This is not my idea - it was stated very eloquently by Ahmad Ghoreishi at the CWA today.
I remember seeing this on CNN when it happened and just being amazed at it. An infantry company had headed in to the town that was the most religious Shite site and contained the Mosque where Al-Sistini lives. It would have been horrible for the U.S. and a democratic Iraq if the soldiers had fought there.
But what happened when the infantry met a very large and angry crowd was simply amazing. There were numerous Iraqis working on calming down the Iraqi crowd. And the Colonel in charge of the troops ordered his troops to kneel and point their rifles at the ground.
And it defused the issue. Not only did the soldiers show that they were not going to attack anyone, but their kneeling was taken as a sign of respect to the religious location and Immans residing there.
Al-Sistini clearly is the one irreplaceable individual if Iraq is to be a success. And he clearly understands how to win the peace better than anyone else involved. And all that could have so easily been lost if the Colonel of that company had not handled the situation as he did.
The Congressional Medal of Honor has historically been for extraordinary acts of bravery, such as for the one just awarded. But these new kinds of wars are many times going to require brains even more than brawn. And while kneeling with your rifle pointed at the dirt in front of an angry crowd is unquestionably a very brave thing to do, even more than that it was a brilliant thing to do.
Awarding the CMOH for extraordinary brilliant actions in cases like this sends a very clear message to all of the troops that the expectation is that they need to figure out the smart thing to do. And it rewards someone who showed amazing thought in an incredibly stressful situation.
