When there is an hours-long battle involving some 1,000 US and Iraqi troops, just 2 1/2 km from the Green Zone, it's hard to have much optimism.
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Mark
Ottawa
The WP is essentially a house newspaper of the Democratic Party. Had the President decided against a surge we would, no doubt, be reading about how he was refusing to send the additional troops needed in order to get the job done. (Witness Senate Majority Reid's recent flip-flop on the matter.) Remember, the Post was declaring the initial invasion to be a defeat shortly before American troops entered Baghdad.
Shinseki was hand-picked by Clinton and is hardly a neutral voice in the matter. He called for far more combat troops than the U.S. had available after the cutbacks from the earlier Bush and Clinton years. As Rumsfeld was criticized for pointing out, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had.
Getting back to Sen. Reid. Has there been a more tendentious and dishonest critic of the President? Consider what he said in 2002 -- "Iraq has engaged in far-reaching human rights abuses, been a state sponsor of terrorism, and has long sought to obtain and develop weapons of mass destruction." (Reid voted in favor of the invasion.)
versus his statements in 2005 -- "There are numerous examples of how the Administration misstated and manipulated the facts as it made the case for war."
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"20,000 additional soldiers sounds like too little, too late."
Of course, you do realize that the same top Generals (who are the current leaders in the field) who oppose this also opposed having more troops earlier, right? Whereas the top Generals who have been saying that the mistake was not having more troops earlier support this.
Fact is, there are two different camps of top Generals who feel differently about the number of troops necessary. (The one group feels that it would hurt more and would have hurt more by exacerbating tensions.) No matter what was done, it would be "against the advice of top Generals."
"President Bush is expected to announce plans to send 20,000 more troops to Baghdad - against the advice of top Generals, according to the Washington Post."
Typical. After being bombarded with old media and Democrat Party allegations that the Generals were desperate for more troops in Iraq, but Bush and Rumsfeld wouldn't listen, we're now being told that the Generals oppose an increase. Whatever Bush proposes becomes the new "wrong thing" to do in Iraq, even if it was the previous sensible course of action.
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"Biden also emphasized that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's claim of always giving the commanders what they need and want was false:
"I don’t know what they tell Rumsfeld, but flag officers, guys wearing stars, not one single time, including the last one, Memorial Day, and I’m going again in 12 days, have I not been told by flag officers that they did not have enough forces.
"Give you a specific example. They said last time I was there on Memorial Day, ‘We cannot mount a counterinsurgency. We go out and clear out Anbar province. We blow these guys away. We don’t have enough troops to leave behind. We leave. They come back across the border. Senator, we don’t have enough troops.’”
Now, of course, Biden says it would be a " tragic mistake " to send more troops.
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"Getting back to Sen. Reid. Has there been a more tendentious and dishonest critic of the President? Consider what he said in 2002 -- "Iraq has engaged in far-reaching human rights abuses, been a state sponsor of terrorism, and has long sought to obtain and develop weapons of mass destruction." (Reid voted in favor of the invasion.)"
More tendentious and dishonest than Kennedy? Kerry? Biden? Rockefeller? Graham? Gore? Levin?......
I'd say they're all equals in terms of tendentiousness and dishonesty, Bruce. Having most of the media running interference for you tends to promote this type of behaviour.
The American people need to wake up and realize that many elected Democrats see U.S. defeat and humiliation in Iraq as a good thing, and are working toward that end.
"Update: the Toronto Star helpfully illustrates its story with a photo of American-flag-draped coffins."
I'd expect that type of an accompaniment to a Tim Harper column. The Star's " Washington Correspondent" is a brutally partisan, Bush-hating hack. His columns belong on the opinion page, and I've always found it puzzling that conservative bloggers pay him virtually no attention.
I saved one of his more egregious pieces from December 16th, titled " Annan takes aim at U.S. rights record."
Here's the opening sentence:
"Kofi Annan took his leave as United Nations secretary general yesterday with pointed criticism of the Bush administration's unilateral view of the world and its abandonment of long-held American principles on human rights."
Notice the way Annan's criticism was depicted as a statement of fact?
Interestingly, this particular column was recently pulled from The Star's current archive, which lists the last approximately 40 of Harper's most recent columns. I suspect someone complained, and, not having any defense for Harper's antics, The Star quietly pulled the column to appease the complainant. Naturally, there was no acknowledgment in the corrections section of The Star's website. Wouldn't want to embarrass Tim, would they?
The Star is the most narrow minded of media in Canada.
Posted at 2007-01-10 08:10:40 [PermaLink]When it comes to Middle Eastern politics, this article is a must read. Donald Sensing linked to it today.
"15 rules for understanding the Middle East"
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Too little, too late?
I don't know when this narrative of defeat first took hold in the media but it is ridiculous.
Iraq is undergoing a painful transition from socialist dictatorship to capitalist democracy, at the same time that Islamic jihad is fomenting in the Arab world. It's going to be difficult and there is going to be bloodshed. But according to all the parameters that matter: Iraqi national opinion, economic growth, and security trends, it's silly to assert that the transition has failed.
The transition has problems, yes, but we're not even close to failure yet, unless of course a new US government decides to pursue failure as a policy, as the Democrats seem to want to.