BS then - BS now

This will be enough to get the war hawks adrenalin flowing:
Shiites in S. Iraq Rebuke Tehran

BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 -- More than 300,000 Shiite Muslims from southern Iraq have signed a petition condemning Iran for fomenting violence in Iraq, according to a group of sheiks leading the campaign.

"The Iranians, in fact, have taken over all of south Iraq," said a senior tribal leader from the south who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life. "Their influence is everywhere."

The unusually organized Iraqi rebuke illustrates the divisions that Iran has provoked among Iraq's majority Shiites. The prime minister and major political blocs are closely tied to Iran, but the petition organizers said many citizens are fiercely opposed to Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs.

There are a few problems however and our friend Cernig at Newshoggers gives us the scoop. This is not the first time this has come to the surface. The first time was in June of 2006 and the second in June of 2007. In both cases it rapidly sunk back to the depths. Cernig has even more.

A common purpose, not a common enemy

Now I don't know if Thomas Friedman has suddenly become enlightened or if he just sees which way the wind is blowing, but he is for once on the right track and even admits that he not always was. In essence what he is saying in 9/11 Is Over is that thanks to the fear mongering of the Bush administration, the neocons and the Republican Party al-Qaeda was successful on 9/11 - they made us forget who we are.

Not long ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran a fake news story that began like this:

“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.”

Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true — how much, since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

While this was a direct hit at Rudy Giuliani the sad truth is it could apply to Hillary Clinton and nearly everyone else seeking the presidential nomination. The two possible exceptions are Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.

Of course Tom Friedman's 9/12 is not my 9/12 - his concern is largely about the impact on his absurd "flat earth". But his basic observations are correct, we have lost sight of who and what America represents.

Update
As one would expect the wingers are outraged and even more outraged.

Many on the left are not as willing to forgive as Libby and I.

The Political Hack With Ribbons Hour

Well of course this should come as no surprise from the Bush/Cheney cabal's own Pravda but here it is:


Fox News To Air One-Hour Petraeus Special On Saturday Night

At 9 pm ET on Saturday, Fox News will air a one hour special about the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, who recently argued in Congressional testimony that President Bush’s “surge” in Iraq is working. The program, titled “American Commander: Gen. David Petraeus” and hosted by Jon Scott, will look at Petraeus’ “life and times”:

Today’s conflicts require that a modern American General be a student of history. In this one hour FOX News special, join veteran correspondent and anchor Jon Scott as we take an in-depth look at the life and times of General David Petraeus from his childhood in Cornwall, New York to his historic mission in Iraq.

Well good luck with this one. Pravda in the old Soviet Union was considered to be short of the truth by it's readers. Judging from the post Petraeus dog and pony show polls the FOX show would meet with the same reaction - that is if anyone but the Bush cultists watched. But of course they won't.

The murder of Patrick Daniel Tillman

Pat Tillman was supposed to be the gem - the poster boy of the great Pentagon PR spin machine. John J. Smalanskas explains:

Pat Tillman was a perfect recruiting story for the U.S. military machine. A highly paid professional athlete forgoes millions of dollars to supposedly "fight for our freedom." My first reaction was hard to describe, but it was a combination of sadness and disgust. Sadness because deep inside I knew our post-9/11 country was being hijacked, and disgust because I wrongly believed Pat to be just another shallow flag waver for our dying empire. I’m not afraid to admit that I was wrong as I could be. (Others were also dead wrong about him. The cartoonist Ted Rall did a very inflammatory editorial cartoon about Pat that portrayed him as an "idiot" who joined the Army "to kill Arabs.") My subsequent reading and research about Pat and his death told me a much different story than my initial impressions about him. It also reminded me about not being hasty to reach conclusions.

Pat and his brother were deployed to the Middle East as part of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Pat was later deployed to Afghanistan and was killed on April 22, 2004 near Sperah. He was only 27 years old. It is now well known that the Army blatantly lied about the circumstances of Pat’s death and desperately tried to obscure them from the public and Pat’s family, obviously concerned about losing its star recruiting tool.

But there was more to it than that. With the 2004 election only a few months away the dream poster boy was about to become the Pentagon and the administration's worst nightmare.

Pat Tillman went from the military machine’s perfect poster boy to its perfect nightmare. As it turns out, Pat was extremely intelligent and very well-read. He held views that were critical of the Iraq war, (calling it illegal) and he did not support the re-election of George W. Bush. It has also been reported that Pat intended to meet with noted anti-war activist and writer Noam Chomsky when he returned from Afghanistan. Pat also kept a detailed diary, the whereabouts of which remain unknown. We can only wonder about the interesting stories that diary would tell, should it still exist. With any luck, it has not been destroyed, but waits patiently somewhere.

So the motive to get Pat out of the way was there. Now was Pat simply fragged by some gung ho Special Forces soldiers who didn't approve of his politics? Or was there more? We may never know but is does say something about the direction our country has gone.

When I came to understand more facts about Pat’s death, I could only think that the end of our empire is closer than I would have believed. Our former great Constitutional Republic is terminally ill and Pat Tillman’s death is but one symptom of its impending death. Our country was once a beacon of freedom that shone brightly to the world. Pat Tillman was an intelligent, strong, vibrant young man. Now, our Constitution is gasping its last breaths as its life is stomped out by crazed authoritarians and tyrants and Pat Tillman is gone forever – his death shrouded in outright lies, deception, mystery, and investigations. Pat willingly gave his life to the military machine, which gladly took it, exploited it, destroyed it, and then despicably obscured the circumstances of his death.

It is good for us and for Pat’s family that truth is persistent. Truth is like grass. It can be burned, stomped out, covered up, or mowed down to nothing, but fresh green spouts will still tirelessly emerge into the sunlight. Truth especially hates to be covered in lies and deceit. Our military machine, with its cold, calculated agenda desperately wants the truth about Pat Tillman to remain underground and obscured from our view. I mourn the imminent death of our once great Republic, hijacked by hateful warmongers, liars, tyrants, and criminals. I miss Patrick Daniel Tillman. I wish he was still wearing #40 and playing in football games. I think the world and especially Pat’s family will eventually find the truth about his death. Truth after all, is very persistent.

Everything Rosy In Anbar?

Matt Yglesias ask a really good question; why is this on the opinion page and not on the front page?
What They’re Saying in Anbar Province

IN his address to the nation on Thursday, President Bush singled out progress in Anbar Province as the model for United States success in Iraq. The president’s claims echoed those made earlier in the week by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, in his Congressional testimony. And they raised a question worth examining: Do United States military alliances with Sunni tribal leaders truly reflect a turning of hearts and minds away from Anbar’s bitter anti-Americanism?

The data from our latest Iraq poll suggest not.

So what are they saying in Anbar?

In a survey conducted Aug. 17-24 for ABC News, the BBC and NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, among a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqis, 72 percent in Anbar expressed no confidence whatsoever in United States forces. Seventy-six percent said the United States should withdraw now — up from 49 percent when we polled there in March, and far above the national average.

Withdrawal timetable aside, every Anbar respondent in our survey opposed the presence of American forces in Iraq — 69 percent “strongly” so. Every Anbar respondent called attacks on coalition forces “acceptable,” far more than anywhere else in the country. All called the United States-led invasion wrong, including 68 percent who called it “absolutely wrong.” No wonder: Anbar, in western Iraq, is almost entirely populated by Sunni Arabs, long protected by Saddam Hussein and dispossessed by his overthrow.

Anti-Americanism is on the rise in an area Petraeus and the Bush administration are claiming is a success story. You have to wonder what it's like in areas they admit are still a problem.

This was good solid reporting not an opinion piece. When the Times buries real journalism on the opinion page they are still part of the administration spin machine.

Ohman on Petraeus

Comics Page

MoveOn Ad

I think the MoveOn ad was a mistake. Well actually I think the final paragraph was a mistake.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

Up to that point it was pretty accurate.

General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”
Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated
Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

The problem with the final paragraph is it sounds like the sort of character assassination we have seen from the wingnuts for four years. It's ironic that they are outraged. This headline from Powerline:
MOVEON.ORG HITS BOTTOM
This of course from a site that should know where the bottom is - they found it years ago building a reputation by calling everyone who didn't agree with Der Leeder a traitor.

That said the final paragraph was still a mistake giving the wingnuts all sorts of ammunition for their big guns.

As for the Petraeus presentation - just what we expected - stay the course for another Friedman Unit.

Update
As usual Digby gets in right:

All this hand-wringing sanctimony about Petraeus today as if he's some sort of godlike figure who is beyond criticism is ridiculous. He's selling his war and that's his right. But when he spins and obfuscates and lies like a politician, he should expect to be treated like one.

Quote of the day

The quote of the day comes from Steve Soto:

Yet a week before the Petraeus report is revealed for what it truly is, a political document presented by a political hack masquerading as a general, the Post reports in the same edition today that experts have discredited Petraeus’ claims that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq. And where did the Post editors put that story? They buried it back on Page A16.

It's not just the liberal blogosphere anymore

As the nation prepares itself for the "progress" report from General Pretaeus in a week there are signs that the MSM may not just roll over and play dead. This weekend on CNN’s Late Edition Wolf Blitzer called Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) on his claim that sectarian deaths were down - which of course they are not.

The Washington Post has a story on the Dora market in Baghdad, and island of relative tranquility created for Pentagon dog and pony shows.
Weighing the 'Surge'

BAGHDAD -- Nearly every week, American generals and politicians visit Combat Outpost Gator, nestled behind a towering blast wall in the Dora market. They arrive in convoys of armored Humvees, sometimes accompanied by helicopter gunships, to see what U.S. commanders display as proof of the effectiveness of a seven-month-long security offensive, fueled by 30,000 U.S. reinforcements. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military leader in Iraq, frequently cites the market as a sign of progress.

[.....]

Even U.S. soldiers assigned to protect Petraeus's showcase remain skeptical. "Personally, I think it's a false representation," Campbell said, referring to the portrayal of the Dora market as an emblem of the surge's success. "But what can I say? I'm just doing my job and don't ask questions."

[.....]

Hours before Campbell spoke, a delegation led by an American general, with several reporters in tow, filed through Combat Outpost Gator. Scores of Iraqis were milling inside the fortified market, where shopkeepers were selling clothing, shoes, and other consumer goods. In December, the market was a war zone, but roadside bombings and other attacks there have dropped significantly.

After the delegation left, Maj. Ron Minty, 36, said that the generals had wanted 300 shops open for business by July 1. By the day of the delegation's visit, 303 had opened.

"It took us until August 1st -- not bad," said Minty, the acting commander of the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment. The goal by Sept. 1 was 500, he said. (By Monday, 349 stores were open. Before the U.S.-led invasion, the market had more than 850 shops.)

Still, the Dora market is a Potemkin village of sorts. The U.S. military hands out $2,500 grants to shop owners to open or improve their businesses. The military has fixed windows and doors and even helped rebuild shops that had burned down, soldiers and others said.

"We helped them a lot. We gave them money, security, even the locks on their doors," said a 36-year-old Iraqi interpreter at the outpost whom U.S. soldiers call Jimmy for security reasons. He asked that his real name not be used. "Everything we gave them. That's why the violence has stopped. That's why they cooperate with us."

Some shopkeepers said they would not do business in the market without U.S. support. "The Americans are giving money, so they're opening up stores," said Falah Hassan Fadhil, 27, who sells cosmetics.

Everyone knows that as soon as the Americans leave and their support ends so will the illusory tranquility.

And we have this from the LA Times:
Troop buildup fails to reconcile Iraq

Baghdad's neighborhoods continue to split along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and infighting stalls political progress.

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the capital's neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq's government remains mired in political infighting.

In the coming days, U.S. military and government leaders will offer Congress their assessment of the 6-month-old plan's results. But a review of statistics on death and displacement, political developments and the impressions of Iraqis who are living under the heightened military presence reaches a dispiriting conclusion.

Despite the plan, which has brought an additional 28,500 U.S. troops to Iraq since February, none of the major legislation that Washington had expected the Iraqi parliament to pass into law has been approved.

The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has increased, not decreased, according to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration and Iraq's Ministry for Displacement and Migration.

Military officials say sectarian killings in Baghdad are down more than 51% and attacks on civilians and security forces across Iraq have decreased. But this has not translated into a substantial drop in civilian deaths as insurgents take their lethal trade to more remote regions. Last month, as many as 400 people were killed in a bombing in a village near the Syrian border, the worst bombing since the war began in March 2003. In July, 150 people were reported killed in a village about 100 miles north of Baghdad.

And in a sign that tamping down Sunni-Shiite violence is no guarantee of stability, a feud between rival Shiite Muslim militias has killed scores of Iraqis in recent months. Last week, at least 52 people died in militia clashes in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

At best, analysts, military officers and ordinary Iraqis portray the country as in a holding pattern, dependent on U.S. troops to keep the lid on violence.

"The military offensive has temporarily suppressed, or in many cases dislocated, armed groups," said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. "Once the military surge peters out, which it will if there is no progress on the political front, these groups will pop right back up and start going at each other's, and civilians', throats again."

It's a hopeful sign that the MSM is seeing through the smoke and mirrors and recognizing a dog and pony show when the see it. Will the Democratic and yes Republican lawmakers be able to do the same?

Dog and Pony Show

Think Progress reports that Katie Couric reported that things look better in Iraq but admits that all she saw was a dog and pony show.

She said that Petraeus believes there “really is a trend” of success on the security situation in Iraq and believes President Bush’s escalation “needs to continue.” She also recounted “signs of life that seem to be normal” at a market she visited, but then conceded that the positive aspects of her report are based on “what the U.S. military wants” her to see:

Well, I was surprised, you know, after I went to eastern Baghdad, I was taken to the Allawi market, which is near Haifa, which was the scene of that very bloody gun battle back in January. And, you know, this market seems to be thriving. And there were a lot of people out and about. A lot of family-owned businesses and vegetable stalls.

And so, you do see signs of life that seem to be normal. Of course, that’s what the U.S. military wants me to see, so you have to keep that in mind as well. But I think there are definitely areas where the situation is improving.

Of course poor Katie is not alone and at least she recognizes that she doesn't see anything they don't want her to see. The dog and pony show is a long running event and a major part of the spin machine.
What They Did on Summer Vacation

Even by the shabby standard of the Congressional junket — fact-finding missions that are really hunts for self-aggrandizing sound bites and video clips — this summer’s swarm to Iraq does not look good.

More than two dozen lawmakers went there during their vacations, ostensibly to see the war firsthand. What they mostly got were a couple of days’ worth of meetings with people the administration wanted them to meet, and armored car rides through the Green Zone.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who is a member of the Air Force Reserve, upped the ante with a two-week turn in fatigues, a pistol photogenically belted to his hip. That earned him a press clipping calling Mr. Graham, a former military prosecutor, the only member of Congress to “serve in Iraq.” He did not, of course, participate in actual missions.

[.....]

And a report in The Washington Post reminded us how political the whole thing is. The article recounted a tour by three House members. Before each meeting, American and Iraqi officials and uniformed soldiers were given thumbnail biographies of their visitors that helpfully included votes they had cast in Congress on the war and, at least for the Democrats, tendentious quotes about the war effort and President Bush.

There were also notations about the lawmakers’ religion and military records. That last bit of irrelevant information seemed intended to plant a seed in the minds of soldiers whose lives are on the line. It sure planted one in our minds. Do these trips have the slightest value?

Anyone, politician and notable talking heads who go to Iraq and say they saw improvement are delusional, liars or both. All they see is the prestaged spin of power point presentations in the Green Zone and brief trips to an area that is temporarily quiet - probably because of a sudden and temporary show of force.

Let the spin begin

The New York Times knows that the Petraeus report will be phony numbers and spin. Well the pre-spin is well under way. First we have The Pentagon's Department of Corrective Thought and now the PhD General is at it himself.
Surge working: top US general

THE US troop surge in Iraq has thrown al-Qa'ida off balance and produced a dramatic reduction in sectarian killings and a drop in roadside bombings.

Fortunately we don't have to rely on the General or the administration for the truth. Even the AP is shooting holes in the spin.
Iraq body count running at double pace

BAGHDAD - This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month's Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.

Violence is down in Baghdad but As the AP reported earlier any security improvements in Baghdad may be more the result of increased control by Shiite militia than an increase in US presence. There is also the fact that most of the Sunnis have already been killed or driven out of Baghdad - the ethnic cleansing is complete.

And of course there is the great job Kevin Drum has done:
THE ANBAR AWAKENING

...but it's this passage that makes me want to bang my head against the wall:

The fact is that the surge is President Bush's policy, and one that he implemented over the vociferous opposition of Democrats who thought the best strategy against al Qaeda in Iraq was to begin to leave. Now the surge has helped turn Sunni tribes against al Qaeda, advancing the goal that nearly everyone in the U.S. notionally shares of routing the terror group from Iraq.

Say it slowly: This. Is. A. Lie. The Sunni tribes began turning against AQI nearly a year ago. They did it on their own, not as part of any American military plan. They did it before the surge started. They did it before Gen. Petraeus was even a gleam in George Bush's eye.

Kevin also compared June/July, 06 with June/July, 07 and according to most of the metrics 07 was worse than 06.

All we will get from the Bush administration and their pet general is more spin and lies - it's starting already. As The Who said many years ago:

Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

And About That Successful Surge

Iraq body count running at double pace

BAGHDAD - This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month's Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.

Kevin Drum did a great job yesterday of debunking "the surge is a success" meme, here and here. Violence is down in Baghdad but As the AP reported earlier any security improvements in Baghdad may be more the result of increased control by Shiite militia than an increase in US presence. There is also the fact that most of the Sunnis have already been killed or driven out of Baghdad - the ethnic cleansing is complete.

Now the Pentagon is about to start flooding us with spin but if you look at all the numbers and the total lack of progress on the political front you can only conclude that the surge has failed.

The Pentagon's Department of Corrective Thought

Pentagon to start 24-hour Iraq info desk
Office to distribute data ahead of military progress report due in Sept.

WASHINGTON - Shaping the Bush administration’s message on the Iraq war has taken on new fervor, just as anticipation is building for the September progress report from top military advisers.

For the Pentagon, getting out Iraq information will now include a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week Iraq Communications Desk that will pump out data from Baghdad — serving as what could be considered a campaign war room.

According to a memo circulated Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press, Dorrance Smith, assistant defense secretary for public affairs, is looking for personnel for what he called the high-priority effort to distribute Defense Department information on Iraq.

Now we all no what this will be - all good news all of the time.

Official: Not a 'war room'
The Pentagon dismissed suggestions that the communications desk will be a message machine or propaganda tool, and instead said it is being set up to gather and distribute information from eight time zones away in a more efficient and timely manner.

Right! and FOX news is "fair and balanced". Now there may be some good news from Iraq but it is overwhelmed by the bad news - like:

• Iraq is not going to have a functional government in the lifetime of anyone over 50.
• The Sunnis in Anbar who are now cooperating with the US to eliminate AQI will turn on the US troops as soon as the AQ threat is diminished.
• The largely Shi'ite US trained Iraqi military will turn on the US troops as soon as Bush/Cheney do the unthinkable and attack Iran.
• The US military is demoralized and broken after over four years in the meat grinder that is Iraq.

When the dominoes fell the other way

I discussed Bush's rewrite of history below but Michael Hirsh has a must read article in Newsweek,
Why America's Pullout From Vietnam Worked
The truth behind Bush's mangling of Cold War history.
I'll give you the first paragraph but be sure and go read the entire article.

The Soviet Union was in its final days of existence when I visited Vietnam in late December of 1991. The cold war was about to end forever with the collapse of one of the two adversaries that had kept it going for 40-odd years. A lot had changed in Vietnam, too, I discovered during my trip. The coziness between Moscow and Hanoi, once comrades within the Soviet bloc, had curdled into mutual hatred. Throughout the country, but especially in the North, the Vietnamese had come to despise the large resident Russian population for its cheap spending habits and arrogance. Visiting Americans, by contrast, were welcomed with smiles (“Russians with dollars,” we were called.) On the day I visited the old U.S. Embassy in Saigon—the where some of those iconic photos symbolizing American defeat were taken—I discovered government workmen removing a plaque that once commemorated the North’s victory over the “U.S. imperialists.” In the waning days of that epochal year, 1991, the propaganda against American involvement in Southeast Asia was suddenly no longer politically correct. Hanoi’s new message: Yankee Come Back (and bring your investment dollars). Today Vietnam remains nominally communist, but Hanoi knows it is an ideological relic surrounded by Asian capitalist tigers, all of them U.S. allies or dependents (one reason Vietnam was so eager to have Bush visit last November: it wants to be part of that club). The cold war dominoes did fall—but the opposite way.

Officers see bleak future for Iraq

McClatchy is about the closest thing we have to real news organization. They do a good job of un-spinning the spin about the surge today. The title is a bit misleading since they say in the article the "violence drop" is either not real or unrelated to the surge.
Despite violence drop, officers see bleak future for Iraq

BAGHDAD — Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers are offering a bleak picture of Iraq’s future, saying they’ve yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims despite the drop in violence.

Without reconciliation, the military officers say, any decline in violence will be temporary and bloodshed could return to previous levels as soon as the U.S. military cuts back its campaign against insurgent attacks.

That downbeat assessment comes despite a buildup of U.S. troops that began five months ago Wednesday and has seen U.S. casualties reach the highest sustained levels since the United States invaded Iraq nearly four and a half years ago.

Violence remains endemic, with truck bombs on Tuesday claiming as many as 175 lives in northern Iraq and destroying a key bridge near Baghdad, the first successful bridge attack since June.

And while top U.S. officials insist that 50 percent of the capital is now under effective U.S. or government control, compared with 8 percent in February, statistics indicate that the improvement in violence is at best mixed.

Real Improvement or Smoke and Mirrors?

And while top U.S. officials insist that 50 percent of the capital is now under effective U.S. or government control, compared with 8 percent in February, statistics indicate that the improvement in violence is at best mixed.

U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim.

The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to the McClatchy statistics, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same.

[.....]

No pattern of improvement is discernible for violence during the five months of the surge. In January, the last full month before the surge began, 438 people were killed in the capital in bombings. In February, that number jumped to 520. It declined in March to 323, but jumped again in April, to 414.

Violence remained virtually unchanged in May, when 404 were killed. The lowest total came in June, the first month U.S. officials said all the new American troops were in place, with just 190 dead, but then swung back up in July, with 354 dead.

One bright spot has been the reduction in the number of bodies found on the streets, considered a sign of sectarian violence. That number was 44 percent lower in July, compared to December. In July, the average body count per day was 18.6, compared with 33.2 in December, two months before the surge.

But the reason for that decline isn't clear. Some military officers believe that it may be an indication that ethnic cleansing has been completed in many neighborhoods and that there aren’t as many people to kill.

One officer noted that U.S. officials believe Baghdad once had a population that was 65 percent Sunni. The current U.S. estimate is that Shiites now make up 75 percent to 80 percent of the city.

There has been no movement on the political front and without that peace is not possible. The US will have to start drawing down in March or April and as we have seen so often before any gains will quickly evaporate. The Petraeus report was never going to say anything the Bush administration didn't want it to say. The fact that the White House will be authoring the report really doesn't matter. General Petraeus is about to get the Collin Powell treatment being forced to put his name on what will turn out to be a bogus document.

Iraq - optimism is too much to expect!

My local paper, The Oregonian, has long been a supporter of the Bush administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq. It appears that they have now joined the reality based community. Today's editorial is an example.
A hunger for optimism
It's understandable that Americans yearn for good news from Iraq, but the current bounce is based on anecdotes, not an overall improvement

Victory in Iraq, a hardy few say, may be within reach.

Brookings Institution scholars Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon roused optimism from an unexpected quarter late last month when The New York Times published their essay, "Stability in Iraq: A War We Just Might Win." The two analysts, who said they had previously been harsh critics of U.S. war policy, described high morale among U.S. troops, a reduction in corrupt Iraqi commanders and Iraqis' growing rejection of al-Qaida-styled extremism.

A New York Times/CBS News poll last month also revealed growing positive attitudes about developments in Iraq. A growing minority of people surveyed -- 42 percent in July, up from 35 percent in May -- said invading Iraq was the right thing to do. And the number of people who say the war is going "very badly" has fallen to 35 percent, down from 45 percent earlier in the month. While a majority of Americans still think the U.S. shouldn't have invaded Iraq and think the war is going badly, the recent trend has been in the opposite direction.

But such views seem to be based more on a wistful hope than any real, significant changes in Iraqi security or society.

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, went on the same trip with O'Hanlon and Pollack, but his paper, "The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq," is far more subdued. "It has taken the mix of forces the United States and Iraq deployed over six months to establish a limited kind of security over half of Baghdad. The security has . . . not stopped sectarian cleansing," he said.

And the Pentagon reporter for The Washington Post, Tom Ricks, the author of "Fiasco," the authoritative book on the bungled occupation of Iraq, said flatly in Portland last week that "there are no good options at all." The United States and Iraq, he said, are "backing into a de facto partition of the country."

By the way, it was misleading for Pollack and O'Hanlon to have implied that their views had been reversed by their eight days in Iraq. Pollack has been a cheerleader for the imposition of democracy in Iraq since at least the summer following the U.S.-led invasion. As he wrote in January 2004, "Many positive developments since the end of major combat operations in April 2003 . . . make it eminently feasible for the U.S.-led reconstruction to produce a stable, prosperous and pluralist Iraq over the course of the next 5-15 years."

Even leading Democrats have acknowledged recently that an abrupt withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would invite a catastrophic meltdown of order. Yet the Pentagon's deployment cycle means that troop strength will begin to decline next year at the latest. The problem for the United States remains, in what way will U.S. forces come home or redeploy, and how quickly will it happen?

Much is riding on next month's report to Congress by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, whose counterinsurgency tactics are widely applauded. But we already know he won't say Iraq is lost, nor that victory is at hand. In all likelihood, he will point to some encouraging signs, acknowledge that the challenges remain immense and suggest that more time is needed.

But at this late stage, when so much has gone wrong, so much of Iraq remains terribly dangerous, the government is disintegrating and casualties are higher than they were a year earlier, optimism is too much to expect.

While everyone waits for the Petraeus report we find out that it will be written by the White House.

Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report’s data.

Bush's Surge Is Still A Failure

The wingers are making hay over this misleading AP article.
Democrats Praise Military Progress

WASHINGTON (AP) - One senator said U.S. troops are routing out al-Qaida in parts of Iraq. Another insisted President Bush's plan to increase troops has caused tactical momentum.
One even went so far on Wednesday as to say the argument could be made that U.S. troops are winning.

These are not Bush-backing GOP die-hards, but Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed. Even Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, said progress was being made by soldiers.

The suggestions by them and other Democrats in recent days that at least a portion of Bush's strategy in Iraq is working is somewhat surprising, considering the bitter exchanges on Capitol Hill between the Democratic majority and Republicans and Bush. Democrats have long said Bush's policies have been nothing more than a complete failure.

There was never any doubt about the military portion of the surge, the American troops are the finest in the world. Unfortunately the military success is meaningless without political success of which there has been none. This is a variation on the "moving the goalposts" commentary in the Weekly Standard.

So what did the Democrats really say?

Levin, while saying military progress was being made, said the troop build-up could not be considered a success because its purpose was to make way for political reconciliation, and that hasn't happened.

"The only hope is if they take the responsibility onto themselves and we end the open-ended military commitment," Levin, of Michigan, said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

Reed, a Rhode Island senator who visited Iraq last month, said there's been tactical momentum, but it "has yet to translate itself into real political momentum, which is the key, I think, to progress."

Durbin, an Illinois senator who is traveling this week with Pennsylvania Sen. Casey, told CNN on Wednesday that "naturally" troops are routing out al-Qaida in parts of Iraq, but then explained there's no evidence of the government in the areas.

In a conference call with reporters, Casey said one could make a good argument that U.S. troops have won the war, then accused Iraqi politicians and the Bush administration of not matching the intensity of the troops.

"The troops have met every assignment, they've beaten the odds time and again, they've done everything we've asked them to," Casey said.

Update
Still more wingnut fodder from the Ass Press.

Battling for Iraq - three years later

Many of us have been questioning the credibility of General Patraeus and have doubts that anything he says this September will be believable. I did so myself over at The Gun Toting Liberal the other day and incurred some rightwing wrath here and here. My response was this.

I find it amusing that folks at QandO and the others on the right accuse us of questioning the credibility of Gen. Petraeus. I’m sorry but the general has done that all by himself by saying little that wasn’t administration spin and being proved wrong over and over again. His appearance on the Hewitt spin machine was just icing on the cake.

Paul Krugman discussed General Patraeus in his column All the President’s Enablers and said this:

Thanks to that vote, nothing will happen until Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, delivers his report in September. But don’t expect too much even then. I hope he proves me wrong, but the general’s history suggests that he’s another smart, sensible enabler.

I don’t know why the op-ed article that General Petraeus published in The Washington Post on Sept. 26, 2004, hasn’t gotten more attention. After all, it puts to rest any notion that the general stands above politics: I don’t think it’s standard practice for serving military officers to publish opinion pieces that are strikingly helpful to an incumbent, six weeks before a national election.

In the article, General Petraeus told us that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously.” And those security forces were doing just fine: their leaders “are displaying courage and resilience” and “momentum has gathered in recent months.”

In other words, General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner. And the best guess has to be that he’ll do the same thing three years later.

Here is the op-ed article Krugman refers to:

Battling for Iraq
By David H. Petraeus
Sunday, September 26, 2004; Page B07

I'm not going to reprint any of it here, Krugman gives a good summary above, but go read it and encourage everyone you know to do the same. It will be much easier to put whatever Petraeus says this September in context. Although the timing of the September, 2004 Op-Ed is suspicious I don't want to assign motive but it does question his credibility. Three years later we have not turned the corner and in fact things are much worse than they were then and the US is even deeper in the desert quagmire. You have two choices when you listen to the Generals report in September, it's political spin or he simply doesn't know what he is talking about.

Cross posted at The Gun Toting Liberal

For once he's right!

For once Tony Snow was right when he said "We Need a Surge of Facts". Of course after his boss's performance yesterday it's obvious that surge is not going to come from the White House.
Bush Distorts Qaeda Links

In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

[.....]

The broader issue is whether Iraq is a central front in the war against Al Qaeda, as Mr. Bush maintains, or a distraction that has diverted the United States from focusing on the Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan while providing Qaeda leaders with a cause for rallying support.

Of course the administration's sycophants in the military are not much help either.

Military spokesman absolutely wrong about al Qaeda in Iraq

The Post reports that the chief spokesman for the U.S. military yesterday called al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) "the principal threat" to Iraqis.

This is, quite simply, completely and totally false.

Anyone who claims that the so-called al Qaeda in Iraq group is the "principal threat" to anything in that nation -- whether its citizens, the government, the political process, or any specific ethnic or sectarian group -- is either grossly ignorant of the realities of the Iraq war or blatantly lying. I honestly have no idea which it is in this case, though it's worth noting that the chief U.S. military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, was employed as a Special Assistant to the President prior to his current appointment.

Yes, we do need a "surge in facts" but we are not going to get it from the Bush administration.

Anticipating the surge's failure

The old spin and lies are inoperative so it's time to re-spin the spin. Frank Rich explains that's what we are seeing from the Bush administration now that they are anticipating the surge's failure. And what better time to re-spin?
They’ll Break the Bad News on 9/11(TS)

BY this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House's top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam's aluminum tubes. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq — the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America — had officially begun.

America wasn't paying close enough attention then. We can't afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we'd be wise to heed.

The first was a confirmation of recent White House hints that the long-promised September pivot point for judging the success of the "surge" was inoperative. That deadline had been asserted as recently as April 24 by President Bush, who told Charlie Rose that September was when we'd have "a pretty good feel" whether his policy "made sense." On Sunday General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker each downgraded September to merely a "snapshot" of progress in Iraq. "Snapshot," of course, means "Never mind!"

The second message was more encoded and more ominous. Again using similar language, the two men said that in September they would explain what Mr. Crocker called "the consequences" and General Petraeus "the implications" of any alternative "courses of action" to their own course in Iraq. What this means in English is that when the September "snapshot" of the surge shows little change in the overall picture, the White House will say that "the consequences" of winding down the war would be even more disastrous: surrender, defeat, apocalypse now. So we must stay the surge. Like the war's rollout in 2002, the new propaganda offensive to extend and escalate the war will be exquisitely timed to both the anniversary of 9/11 and a high-stakes Congressional vote (the Pentagon appropriations bill).

Two Clocks Or One?

General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker wouldn't be sounding like the Bobbsey Twins and laying out this coordinated rhetorical groundwork were they not already anticipating the surge's failure. Both spoke on Sunday of how (in General Petraeus's variation on the theme) they had to "show that the Baghdad clock can indeed move a bit faster, so that you can put a bit of time back on the Washington clock." The very premise is nonsense. Yes, there is a Washington clock, tied to Republicans' desire to avoid another Democratic surge on Election Day 2008. But there is no Baghdad clock. It was blown up long ago and is being no more successfully reconstructed than anything else in Iraq.

The majority of the Iraqis have no interest in peace or reconciliation only power for their own sect or tribe. The administration has no interest in peace or reconciliation only real estate for military bases and oil.

What is needed is a plan for an orderly withdrawal. The problem is that all of the generals with any brains were long ago forced out by Donald Rumsfeld. One of those who was "retired", Gen. William Odom who gets it right with this:

For the Bush White House, the real definition of victory has become "anything they can get away with without taking blame for defeat," said the retired Army Gen. William Odom, a national security official in the Reagan and Carter administrations, when I spoke with him recently. The plan is to run out the Washington clock between now and Jan. 20, 2009, no matter the cost.

Gen. Odom also knows what is required if the Bush administration is not allowed to run out the clock.

As General Odom says, the endgame will start "when a senior senator from the president's party says no," much as William Fulbright did to L.B.J. during Vietnam. That's why in Washington this fall, eyes will turn once again to John Warner, the senior Republican with the clout to give political cover to other members of his party who want to leave Iraq before they're forced to evacuate Congress. In September, it will be nearly a year since Mr. Warner said that Iraq was "drifting sideways" and that action would have to be taken "if this level of violence is not under control and this government able to function."

Mr. Warner has also signaled his regret that he was not more outspoken during Vietnam. "We kept surging in those years," he told The Washington Post in January, as the Iraq surge began. "It didn't work." Surely he must recognize that his moment for speaking out about this war is overdue. Without him, the Democrats don't have the votes to force the president's hand. With him, it's a slam dunk. The best way to honor the sixth anniversary of 9/11 will be to at last disarm a president who continues to squander countless lives in the names of those voiceless American dead.

Update
Over at TalkLeft Big Tent Democrat points out that Rich and others are delusional if they think John Warner will come to the rescue.

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