What the heck is going on over there?!?

[Clashman]

Friedmann has not been in the country since the occupation started.

 

[Silent_One]

Friedmann has not been in the country since the occupation started.

God sometimes you don't know when to stop do you?

August 27, 2003
Starting From Scratch
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

As I was riding back from the U.N. office in Baghdad a few days ago, I came to an intersection where an Iraqi civilian in a brown robe was directing traffic. I don‘t know whether he was a good samaritan or simply out of his mind, but he had a big smile on his face and was waving cars here and there with the flourish of a symphony conductor. Some cars obeyed his directives, and others didn‘t (there are still virtually no working stoplights in Baghdad), but he was definitely better than nothing — and he was definitely having a good time.

This man came to mind as I thought about the debate over whether we have enough troops in Iraq. The truth is, we don‘t even have enough people to direct traffic. This troops issue, though, is more complicated than it seems — because it‘s not just about numbers. No, what we need in Iraq today is something more complex: we need the right mentality, the right Iraqi government and the right troops. Let me explain.

Let‘s start with mentality. We are not "rebuilding" Iraq. We are "building" a new Iraq — from scratch. Not only has Saddam Hussein‘s army, party and bureaucracy collapsed, but so, too, has the internal balance between Iraqi Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, which was held together by Saddam‘s iron fist. Also, the reporting on Iraq under Saddam rarely conveyed how poor and rundown Saddam had made it. Iraq today is the Arab Liberia. In short, Iraq is not a vase that we broke to remove the rancid water inside, and now we just need to glue it back together. We have to build a whole new vase. We have to dig the clay, mix it, shape it, harden it and paint it. (This is going to cost so much more than President Bush has told us.)

Which leads to the second point. Yes, we need more boots on the ground, but we also need the right mix: military police, experts in civilian affairs and officers who know how to innovate. Sure, there is still a guerrilla war to be won, but the main task today for U.S. soldiers in Iraq is political: helping towns get organized, opening schools and managing the simmering tensions between, and within, different ethnic groups. If Bulgarian or Polish troops can help do that, bring ‘em on. If not, stay home.

Just ask Col. Ralph Baker, commander of the Second Brigade, who oversees two Baghdad districts. He and his officers have been conducting informal elections for local councils and getting neighborhoods to nominate their own trusted police.

"First we taught them how to run a meeting," he told me in his Baghdad office. "We had to teach them how to have an agenda. So instead of having this sort of group dialogue with no form, which they were used to, you now see them in council meetings raising their hands to speak. They get five minutes per member. It‘s basic P.T.A. stuff. We‘ve taught them how to motion ideas and vote on them. . . . I have them prioritizing every school in their districts — which they want fixed first. I have to build credibility by making sure that every time they establish a priority, it gets done. That helps them establish credibility with their constituents. . . . There is a big education process going on here that is democratically founded. The faster we get Iraqis taking responsibility, the faster we get out of here."

And that leads to the third point: we need to get the 25-person Iraqi Governing Council to do three things — now. It must name a cabinet, so Iraqis are running every ministry; announce a 300,000-person jobs program, so people see some tangible benefits delivered by their own government; and offer to immediately rehire any Iraqi Army soldier who wants to serve in the new army, as long as he was not involved in Saddam‘s crimes. It was a huge — huge — mistake to disband the Iraqi Army and put all those unemployed soldiers on the streets, without enough U.S. troops to take their place.

Together, all of this would put much more of an Iraqi face on the government and security apparatus, and begin to reclaim the mantle of Iraqi nationalism for the new government, taking it away from Saddam loyalists — who are trying to make a comeback under the phony banner of liberating Iraq from foreign occupation.

Again, I have to repeat the dictum of Harvard‘s president, Larry Summers: "In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car." Most Iraqis still feel they are renting their own country — first from Saddam and now from us. They have to be given ownership. If the Bush team is ready to put in the time, energy and money to make that happen — great. But if not, it‘s going to have to make the necessary compromises to bring in the U.N. and the international community to help.

 

[Clashman]

My bad.

 

[Clashman]

By the way, just found this. Almost seems like a prank this guy is pulling, but if true, wow:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...fp/us_iraq_lebanon&cid=1514&ncid=1478

A week later, according to Hage, he and an associate were asked to come to Baghdad, when Hage says he met with Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s chief of intelligence, General Tahir Habbush, who is still of the US military's most wanted list.

"Based on my meeting with his man," said Hage, "I think an effort was there to avert war. They were prepared to meet with high-ranking US officials."

Hage said Habbush repeated public denials by the regime that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and offered to allow several thousand US agents or scientists to carry out inspections, according to ABC News.

Hage said Habbush also offered UN-supervised free elections, oil concessions to US companies and was prepared to turn over a top al-Qaeda terrorist, Abdul Rahman Yasin, who Habbush said had been in Iraqi custody since 1994.

Bizarre...

 

[Clashman]

By the way, I believe this was posted in another thread.

What do y'all think of this frontline special on the war?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/
You can watch the whole thing on line, and it actually gives you a visual on how things are going on the ground.

He seemed pretty centrist in this discussion, here, which is why I'm posting this in particular:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...;contentId=A23488-2003Sep30&notFound=true

 

[RussSchultz]

Just reading the Q&A session, he is not a centrist view. He asserts the the "they said imminent threat because that's what I thought they wanted to say", and even defends himself when confronted.

 

[Clashman]

Just reading the Q&A session, he is not a centrist view. He asserts the the "they said imminent threat because that's what I thought they wanted to say", and even defends himself when confronted.

Gimme a break, Russ. This is what he was accused of, as well as his response:

oston, Mass: Why did Martin Smith at least twice say while conducting an interview in the program that "Americans were sold this war as an imminent threat..." That is a bold face lie, an untruth from beginning to end. In President Bush's state of the union speech, he specifically countered that argument by in essence saying we cannot afford to wait until the threat from Iraq is imminent. For a program with Truth in it's title, that's a big slip up and I heard Mr. Smith say it at least twice.

Martin Smith: I'm glad you asked this question. I believe I may have used the term "imminent threat" more than twice. If you go back to the records you will see that while the president does not use the exact phrase, he talks about a "grave and gathering danger." He talks about Saddam's ability to launch chemical or biological weapons in 45 minutes.

No one that I spoke to in the administration who supported the war quibbled with the use of the term "imminent threat." It's simply not a quotation -- it's a summary of the president's assessment.

Seriously, Russ. Every effort was made to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was an imminent threat to the American Public. You're quibbling on semantics to avoid everything else that was said. When pro-war sources used the term 'imminent threat', I never heard you come out and rail against them for using terms the president never explicitly took. But if the picture in Iraq is painted as less than rosy, all of a sudden the term becomes some wide distortion of reality. He went a long way in that Q&A session to avoid condemnation of the administration, when it certainly would be justified given the some of the situations we find ourselves currently in.

 

[RussSchultz]

So what you're saying is you agree with him.

How does that make him centrist?

 

[Clashman]

Well, you certainly didn't seem to have a problem using that term and applying it to the president's policies:

And that is what "Bush haters" are trying to fight against--not the system, but a majority of the populace that essentially agrees with the policy and was willing to swallow the imminent threat pill to support the war. Afterwards, they're willing to forgive/forget that WMDs haven't been found because what happened in Iraq was the "right thing" (according to the general populace). Believe it or not, the general populace believes the US is a force for good in the world--regardless of the "outside" claims of unilateralism, exploitation, world domination, etc.

So why is that phrase no longer applicable to the administration?

How does that make him centrist?

Newsflash Russ: Bush apologists are no longer in the majority.

 

[RussSchultz]

I shouldn't have used that phrase either, because that's not what the policy is about. Its about removing threats before they become immiment and untenable.

 

[Clashman]

Are we seeing an escalation in tactics?

We've already had more hostile deaths this month than any month since the war "ended" and the occupation began, except for last month, which we'll probably eclipse by Monday or so. Now you could chalk this up to a really bad week for the coalition, as 22 of those deaths came in the 2 helicopter shoot downs. But I was looking over my data, and most of the deaths that occurred last month were in the second half of the month as well, with 21 of the 35 hostile deaths coming after October 15th. So it looks like things are getting worse, not better, at least in terms of fighting the resistance to the occupation, as Bush had claimed.

By the way, I grabbed all this information from http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx, which seems to be the most complete count of Iraq dead.

 

[RussSchultz]

That site does a valuable service by compiling the information into a semi-readable form.

However, their political commentary does their service a grave disservice. Its sickening to see people salivate over dead and wounded so they can score "points" for their ideology.

 

[Clashman]

That site does a valuable service by compiling the information into a semi-readable form.

However, their political commentary does their service a grave disservice. Its sickening to see people salivate over dead and wounded so they can score "points" for their ideology.

Could you show me where some of this "salivating" is going on? A cursory glance at the site hasn't revealed anything that I could discern.

 

[RussSchultz]

That site does a valuable service by compiling the information into a semi-readable form.

However, their political commentary does their service a grave disservice. Its sickening to see people salivate over dead and wounded so they can score "points" for their ideology.

Could you show me where some of this "salivating" is going on? A cursory glance at the site hasn't revealed anything that I could discern.

http://lunaville.com/mt/archives/000495.html
http://lunaville.com/mt/archives/000493.html (never mind that Rangel is the only idiot calling for re-instatement of the draft)
http://lunaville.com/mt/archives/000494.html

The bile that "Lynn" posts, is palpable and disgusting. Its obvious he's using the dead and wounded to promulgate his own agenda.

 

[Clashman]

Not like we don't hear Bush and co. doing the same with 9/11.

 

[RussSchultz]

Not like we don't hear Bush and co. doing the same with 9/11.

How else would you underscore that terrorism is a problem, and it affects the US directly, other than using terrorist attacks on the US as examples?

 

[Clashman]

Not like we don't hear Bush and co. doing the same with 9/11.

How else would you underscore that terrorism is a problem, and it affects the US directly, other than using terrorist attacks on the US as examples?

How else do you underscore that kids are dying every day in Iraq, and that it is fostering, not preventing or slowing, terrorist actions? That it is affecting the US directly? That it is not "militarily insignificant"?

BTW, the draft threat may not be real right now, but for the first time in decades they are recruiting for local draft boards. This probably won't end up leading to a draft, but it does show that the U.S. is keeping it's options open.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077906,00.html

And talking to my friends in the armed forces, it sure seems as if they're going to need to do something pretty soon, as recruitment is pretty difficult right now, and the number of kids planning on not reenlisting is quite high.

And Rangel is not the only one, although his logic is probably the most faulty. Somehow thinking that if we institute a draft then it won't be just poor minority kids staffing the ranks. There's a reason why so many of today's hawks never fought themselves, and it is because the draft is easy to get around if you have wealth or influence in the family. There was a bill circulating around after 9/11 calling for a draft. I don't think it ever got around to being voted upon, but Rangel, IIRC, was not one of the endorsers.

 

[RussSchultz]

How else do you underscore that kids are dying every day in Iraq

By showing deaths in Iraq(hint: that isn't the problem.)

and that it is fostering, not preventing or slowing, terrorist actions?

Showing deaths in Iraq does NOT show that. It shows that kids are dying in Iraq. Revelling in their deaths as proof that the current administration's policies are misguided is a complete non-sequitor and relies on nothing more than emotive response to prove the point.

Warriors die in any war. Because they die doesn't make it just or unjust, nor does it show that the warriors are dying needlessly.

BTW, the draft threat may not be real right now, but for the first time in decades they are recruiting for local draft boards.

You know WHY they're recruiting for the draft boards? Because the local volunteers that signed up in the 70's, when the law was instated, are retiring and/or dying from old age. This is NOT a new law, and it is not anything indictative of a newfound draft initiative

This probably won't end up leading to a draft, but it does show that the U.S. is keeping it's options open.

Like it should. How loud would the howls be,and the fingerpointing go, if there was a reason for the draft but the infrastructure had completely withered?

 

[Clashman]

Showing deaths in Iraq does NOT show that. It shows that kids are dying in Iraq. Revelling in their deaths as proof that the current administration's policies are misguided is a complete non-sequitor and relies on nothing more than emotive response to prove the point.

And so if you disagree with them, then it's revelling? If it was a regular war-lovin' guy keeping track of U.S. deaths, (or perhaps to make the comparison more direct, keeping track of Iraqi civillian deaths), you wouldn't have a problem with it? Christ Russ, you had to go onto a completely different website in order to find these "revellings". The site that lists the deaths, which I'm guessing over 95% of the people who visit that site go to, has none of that.

By the way, I know y'all will just brush this off too, cuz if Bush doesn't say it, then it's a biased lie, but it seems as though a couple people in the CIA agree with me:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031112/ts_nm/iraq_usa_insurgents_dc_1
Newspaper: CIA Report Offers Bleak View of Iraq

 

[RussSchultz]

A completely different website? You mean a completely different page of the same website, run by the same people.

And yes, as I said clearly before, the website they have serves a valuable service, but they do a discredit to themselves with the commentary.