"The Real War" & "November Surprise?" By Dan Froomkin WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/11/01/BL2006110101824.html?referrer=email

The Real War

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, November 1, 2006; 12:16 PM


Bush's plan calls for American troops to remain in the country as long as it takes for a democratic central government to take hold. But there's little sign that the government has been able to exercise any authority whatsoever outside the fortified Green Zone. The rest of Baghdad is in the throes of civil war. The Kurdish north is essentially independent, the south is ruled by Shiite militias and the Sunni center is in a state of anarchy.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's supposed unity government surprised everyone by showing it is capable of exercising authority -- but it wasn't the sort of act that bodes well for the future....Maliki showed he can serve his Shiite militia masters by stopping the U.S. military from bothering them..."Maliki's decision exposed the growing divergence between the U.S. and Iraqi administrations on some of the most critical issues facing the country, especially the burgeoning strength of Shiite militias. The militias are allied with the Shiite religious parties that form Maliki's coalition government, and they are accused by Sunni Arab Iraqis and by Americans of kidnapping and killing countless Sunnis in the soaring violence between Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni minority."

And do you remember how Bush used to describe his strategy in Iraq? (Other than " stay the course ," naturally.)

On June 28, 2005 , Bush proudly announced: "Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." He repeated it over and over again, at least 40 times , until the phrase was retired almost exactly a year later. His last unprompted use of the phrase was on June 26, 2006 : "And as you well know, our standards are, as Iraqis stand up, the coalition will be able to stand down." At his September 15 press conference , about 10 weeks after he had mentioned it last, Bush was asked if the strategy was still operative. He said it was. But he put it this way: "We all want the troops to come home as quickly as possible. But they'll be coming home when our commanders say the Iraqi government is capable of defending itself and sustaining itself and is governing itself."

As Thomas E. Ricks wrote in The Washington Post in October regarding "stand up, stand down": "By strict numbers, the Iraqi side of that equation is almost complete. Training programs have developed more than 300,000 members of the Iraqi army and national police, close to the desired number of homegrown forces. Yet as that number has grown, so, too, has violence in Iraq. . . .
With the insurgency undiminished and Iraqi forces seemingly unable to counter it, U.S. commanders say they expect to stay at the
And in today's Washington Post, Walter Pincus has a short story that speaks volumes about why the Iraqis' "standing up" hasn't allowed us to "stand down."

Pincus writes: "U.S. military advisers are confronting difficult behavior from Iraqi soldiers, who tend to fire all their ammunition in response to a single sniper shot or go on rampages even against civilians upon witnessing the death of a colleague, according to Lt. Col. Carl D. Grunow, a former adviser to an Iraqi army armored brigade. . . .
His article, based on his year in Iraq, which ended in June, is in the July-August Military Review and is one of several in recent issues that have dealt forthrightly with concerns of military participants with the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq's army during the ongoing war. . . .
Grunow also notes that some Iraqi soldiers do not show up for training that is difficult, and he says that up to 40 percent of some Iraqi units run away in the face of dangerous situations -- without punishment."


MUCH FURTHER DOWN THE COLUMN.....


November Surprise?

Yochi J. Dreazen blogs for the Wall Street Journal: "President Bush will hold no public events of any kind on Wednesday, an exceptionally light schedule this close to next Tuesday's midterm elections. That sparked questions about whether Bush has a 'November surprise' in store. This is, after all, a president who has twice managed to sneak away to Iraq.

"At the White House morning briefing, a reporter observed that the light schedule made it sound 'like something is cooking there.' Spokesman Tony Snow replied, 'No, not really.'

"That left some Democratic political operatives wondering just what Bush and his political guru, Karl Rove, might be up to."

[Kierkegaard]

1. What ever they are up to, you can bet it's cheap, tawdry and rife with lies.

Sleazy fuckers.

[teryang]

2. Stand up implies implies integrity and legitimacy-

...the Iraqi central government has neither. It's so called constitution was written by Americans not Iraqis. The "constitution" attempts to make Bremer's colonial edicts permanent. Those edicts which favor American corporate exploitation of Iraq, allow for the wholesale export of Iraqi capital and resources to American corporate accounts.

The only motivation an Iraqi would have to defend such a government imposed after an illegitimate foreign invasion and occupation would be desperation, venality and corruption. These are not likely to lead to the cornerstone of sound police and armed forces. Under the circumstances, any political party or faction in Iraq would have to be out of their minds to disarm or accept the American interpretation of what is good government.

This is the elephant in living room that no US leader in their discussion of what is wrong in Iraq bothers to discuss because it impugns the entire war effort as imperial and immoral.

Random acts of kindness by soldiers and contractors, a few schools here and a few hersey bars there, providing acts of life saving surgery and prosthetics to dismembered children isn't going to change this fundamental political truth.

[porkrind-jm]

3. Republicans are Pansies... Pass it on

In a moment of self-delusion before the election, I decided that I should do what I could to get out the word regarding the fearfulness of Republicans, and how the element of fear manifests itself in the shortchanging of freedom for a tiny bit of security.


http://www.digg.com/political_opinion/Republicans_are_Pansies_Pass_it_on
http://john-mark.blogspot.com/2006/11/republicans-are-pansies-pass-it-on.html


Republicans are fearful of terrorists and extremists and every major policy initiative since 9/11 is a manifestation of this fear. Digg the link above and send the message that you won't tolerate a government that can't stand on its own principles. We should come to grips with the inherent risk that comes with freedom. As many Republicans are fond of telling us - freedom isn't free.


PASS THIS ON TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU SEE FIT.


There are 2 links below - one for digg.com and one for the original post on my blog. Make use of them. Send them far and wide.

http://www.digg.com/political_opinion/Republicans_are_Pansies_Pass_it_on
http://john-mark.blogspot.com/2006/11/republicans-are-pansies-pass-it-on.html

Thanks,
John Mark

ps - can someone with more privs than me post this as a new thread?