Liberal Generals in Iraq

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
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BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 19 - American military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment on Wednesday of the war in Iraq, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come to Baghdad last weekend to consult with the new government.
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Mohammed Adnan/Associated Press

In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, wreckage marked a car-bomb attack on a police convoy Wednesday. Such attacks are more numerous this year.
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Forum: The Transition in Iraq

In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last “many years.”

Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to insurgents and allow American forces to begin stepping back from the fighting. General Abizaid, who speaks with President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly, was in Washington this week for a meeting of regional commanders.

In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year…

Why are these generals teaming up with the “liberal media”? Or is it possible, that things aren’t going well in Iraq? Because to read the National Review, one would believe everythings are getting better (I wonder why they’d do that? Oh yeah they shill all the time)

Note to conservatives: wait till things improve in Iraq till you claim that things have improved. Oh and I guess you can quit with liberals report bad news on Iraq. Uhhh…The news is still bad knuckleheads!

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knuckleheads?

Why can’t we just disagree and still be friends?
Shit.

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Isn’t it refreshing to see a liberal like lumpy pointing out difficulties in Iraq!!!

What a novel concept!!!

It’s almost as if they want us to lose so they can say, “See, I told you so!!!”

What a fantastic group of forward-thinking patriots!!!

JeffR

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Wait,

There was only one stat in there that was worse – the number of car bombs. Are you claiming that nothing in Iraq has improved based on increased car bombings?

Also, this is what your article says:

"In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last “many years.”

So the military spokespeople are pulling back from claims that there could be a “major drawdown,” but does that mean things are not improving? Overall the military just completed Operation Matador, which was a major success, and the insurgents have been reduced to car bombing and have been targeting Iraqi civilians and police precisely because they were so inneffective when confronted with our military.

And I don’t think that targeting Iraqi civilians will help the insurgents win any hearts and minds over there – especially with reports having come out that the vast majority of the suicide car bombers have been foreigners, either Saudis coming from that side or others coming over the Syrian border (which was why Operation Matador was targeted there).

I think you’re pulling an awful lot from a few paragraphs of AP copy. And you should try not to come off as quite so happy when you make claims that Iraq isn’t improving… I’m assuming you’re not actually happy, BTW.

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No question the terrorists have been setting off a lot more bombs and murdering more people these last two months.

If they can kep up the pace it will hurt our effort.

I do not take the right wing or left wing propaganda too seriously.

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[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Wait,

There was only one stat in there that was worse – the number of car bombs. Are you claiming that nothing in Iraq has improved based on increased car bombings?

Also, this is what your article says:

"In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last “many years.”

So the military spokespeople are pulling back from claims that there could be a “major drawdown,” but does that mean things are not improving? Overall the military just completed Operation Matador, which was a major success, and the insurgents have been reduced to car bombing and have been targeting Iraqi civilians and police precisely because they were so inneffective when confronted with our military.

And I don’t think that targeting Iraqi civilians will help the insurgents win any hearts and minds over there – especially with reports having come out that the vast majority of the suicide car bombers have been foreigners, either Saudis coming from that side or others coming over the Syrian border (which was why Operation Matador was targeted there).

I think you’re pulling an awful lot from a few paragraphs of AP copy. And you should try not to come off as quite so happy when you make claims that Iraq isn’t improving… I’m assuming you’re not actually happy, BTW.
[/quote]

I would say the report is a subtle contradiction to the conservative stance that “we’ve turned the corner”. You have 2 choices:
1.These things take time. I’m pretty sure most of us with common sense would agree with this.(this is the reality option)
2.Or the Neo-con shill option, randomly select intervals to spread “turning the corner” propoganda.

also “reduced to car bombs”. They’ve been carbombing us all along.(21 halfway through may in Bagdhad vs. 25 all last year is a pretty dramatic number) And notice the same officers who were thinking positively, are now giving “new” sobering assessments. Contradicting you are polls showing confidence is down, so insurgent attacks are having an effect, and obviously that drop in confidence could lead to loss of gov. credibility and a further downward spiral. It just seems to me when military men say this is going to take many years—and meanwhile in Bagdhad people are getting blown up— that we could wait a little while for the fake happy Iraq stories.

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Well, politically, economically and socially Iraq has turned the corner.

The fact that terrorits continue to kill Iraquis walking the streets and lined up at police stations looking for employment continues to suck, absolutely.

geopolitically, Iram recently announced they would begin patrolling their border for terroriss (they’re sunni as well, it’s strictly in their best intersts to do so).

100m, do you categorically deny that the media concentrates on the negative stories in Iraq?

Where are: stories concerning how the country now produces more electricity than when before Hussein was in power; how civilians are now free; how 3mm children are now immunized? how 9mm math and science textbook have been distributed; how there’s more potable water available now than before hussein? how 77k public works jobs have been created? how the banking and currency system has been created? How the marshland, which were dammed and became a dsrt under hussein are now being revitalized? How 78 district councils have been created? How international calling is now available, when it wasn’t under hussein?

Where’s the frontpage piece about the torture of civilians under Hussein?

The media know that to highlight stories critical of islamic militants is dangerous, so they attack the low hanging fruit; that being bush, the military, and western society in general. Newsweek got burned because in attacking the administration they love to hate, they also pissed off a bunch of minds straight from the 12th century.

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"No question the terrorists have been setting off a lot more bombs and murdering more people these last two months. "

Terrorists?? But you invaded their country? They aren’t all Saddams Cronies you know. No different than if Spain invaded the US, would you fight back then? Hell yeah and would you also be considered terrorists?

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[quote]ConorM wrote:
"No question the terrorists have been setting off a lot more bombs and murdering more people these last two months. "

Terrorists?? But you invaded their country? They aren’t all Saddams Cronies you know. No different than if Spain invaded the US, would you fight back then? Hell yeah and would you also be considered terrorists?[/quote]

A key difference is these terrorists (yes that is what they are) are targeting and killing fellow muslims, which in some cases means their own countrymen. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has said it is “justified” to kill fellow muslims to acheive the broader goal. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/18/iraq.main/index.html

To speak to your analogy, I think you would be hard pressed to find many Americans willing to kill fellow Americans to drive out Spain. How many Irishmen would the IRA be willing to sacrifice to achieve their goals?

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uhhh, if Spain invaded the US to remove a despotic dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, while having simultaneously destroyed the economy and society in general having ruled by fear and terror…and came in and restored order and peace and allowed the first democratic election in a generation, I’d probaly learn Spanish .

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“These mass murders – this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims – have not prompted a single protest march anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued by any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers… The Muslim world’s silence about the real desecration of Iraqis, coupled with its outrage over the alleged desecration of a Qu’ran, highlights what we are up against in trying to stabilize Iraq – as well as the only workable strategy going forward.” --Thomas Friedman

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Warning Satire Follows. Kind of to the point though:

Muslims Riot Over Spelling Of ‘Koran’ In U.S. Media – Satire By Scrappleface

As many as 25 people died and dozens more were injured during riots in Afghanistan today which erupted over what one Muslim cleric called “the U.S. media’s desecration-by-mispelling” of the name of Islam’s most holy book.

Indeed, American editors have failed to reach consensus on how to render the holy book’s name. Some spell it with a ‘K’ others with a ‘Q’ and – perhaps most offensive to Muslim sensibilities – some insert a meaningless apostrophe in the middle of the word.

“They’re mocking our religion and our God by using a wide variety of spellings for the holy book,” said the unnamed imam. “Journalists and editors are the stormtroopers of America’s war on Islam. They’re trying to humiliate and intimidate us with alternate and phonetic spellings, sowing seeds of doubt about the book Allah gave to the Prophet. We will fill the streets with the blood of the infidels and anyone else who gets in the way.”

The latest casualities followed the deaths of 17 people in weekend riots over an inaccurate story in Newsweek magazine about a report that U.S. military guards had flushed a Koran down a toilet at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The cleric, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, denied that the latest uprising on the Arab street was simply part of the ‘regularly-scheduled annual riot season’.

“Our previously-scheduled generic riots have been preempted by these special, issue-oriented violent mobs,” he said. “Americans have nobody to blame but themselves for inflaming the passions of these peaceful religious people.”

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050520/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Is this the corner we just turned, or did we pass it?

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050520/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Is this the corner we just turned, or did we pass it?
[/quote]

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/05/12/opinion/20050513_opchart.html

That is a corner we haven’t turned yet, but we will. The above link provides a month worth of corners we have passed. The big tests are going to be the 15th of August, October and December. Then we will see how far we have really come.

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It’s fun to be a pacifist…until someone gets hurt. Either fight them now, over there ,or you are going to have to deal with them here…in NYC.

Flames of hate
By Luke David, Evening Standard
20 May 2005

Muslim protesters today called for the bombing of New York in a demonstration outside the US embassy in London.

There were threats of “another 9/11” from militants angry at reports of the desecration of the Koran by US troops in Iraq.

Some among the crowd burned an effigy of Tony Blair on a crucifix and then set fire to a Union flag and a Stars and Stripes.

Led by a man on a megaphone, they chanted, “USA watch your back, Osama is coming back” and “Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush”. A small detail of police watched as they shouted: “Bomb, bomb New York” and “George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head.”

Demonstrators in Grosvenor Square, some with their faces covered with scarves, waved placards which included the message: “Desecrate today and see another 9/11 tomorrow.”

The protest was organised by groups including the Muslim Council for Britain and the Muslim Parliamentary Association of the UK. Their protest follows fury in the Islamic world over the claims in a Newsweek magazine that US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay had abused the Koran.

The magazine later withdrew the article and apologised but not before it triggered riots in Afghanistan in which 17 people died and 100 people were injured.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Martin Mubanga told the crowd he had seen a copy of the Koran “desecrated” during his time at Camp Delta.

He said: “This was one of the methods they used, throwing the Koran, my Koran, on the floor in my cell.”

One of the protesters called for the release of radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza. He shouted: “Your so-called democracy will fall under the sword of Allah. The day of judgment is coming.”

The demonstration coincided with protests across the world. On the West Bank 2,500 Palestinians streamed out of mosques shouting “Death to America”. In Calcutta, India, protesters burned, spat and urinated on the US flag. And in Somalia thousands chanted anti-US slogans.

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[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
knuckleheads?

Why can’t we just disagree and still be friends?
Shit.
[/quote]

Joe, you have to understand that’s just the way that open minded liberals deal with those who oppose their viewpoint.

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[quote]ZEB wrote:
Joe Weider wrote:
knuckleheads?

Why can’t we just disagree and still be friends?
Shit.

Joe, you have to understand that’s just the way that open minded liberals deal with those who oppose their viewpoint.
[/quote]
Knuckleheads would be people just making stuff up for propoganda puposes/or sheer stupidity—GOP spokespeople, Rush, Bush’s cabinet(PNAC’ers) etc.,
These are the people saying the war will cost (reconstruction) 1.5 billion dollars (try to believe that Natsios even said it!), or federal spending on environment equal to spending on defense, homeland security (Rush–what an idiot), or
RICE: I believe, if you look back, Tony, we have never said that we thought that he had nuclear weapons." (she knows about video tape right?)

except Cheney: …“And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

Of course you cheer for both sides of the lies, 1.5 billion or 100 billion, never said it or said it, doesn’t matter to you guys. I guess you guys aren’t knuckleheads for believing it, just gullible.

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[quote]JeffR wrote:
Isn’t it refreshing to see a liberal like lumpy pointing out difficulties in Iraq!!!

What a novel concept!!!

It’s almost as if they want us to lose so they can say, “See, I told you so!!!”

What a fantastic group of forward-thinking patriots!!!

JeffR[/quote]

I’m sure no liberal wants us to lose, Jeff. But a realistic assessment of what’s going on beats blind patriotism or lying any day.

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[quote]CDM wrote:
Professor X wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050520/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Is this the corner we just turned, or did we pass it?

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2005/05/12/opinion/20050513_opchart.html

That is a corner we haven’t turned yet, but we will. The above link provides a month worth of corners we have passed. The big tests are going to be the 15th of August, October and December. Then we will see how far we have really come. [/quote]

But that’s from the New York Times. I thought that, according to BostonBarrister, they are a biased news organization and, as such, their info can not be trusted.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
But that’s from the New York Times. I thought that, according to BostonBarrister, they are a biased news organization and, as such, their info can not be trusted. [/quote]

Find the place where BB said the NYT cannot be trusted. I think you are taking some pretty big liberties with paraphrasing.