The media got it wrong in New Orleans, so...

[Yonivore]

...how can you expect that they're getting it right on the other side of the world?


Cindy Sheehan made big news at the antiwar rally in Washington last weekend. Cameras clicked as graying Vietnam-era biggies -- Joan Baez, Jesse Jackson -- relived their glory days. Seven busloads of Minnesotans joined them, drawn from groups such as the DFL Party and Women Against Military Madness.

Sheehan set the "outside the mainstream" tone. She has called the foreign terrorists in Iraq "freedom fighters." Now -- get this -- she is demanding that America pull our troops not only out of Iraq, but also out of "occupied New Orleans."

Back in Minnesota, Marine Col. Jeff Vold watched the protest unfold. Unlike the demonstrators, Vold knows Iraq firsthand. A Reservist from Maple Grove, he returned last March from seven months in Fallujah and Ramadi, the heart of the violent Sunni Triangle.

Vold's view is 180 degrees different from the protesters'. For years, he says, America took a passive approach to extremist threats. We learned the hard way that this emboldened terrorists and ultimately led to Sept. 11. Abandoning our mission in Iraq now, he says, would be both ill-advised and dangerous.

Vold knows the painful cost of aborting a mission midstream. He was in Somalia in early 1994 when America turned tail. "We abandoned the Somali people because we took 18 casualties in October 1993," he said. "It was a shameful act." That same year, he sat in frustration on a troop ship off Kenya as hundreds of thousands of people were hacked to death in Rwanda. After the first Gulf War, he says, we left the Shiites to a bloody fate. "In Iraq, we're going to stay the course against the terrorists and give the people a chance at freedom and a representative government."

Vold ticks off the extraordinary progress underway in Iraq. In Ramadi, he witnessed ordinary Iraqis braving mortar fire to vote in the January 2005 elections. In just two weeks, on Oct. 15, he adds, these courageous people will have another historic opportunity -- a chance to vote on Iraq's new constitution.

Across Iraq, Americans and Iraqis are working together to reclaim the country from Baathists and terrorists. They are building or refurbishing schools, hospitals, roads and sewer systems. "The battle with the terrorists left Fallujah in rubble," says Vold. "But every day, people thanked us. 'We might have to rebuild our house,' they said, 'but you gave us back our city.' "

Do the Washington protesters know about these great strides? Vold can't say. "When I got back from Iraq, I was disappointed -- astounded, really -- to read the news. The media was saying it's all a failure, while we saw successes around us every day."

Vold puts the continuing sporadic violence in perspective. Most of Iraq, he says, is quiet. "Baghdad is a vibrant city, the size of Chicago's metro area. A bomb goes off -- it's a bad thing, but it's like we're sitting in Eden Prairie and a bomb goes off in Andover. The police investigate, people go about their business. Rush hour is one big traffic jam."

Antiwar demonstrators sometimes claim that their prime motivation is concern for the safety of American troops. "Support the troops," the lawn signs say, "bring them home."

But it doesn't work that way, says Vold. "I try not to take it personally. The reason I'm a Marine is to ensure this is a free country. But I don't think the protesters know the effect they're having on the soldiers. You're always tired, cold or hot, homesick. The last thing you need is a sense that people back home say your mission is doomed, when you see good things happening all the time."

Vold adds that antiwar rhetoric sometimes implicitly portrays soldiers as dupes on a fool's errand. "We volunteered to go to Iraq. The guys over there, who know the situation best, are re-enlisting in great numbers. Most of the guys I served with think this is the best thing America has done in our careers."

How did the Sheehan protest play in Iraq? Yesterday, I asked Vold's friend, Lt. Col. James MacVarish, an adviser to Iraqi troops in Fallujah. He told me in an e-mail that the Iraqis he works with believe such protests and the press they generate "play directly to the strengths of our mutual enemy." Iraqis "are absolutely astounded," he adds, "that we 'allow' that to continue." A few days ago, he had to give his Iraqi colleagues an hourlong civics lesson on freedom of the press.

MacVarish says that the terrorists can't win militarily. So their strategy is to make the U.S. and Iraqi people "bleed a little every day." They hope that the resulting media attention will turn the tide of American opinion against the war, and make the political cost of sustaining it too high. "The more play the press gives Cindy Sheehan," MacVarish concludes, "the better the terrorists' chances are of ultimately succeeding here."

What would a terrorist victory mean? "If we leave before the new government is established and the Iraqi Army is ready," says Vold, "the people will be at the mercy of the bad guys" -- beheaders and torturers, who blow up children. MacVarish minces no words: "If the terrorists win over here, stand by. There will be no stopping them anywhere in the world."

[Jelly]

to be fair, the media just repeated the gossip and fabrications of New Orleaneans.

[MannyIsGod]

Thats a hell of a non sequitor.

Kind of like...

Bush's administration got WoMD wrong, so how can we expect them to get anything over here right?

[Yonivore]

to be fair, the media just repeated the gossip and fabrications of New Orleaneans.
That's not being fair, that's explaining the problem. The media, long ago, quit doing any investigative reporting. They repeat whatever they hear and the more sensational it is the more it is hammered through the media outlets.

Same problem exists in Iraq. Most of the major media file their stories from a hotel in the green zone having never ventured beyond the safety of their rooms. They depend on information being fed to them by "sources" they've developed but they never venture out to verify the information.

[RandomGuy]

Thats a hell of a non sequitor.

Kind of like...

Bush's administration got WoMD wrong, so how can we expect them to get anything over here right?

ooor like, the Bush administration couldn't plan an occupation on foreign soil, and how can we expect them to get it right when they ask to do so on our soil?

[Useruser666]

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/jet_fuel.jpg

Hey random guy? Did you know that sugar is a major ingredient in a type of rocket fuel? Also corn syrup can be used. So it makes the fuel taste like candy.

[Jelly]

Thats a hell of a non sequitor.

Kind of like...

Bush's administration got WoMD wrong, so how can we expect them to get anything over here right?

No comparison. The Katrina aftermath happened in real time, it unfolded in front of our eyes at breakneck speed. The WMD matter was an ongoing issue that unfolded over a couple of years. Plenty of time for investigative reporting - and plenty of opportunity, considering the media wasn't hindered by, oh I don't know, having to report from a flooded, disaster area which has descended into total chaos, where all hell is breaking loose by the minute, your communications are severely limited, you can't "confirm" anything due to the chaos, police don't have time to give you an interview, (but they do have a few minutes to repeat rumours as fact)- but they don't really know anything anyway since they can't communicate with each other, and you have thousands of evacuees fleeing the Superdome/Convention Center with horrifying stories, these "eyewitnesses" start telling of rape, murder, dead bodies everywhere etc. on live television. And lets not forget that even after the initial chaos subsides, you have the police chief, Eddie Compass, AND the mayor repeating the fabrications as fact. (btw, anyone catch Captain Eddie Compass on Oprah talking about babies being raped?)


No way you can compare this with the WMD story... or any other for that matter. And when it came to light that these stories couldn't be confirmed and were likely false, the media reported it. Shame on Oprah Winfrey though. She had time to do some fact checking.

[MannyIsGod]

No comparison. The Katrina aftermath happened in real time, it unfolded in front of our eyes at breakneck speed. The WMD matter was an ongoing issue that unfolded over a couple of years. Plenty of time for investigative reporting - and plenty of opportunity, considering the media wasn't hindered by, oh I don't know, having to report from a flooded, disaster area which has descended into total chaos, where all hell is breaking loose by the minute, your communications are severely limited, you can't "confirm" anything due to the chaos, police don't have time to give you an interview, (but they do have a few minutes to repeat rumours as fact)- but they don't really know anything anyway since they can't communicate with each other, and you have thousands of evacuees fleeing the Superdome/Convention Center with horrifying stories, these "eyewitnesses" start telling of rape, murder, dead bodies everywhere etc. on live television. And lets not forget that even after the initial chaos subsides, you have the police chief, Eddie Compass, AND the mayor repeating the fabrications as fact. (btw, anyone catch Captain Eddie Compass on Oprah talking about babies being raped?)


No way you can compare this with the WMD story... or any other for that matter. And when it came to light that these stories couldn't be confirmed and were likely false, the media reported it. Shame on Oprah Winfrey though. She had time to do some fact checking.
Jelly....

Look up nonsequitor and then reread my post.

[ChumpDumper]

Look up nonsequitorThat might present a problem....

[Jelly]

I know what non-sequitor means. But I thought you were responding to my post and as I look back, you were probably responding to the original. So I totally misunderstood you. My mistake.

[Yonivore]

That might present a problem....
:lmao

[Nbadan]

Hmmm...I wonder why, well if it's so safe in Iraq, why is the press so scared to venure out of the Green Zone? I've got an Idea, let's all pitch in and send Yoni to Iraq and that way he can give us first-hand reports of how 'non-dangerous' his captors really are.

I can imagine the headline of his first e-mail, "They're pussies, ARRRRGG!"

[MannyIsGod]

You miss one space....

Bastards!

[MannyIsGod]

Nevermind, I misspelled it to. Well fuck.

[Nbadan]

Who needs reporters telling you what it going wrong in Iraq when the military so willingly shoots itself in the foot?


WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of Iraqi battalions capable of combat without U.S. support has dropped from three to one, the top American commander in Iraq told Congress Thursday, prompting Republicans to question whether U.S. troops will be able to withdraw next year.

Gen. George Casey, softening his previous comments that a "fairly substantial" pull out could begin next spring and summer, told lawmakers that troops could begin coming home from Iraq next year depending on conditions during and after the upcoming elections there.

"The next 75 days are going to be critical for what happens," Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Bush administration says training Iraqi security forces to defend their own country is the key to bringing home U.S. troops. But Republicans pressed Casey on whether the United States was backsliding in its efforts to train Iraqis.

In June, the Pentagon told lawmakers that three Iraqi battalions were fully trained, equipped and capable of operating independently. On Thursday, Casey said only one battalion is ready.

"It doesn't feel like progress," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

AP (http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB60MB97EE.html)

Troop withdrawal from Iraq anytime soon is a myth.

[Vashner]

How did we go from Media pumping up bullshit in NO to Iraq?

That general said it depended on the security situation.. so he's not backtracking
like liberal media assholes say...

He's doing what he said. Also they always planned on big troop numbers to cover the election cycle..

Man you neolibs are sick bastards.... we try to help some people get liberty and like a sick fucking vulture jacking off hoping things go bad..

You disgust me.. scumbags..

[Nbadan]

When they are not being kidnapped by insurgents, reporters who dare to venture out in Iraq have to watch out for some of our own troops and mercinaries...


Wednesday September 28, 2005

Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public. The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.

The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".

Mr Schlesinger urged the senator to raise the concerns with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee this Thursday.

Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1580244,00.html)

[Useruser666]

Yeah the troops have to worry about not shooting civillians, not getting shot, shooting the bad guys, not shooting any religious or other important buildings, and then watch out for the journalists who are TRYING to run to where the danger is lurking. Great advice, don't become the story.

[SpursWoman]

That might present a problem....


:lol :lol

[boutons]

There's a lot of good and bad stuff going on there (like anywhere else), but security is the overriding requirement to have elections and re-build.

Here's Friedman talking about yet-another "turning point"

==============================

September 28, 2005
The Endgame in Iraq

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Umm Qasr, Iraq

Even a brief visit to this southern Iraq port leaves me convinced that we are entering the endgame here. The coming Iraqi votes, in October over the new constitution and in December over a new Parliament, are going to tell America whether it is worth staying here or not for much longer.

Despite all the shameful blunders of Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq, at the end of the day, was always going to be what the Iraqis decided to make of it. And those in the Iraqi majority - the Shiites and Kurds who make up roughly 80 percent of this country - have spoken. They want an Iraq that will be decentralized and will allow each of their communities to run its own affairs and culture - without fear of ever again being dominated and brutalized by an oil-backed Sunni minority regime in Baghdad.

Equally important, both the Kurds and the Shiites have made it clear that they have no interest in telling the Sunnis how to live, and will cut them a slice of Iraq's oil revenue and maintain Iraq's basic Arab identity.

So now we know what kind of majority the Kurds and Shiites want to be, the question is what kind of minority the Iraqi Sunnis want to be. Do they want to be the Palestinians and spend the next 100 years trying to mobilize the Arab-Muslim world to reverse history and restore their "right" to rule Iraq as a minority - a move that would destroy them and Iraq?

Or do they want to embrace the future? I know the Sunnis are terrified by Iran's influence in this southern region, but, as the Brits who run the Basra area, which includes Umm Qasr, will tell you, the Iraqi Arab Shiites here are obsessed with not being dominated by Iran. Despite growing cultural and commercial ties with Iran, they are Iraqis first. That attitude would only be enhanced if Iraqi Sunnis, rather than allowing or abetting the murders of Shiites, would instead embrace the new constitution and let the U.S. cut the Sunnis an even fairer slice of the pie.

"We have a lot of overlapping interests with the Sunnis of Iraq," a senior U.S. official in Baghdad said. Indeed, in the latter stages of the constitutional negotiations in Iraq, the talented U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, was basically acting as the Sunnis' lawyer in dealings with the Kurds and Shiites. The problem was that the Sunnis never knew when to say yes, "that's enough," and the U.S. got fed up with their demanding much more than their due.

Do the Iraqi Sunnis understand their own interests, and does the Sunni world have any moral center? Up to now the Sunni Arab world has stood mute while the Sunni Baathists and jihadists in Iraq have engaged in what can only be called "ethnic cleansing": murdering Shiite civilians in large numbers purely because they are Shiites in hopes of restoring a Sunni-dominated order in Iraq that is un-restorable. A fatwa has just been issued against a female Indian tennis player who is Muslim, condemning her for her short skirts, but no fatwa has been issued by Sunni clerics condemning Zarqawi's butchering of Iraqi Shiite children and teachers.

Some courageous Sunnis have begun to speak out. "One of the most bizarre phenomena of recent times has been the refusal of Arab governments to condemn terrorist acts in Iraq or to commiserate with the victims," Abdul Rahman al-Rashed wrote in the Saudi daily Asharq Al Awsat. He added, "Take the most recent atrocities in which more than 200 Iraqis lost their lives in two days of carnage: no Arab government raised its voice in condemnation, although most of them shrilly objected when the new Iraqi constitution failed to mention that the country was part of the Arab nation. The official Arab position vis-à-vis Iraq has always been spineless."

So, folks, we are faltering in Iraq today in part because of the Bush team's incompetence, but also because of the moral vacuum in the Sunni Arab world, where the worst are engaged in murderous ethnic cleansing - and trying to stifle any prospect of democracy here - and the rest are too afraid, too weak, too lost or too anti-Shiite to do anything about it.

Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind. We must not throw more good American lives after good American lives for people who hate others more than they love their own children.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[boutons]

So, these upcoming elections seem really to be turning points, and Sunnis are doing everything they can as spoilers.

===================================

The New York Times

September 30, 2005

Officials Fear Chaos if Iraqis Vote Down the Constitution

By JOEL BRINKLEY
and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - Senior American officials say they are confident that Iraq's draft constitution will be approved in the referendum to be held Oct. 15, even though Sunni Arabs in Iraq are mobilizing in large numbers to defeat it.

In testimony before Congress on Thursday, the senior American military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. of the Army, said the most recent analysis of intelligence from across the country supported the Bush administration's optimistic predictions that the referendum would pass.

But if the constitution is defeated, several officials said they feared that Iraq would descend into anarchy.

Approval "is critically important," a senior administration official said, "to maintain political momentum. That is the critical thing for holding this whole thing together."

Private organizations in Iraq, many working with government financing, say their own analyses, based on discussions with hundreds of Iraqis, polling data and other information, have also led many of them to believe that the constitution would be approved.

Their calculations are complicated, because by law the constitution will fail if it is rejected by two-thirds of the voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces, even if a majority of voters nationwide approve it.

In regions dominated by Sunni Arabs, opinion polls have shown sentiment running just about two to one against it. It is unclear, in those provinces, how get-out-the-vote campaigns by the opposing factions may tilt the balance, or how much the turnout on either side may be suppressed by the continuing violence.

But no matter how the vote goes, several officials said in interviews, the violence in Iraq is likely to increase significantly.

That prediction stands in contrast to the upbeat previous assessments from President Bush and others in his administration before other major turning points in Iraq, like the transition to Iraqi sovereignty in 2004 or the national elections early this year. The administration argued that insurgents would be demoralized by the success of democracy and that violence would decline.

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, asked General Casey in a pointed exchange during the hearing on Thursday, "If there's a strong majority of Sunnis, which is very possible, that vote against that constitution, could that not possibly lead to a worsening political situation rather than a better one?"

"I think that's entirely possible," the general replied. "I mean, as we've looked at this, we've looked for the constitution to be a national compact, and the perception now is that it's not, particularly among the Sunnis."

Officials say that if the constitution is defeated, insurgents will most likely believe that they have won a significant victory and be encouraged to fight on. Conversely, it is said, the insurgency will grow stronger if the voters approve the constitution, because that will anger Sunnis who opposed it and empower Sunni insurgents who can claim that their views were ignored.

"A vote for the constitution doesn't mean we're headed for peace and prosperity," Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the Central Command, said in an interview last week. "Iraq is going to be a pretty difficult security environment for a while."

A senior official said the Bush administration believed that the insurgency was likely to continue for years and would start to decline only "when Iraq's political and economic system begins to consolidate." The administration officials agreed to talk only if their names were not used, under administration policy for their departments.

Sunni Arabs, who held power when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, boycotted the election in January. But now, American officials and officers of private organizations working in Iraq say Sunnis are registering to vote in record numbers that exceed 80 percent in many areas.

"There's a massive, massive effort, in mosques and other places, to get them to register," the Iraq country director for the National Democratic Institute, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. He asked that his name not be used, because of security concerns. The institute is an organization financed by the United States government that works to promote democracy abroad.

Many Sunni Arabs are upset that the draft constitution grants Kurds and Shiite Arabs significant new authority to set up semi-independent areas but offers little specifically for them.

Still, the country director and others say they do not believe that the Sunni vote is likely to be monolithic. Many Sunni moderates, they say, are likely to vote in favor of the constitution and hope to influence how it is put into effect. The constitution seems likely to be approved by substantial majorities in the heavily Kurdish north and the predominantly Shiite south. In ethnically mixed Baghdad, the situation is more fluid.

Senior Pentagon and military officials who have been closely monitoring reports from Iraq predict that the referendum will fail by the two-thirds majority in the Sunni-dominated - and violence-plagued - Anbar Province in western Iraq. But intelligence reports indicate that only one other province at most will vote no by two-thirds.

"Nobody will be surprised to lose Anbar, and maybe one other province," one Pentagon official said. "We're not going to lose three."

American political and military officials say a large Sunni vote will be a sign that democracy is taking hold in Iraq. Still, the United States is working hard to be sure that the Sunni opponents will not prevail. Among many steps, State Department officials said, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, is meeting with Sunni Arab leaders almost every day, trying to persuade them to vote yes.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company