If you think you have an idea, how could you possibly know?
Our regular news media, the MSM if you will, had absolutely no clue what was going on in New Orleans. We had all sorts of stories of babies being raped, piles of bodies, even canabalism during the flooding. Every one of these stories was false though repeatedly reported as factual.
In Iraq, reporters never leave the green zone. It is a pretty safe bet that the quality of the coverage is therefore worse than during Katrina. Reporters don’t speak the language and don’t go out in the country. They are clueless and we take our information from them. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
Add that to the agenda, and you have total compromise. I just read two accounts of a press conference with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. The AP version of the report is filled with all is doomed. The Armed Forces Press report was specific, factual, and generally upbeat. If you compare the reports it is hard to imagine they were covering the same event, but they were.
I am not trying to spin Iraq one way or the other in this thread. I am just wondering. If you think you know what is going on, why are you so sure?
“As the bar continued to rise, the numbers dipped a bit, giving an impression that readiness was declining, the secretary explained.”
If going from 3 battle-ready battalions down to 1 (as acknowledged by the military, so I think it can be assumed to be “fact”) qualifies as dipping “a bit”, then that article is using a different language than am I.
Here’s some more doublespeak from the military article:
“In addition to political progress, including Sunni Arabs’ commitment to participate in the upcoming referendum and election…”
Well, the Sunni commitment to participate is accurate. Unfortunately, they are participating to reject the proposed Constitution, which is generally perceived to leading to Bad Things.
as an airman over here right now, with a TS/SCI, flying a lot, I can tell you that all is not always as it appears in the news. Anyway keep in mind that the military version is the same version they put into the our soliders news papers over here. So you can’t blame 'em for trying to brush it up.
So, I take it that you answer is no, you don’t have any idea what is going on in Iraq either.
To answer your question, yes, the idea of the Sunnis’ mobilizing to democratically attempt to defeat the Constitution is absolutely outstanding, not to mention ironic.
Please don’t spin into yet another Iraq is good/bad thread. The question is why do you have any confidence you have a reliable picture of the situation on the ground in Iraq when your same sources of information couldn’t tell you what was going on in the Superdome?
“If going from 3 battle-ready battalions down to 1 (as acknowledged by the military, so I think it can be assumed to be “fact”) qualifies as dipping “a bit”, then that article is using a different language than am I.”
Where did the Army say it was down to 1 battle ready battalion? A Battalion is usually between 500-1000 men or so. I don’t think you’ve got the rights numbers.
“Casey raised some eyebrows in Congress on Thursday when he disclosed that only one Iraqi army battalion was ready to go into combat without U.S. support. A few months ago three battalions were thought to have that capability. Casey said Friday he was not certain why the number fell from three to one but it might be linked to a shake-up in battalion leaders.”
Those two sources are very narrow … I have no idea what is really going on, but its obvious some parts of the country are a total mess. I mean if everything bad is occuring in just a half dozen communities in 3 provinces, then that’s a really high amount of violence (in those places) no matter how you spin it. Of course the majority of the country is OK, so we never hear about that (its doesn’t sell).
There’s plenty of reporting from foreign sources, but it might not conform to most American’s world view and is mostly anti-American (go figure) … I read interesting reports on an Arab world news website (meant for the Arab diaspora, judging by the stories and ads) but is it accurate? This report siad there are 250,000 insurgents, but what counts as an insurgent? I don’t have the website as I am not at my home computer … I mean I would bet Al Jazera has a lot of accurate and good info. but also bad info and of course it has a bias against the U.S. mission so will dredge up stories (some true) to support that bias.
Sifting through info. on any issue is exhausting and contradicting info. comes up all the time. On many anti-war sites, I’ve read that some of Saddam’s atrocities are dispelled and some in fact did not occur. Not to say he wasn’t awful, but some of what he did has been exaggerated.
I don’t think any of us really do…Am reading an excellent book right now titled “No True Glory” by Bing West…mainly about the Marines fighting in Ramadi and Fallujah. Will make both those who support the war the war and those don’t perhaps rethink some things.
He wrote quite a few pieces on Iraq at Slate at msn.com.
We can’t make the eight mile trip by road from the airport to the Green Zone safe for anybody. One would think after three years we could do something about this ( the inability to identify attackers and intimidation or cooperation of civilians by/with insurgents outside of the main outpost of civil administrators doesn’t create a lot of confidence in our hearts and minds campaign ). The other really telling indicator is we are spending a preponderous of the money meant to rebuild Iraq on security - mostly mercenaries and on the only jobs in Iraq for the average Iraqi under the US rebuilding model - police and infantryman.
These two facts are undisputed and widely acknowledged by any one who has gone to Iraq as a civilian and come back, or in the reports on where the rebuilding money in Iraq is spent.
“The other really telling indicator is we are spending a preponderous of the money meant to rebuild Iraq on security - mostly mercenaries and on the only jobs in Iraq for the average Iraqi under the US rebuilding model - police and infantryman.”
First off, there are other jobs for Iraqis than just law enforcement. However, it doesn’t do too m uch good to put people in other jobs if those jobs aren’t safe. Security is required for the rest of the rebuild to follow. There’s a good reason that so many Iraqis are being put to work on security first.
premise: It’s not safe enough for the average Iraqi to have a job unless they can carry a gun around as part of their job capacity.
implies:The primary jobs available for Iraqis is in the army or the police.
I conclude:
We are f*#%ed in Iraq.
The world’s most powerful army has most of its available ground forces committed and is unable to suppress a rebellion militarily after three years. This makes the claim that we expect the native army at an active strength of 1000 fighting men currently (per yesterday’s congressional testimony that I heard) to defeat this rebellion sound delusional.
“premise: It’s not safe enough for the average Iraqi to have a job unless they can carry a gun around as part of their job capacity”
Wrong again.
Premise: It’s not safe for Iraqis to work in water purification plants, energy producing facilities, schools, etc unless there is an effective law enforcement presence in place that can keep them safe while they do their work.
Implies: The first priority is creating a security so that Iraq can move on to the other vital projects that comprise rebuilding.
I conclude: We’ve still got a long way to go.
“The world’s most powerful army has most of its available ground forces committed and is unable to suppress a rebellion militarily after three years. This makes the claim that we expect the native army at an active strength of 1000 fighting men currently (per yesterday’s congressional testimony that I heard) to defeat this rebellion sound delusional.”
Only if you don’t understand the difference between a foreign Army and a domestic one with the support of the local populace.
I think most of the country is running in some manner and people are getting on with their lives: schools, hospitals, businesses all are going. Just as U.S. forces can’t police very much of the country, so too the insurgents can’t cause havok everywhere … However, the violence in a few select (and important) areas is terrible and there’s no end in sight. That’s my understanding anyway.
“I think most of the country is running in some manner and people are getting on with their lives: schools, hospitals, businesses all are going. Just as U.S. forces can’t police very much of the country, so too the insurgents can’t cause havok everywhere … However, the violence in a few select (and important) areas is terrible and there’s no end in sight. That’s my understanding anyway”
No real disagreement here. My point is simply that in those dangerous areas, it makes perfect sense for the majority of our effort to be focused towards security first, and other social services second. It won’t do us much good to train and fund school teachers in a bad area if they’re getting blown up once a week.
Two of the biggest stories that the Armed Forces news presented us were Jessica Lynch and Pat Tilman. But both stories had misleading information if not downright falsehoods. So I’m not so sure that the government is any better at presenting us with factual information.