. He writes that

When First Lt. Ryan Peay reported for duty here in mid-October, his assignment was to call in 105-millimeter artillery strikes on the opposing forces' positions. With major combat in Iraq long over, that job lasted about two days.

Instead, Lieutenant Peay, 24, was thrown into the breach as his battalion's civil affairs officer, responsible for hiring the unit's 20 Iraqi interpreters, employing hundreds of Iraqi guards and setting priorities for $1.5 million in requests from local leaders for new wells, schools, hospitals and Internet cafes.

"I had no clue," said Lieutenant Peay, whose background for his new task amounted to his international relations courses at the Virginia Military Institute and a summer study program in Fez, Morocco.

But in two months, his superiors say, Lieutenant Peay has shifted gears smoothly from trigger puller to aid giver, helping to dispense more than 50 projects worth $250,000, parrying the persistent entreaties of sheiks and mayors twice his age and sorting out scam artists from expert engineers. "A lot of it is really common sense," he said.

With civilian aid experts still in short supply or scared off by the security threats, the story of Lieutenant Peay and others like him is told hundreds, if not thousands, of times over as the American military continues to shoulder the biggest effort to help a nation restore its civilian society since the end of World War II.

How is it possible that American soliders with little training and no familiarity with the local culture are doing such a good job? Well, one possibility is that they aren't. Lt. Peay may just be an outstanding soldier who is hardly representative of his peers. After all, this wouldn't be the first time the NYT got a major story wrong by focusing on anecdotes that run against prevailing trends. (Remember how the invasion had become a quagmire after ten days?)

Of course, it is extremely rare for the NYT to report good news that isn't representative of broader trends, especially when it comes to Iraq. Moreover, I can't really think of any articles in the NYT or elsewhere that describe the failure of American soldiers to adapt. There have been stories about language barriers and the stress of counterinsurgency work, but no indications that the soldiers themselves are doing a bad job. If things haven't been going right, it's because the Pentagon didn't plan in advance and now refuses to put enough boots in the mud.

For some more evidence that confirms Eric Schmitt's reporting, turn to today's Op-Ed page, where a Marine lieutenant colonel describes the way his soldiers won over the hearts and minds of local residents in southern Iraq. Admittedly, the south is Shi'ite territory, where local residents have been overjoyed at the American decision to oust Saddam Hussein. But don't forget the warnings that blanketed the media in the first weeks after the invasion: Even the Shi'ites will do everything in their power to get rid of a foreign occupier on Iraqi soil. They may have been anti-Saddam, but they are hardly pro-American.

Even if the odds of success were never as long as the press made them out to be, I still think it's fair to praise the US armed forces for a job well done. Still, that doesn't answer the question of why soldiers trained to kill have proven so adept at reconstruction.

The answer I'm going to give is not a new one. As this author observed back in May,

One of the most important reasons that I have much greater faith in the Pentagon's ability to promote democracy in Iraq (as opposed to the State Department's), is that rank-and-file American soldiers have a long tradition of sharing democatic values with all those they encounter. Even our generals and admirals tend to adopt this same straightforward approach.

While American diplomats have often risked their lives and reputations for the sake of human rights, their measured, cosmopolitan approach is not best-suited to countries in need of a total transformation. From where is stand, the best hope for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan to just let our soldiers do what their grandfathers did in Germany and Japan: be themselves.

Now let me be clear. I'm not arguing that Iraq will someday become a democracy simply because we have American soldiers on the ground. But those soldiers are the foundation on which success can be built if there is enough resolve in the White House and on Capitol Hill.
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