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By RUSTY DENNEN

In past wars, and as in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a key component is what Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis calls the "battle of the narratives."

It is, he told a crowd gathered last night at the University of Mary Washington's Jepson Center, about truth and owning the message.

Insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan attack America's values and misrepresent its intentions.

"We need to articulate what we are about. What is it we are defending?" Mattis, a four-star general commanding more than 1 million troops, asked several hundred gathered for the Military Affairs Council of the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Mattis is commander of the Norfolk-based U.S. Joint Forces Command.

"It's very good to stand up and say, `Here's what I stand for.' It's even better to tell other people, so there's no misunderstanding, 'Here's what I will absolutely not tolerate.'"

For example, "The idea that women don't have human rights will never pass muster with us. I don't care what the excuse is."

Mattis said those notions, "have nothing to do with free men and women who created the most pluralistic society on earth."

He went on, "If we are not willing to articulate this, then the enemy is going to articulate it, and they are going to put their own spin on it."

Key terrain in the information age, he said, "is how well we can take the moral high ground. We've got to be able to say what we stand for. We need you to be as aggressive as the Taliban in calling Western news media" to get the word out. "This enemy means business. If you think national security belongs to someone else, you're going to surrender the key forum in winning this war."

Mattis said the enemy now "is the same enemy older veterans fought in their day. The enemy is tyranny. We fought them in World War I when it was called militarism. It was called fascism in World War II, and communism in the Cold War. It's simply tyranny cloaked in false religious garb."

Mattis recalled seeing a group of girls going to school for the first time in five years in a village in Afghanistan, where the Taliban decreed that women could not attend school.

"These little girls were proudly walking down the street, and on the street" with Navy SEALs and Marines watching over them.

"These girls knew who were the good guys and who were the bad guys."

Drawing applause and laughter, he added, "That is something we're trying to help these media people understand right now."

Known for sometimes politically incorrect remarks, Mattis once told his Marines in Iraq, "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

Mattis said that despite the grim news coming out of Afghanistan, where American troops are dying almost daily, "There is real progress, though at times violence does blind us to what's going on there."

And he said, "The enemy knows they cannot win at the ballot box."

Mattis said coming to Fredericksburg on Veterans Day was arriving on "what to us will forever be hallowed ground. These streets have seen the tragedy of war. These very streets are where the full measure of soldiers have been paid for many of us. Places like this remind us that some things are worth fighting for."

Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com

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