Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a “town hall” meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It was quite the event here on Yongsan. The town hall was intended for soldiers and their families, but they let a few of us civilians attend too. I had a great seat and view, even had the opportunity to reach out and shake his hand after the event, but I demured to allow the folks in uniform that honor.

It was a pep talk for the troops for the most part, but a couple of points the SECDEF made resonated with me. First, our troops are doing an amazing job in Iraq. And job one right now is getting the Iraqi security forces trained up and ready to assume responsibilty for defending Iraq. He said there are now more than 200,000 in the field with more coming on each day. He also noted that it was primarily the Iraqi forces who successfully provided security for last weeks contitution voting.

He also made the point that Iraq is now a sovriegn nation and attacks there are not attacks on an occupying army, but are attacks against Iraq. And the Iraqi people are increasingly taking the lead on dealing with the insurgents head on. We will stay as long as the government of Iraq wants our assistance, but the utlimate responsibilty for secruing the peace depends on the courage and willingess of the Iraqis to confront those among them who prefer violence to democracy. Rumsfeld said that calls to tip lines identifying terrorist hideouts have gone off the charts recently, which is a good sign that we have turned an important corner in this effort.

I also thought his comments regarding the Korean war were noteworthy. He said when President Truman left office in 1952 his approval rating was around 25%. People were questioning why Americans were dying to defend democracy on the other side of the world. Today, Truman is rightfully considered a great leader and the ROK has the world’s tenth largest economy in terms of GNP. No one questions that our efforts here were worth it, even at the cost of 40,000 American lives. Rumsfeld believes (and I concur) that in 50 years no one will question that whether our involvement in bringing freedom to Iraq was worthwhile.

During the questions and answer session, a soldier asked why we were not doing a better job in countering the media portrayal of our efforts in Iraq. Rumsfeld acknowledged that our enemy is a master at manipulating the media. He said we cannot be defeated on the battlefield, so our enemies are working to undermine the will of the people to pursue the war. He recalled how Mark Twain had said “a lie travels the world three times before truth gets its boots on”. The answer to this problem is to rely on the collective wisdom of a free and democratic people to listen and watch and come to the right decision. He said throughout our history Americans have demonstrated this ability to discern the truth. He noted that this is the first war were we had things like the Internet and other forms of mass communication. And while the media has been manipulated, he is confident that people will ultimately recongize what is really happening.

I hope he is right about that. I know when I talk to people who only get their news of the world from MSM sources, they tend to be much more negative about our prospects in defeating the terrorists. I always encourage them to seek out other sources, like blogs from soldiers on the scene or blogs written by Iraqis. You get a completely different perspective on just how much better things really are, and how each day brings us closer to achieving our goals.

Anyway, it was a very uplifting afternoon and it was great to join the troops is some rousing “hooAhs”.