The emperor has no clothes...

[HKRockChick]

What a mess. What a tragedy for the innocent civilians killed and the hapless American soldiers. What a bloody awful mess.



www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=2252



The Long Ignominious Slide to Defeat in Iraq



by Ivan Eland



The worst nightmare for the American occupation has occurred. Portions of the Iraqi Shiite majority have risen in revolt. Full-scale civil war may be just around the corner.



The armed uprising by Shiite militias in four Iraqi cities, including the Baghdad metropolitan area, was well coordinated and deadly. The rebellion cost the lives of eight American soldiers and countless Iraqis. The revolt consisted of followers of militant cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who has militias numbering in the tens of thousands across Iraq, Although the American occupation had forbidden the bearing of arms, the militants brandished many weapons, including rocket propelled grenade launchers. They took over the streets, occupied police stations and attacked American forces.



Ironically, one of the motivating forces behind the bloodshed was censorship by the United States, a country that prides itself on the freedom of speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Last week, U.S. occupation authorities closed down Al Hawza, Sadr’s newspaper, charging that it had incited violence in Iraq. Yet the paper did not advocate attacks on Americans. As the U.S. authorities put it, the paper was guilty of “false reporting.” That type of justification is eerily reminiscent of rhetoric from the Communist Soviet Union. The closing of Al Hawza, symbolic for many Shittes, ignited street protests that mushroomed and became more volatile by the day, culminating in the uprising.



Sadr, always hostile to the U.S. occupation, apparently now believes that peaceful Shiite demonstrations should be replaced by armed insurrection. He urged his followers on, stating that, “there is no use for demonstrations, as your enemy loves to terrify and suppress opinions, and despises people. Terrorize your enemy, as we cannot remain silent over his violations.”



If the rebellion spreads within the Shiite population, which such events seem to portend, even senior U.S. military commanders admit privately that the chances dwindle drastically of keeping Iraq this side of the abyss. The U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq tried to put a brave face on the mayhem by opining that the rebellion made up only a small portion of the Iraqi population. But that proportion could grow over time in both Shiite and Sunni areas as the U.S. retaliates muscularly for the attacks by Shiite militiamen and the burning, dragging and hanging of corpses of already dead U.S. armed mercenaries by the Sunnis in Faluja. Such precipitous U.S. actions may very well incite a escalating cycle of violence—attack and counterattack—that could turn the bulk of the Iraqi population, both Shiite and Sunni, against the U.S. occupation.



Yet even if the “silent majority” of Iraqis remain supportive of U.S. forces, as the civilian occupation authorities claim, it may not be enough to save the American war effort in Iraq. The guerrillas know that the key to winning any guerrilla warfare is to undermine support for the war in the stronger party’s homeland. In the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, with significant support among the peoples of South Vietnam, were able to prolong the war long enough to exhaust the American public at home and prompt an eventual U.S. withdrawal. Similarly, in the American Revolution, the revolutionaries were able to eventually exhaust the British with the support of only one-third of the colonists. Thus, if even a minority of the occupied country’s population is actively hostile to the outside power, a foreign occupation can fail. If the majority supporting the outside power believes that the armed minority will be around a lot longer than the occupiers—not an illogical belief given the short attention span of past U.S. nation-building—its support, out of self-preservation, may be very lukewarm or tepid. So the silent majority may be silent indeed.



Another major problem confronting the U.S. occupation, which was illuminated by the Shiite uprising, is the unreliability of the U.S.-trained Iraqi police and civil defense forces. Those forces fled at the sight of the heavily armed Shiite militias, allowing them to take over checkpoints and police stations. The idea that security in Iraq can be turned over to such forces is no more than a bad joke.



Adding to the reluctance of Iraqis to help occupation forces, foreign allies are unwilling to send added troops to help the United States try to control the chaos (in fact, one ally is already bailing out of the effort and another is grumbling being deceived) because of the Bush administration’s pre-war arrogance and the prospect of retaliatory terrorism on their homelands. The Bush administration’s balloon, filled with triumphalist hot air a year ago as U.S. forces entered Baghdad, has finally burst.



**************************

[Seismic Anamoly]

I have to agree...appears the Honeymoon is Over...

[Rev9Volts]

another opinion www.washingtontimes.com



Terror war destiny





By Paul Greenberg





"I was disturbed," a friend e-mails, "to read that Paul Bremer signed an order closing down a newspaper in Iraq."

My friend's concern is understandable. As he points out, "One of the foundations of democracy and freedom is freedom of expression, manifested in part by freedom of the press, and to be curtailing this is counter to what we are trying to accomplish in Iraq."

I was disturbed, too — by how long it took the American authorities to shut the paper down. The weekly Al Hawza has become notorious for its publication of false rumors and general incitement against the American occupation.

The last straw was its reporting a bomb that killed 50 Iraqi police recruits was an American missile fired by an Apache helicopter, not a car bomb.

You can imagine the results of such reports. You needn't imagine. Just look at the hate-filled faces of young Iraqis who are steadily fed such propaganda, whether they're pulling ambushes in Baghdad or crowing over the mutilated bodies of American civilians in Fallujah.

Words can be deadly weapons in war. We're at war in Iraq and a constant barrage of inflammatory stories about how the infidels are wiping out innocent Iraqis can do more damage than enemy mortars. To quote Napoleon, "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets."

Would we have allowed Nazi newspapers to flourish as our occupation of Germany entered its second year? No — because we were serious about remaking Germany. Are we serious about remaking Iraq?

It was an American general, Douglas MacArthur, who said that in war there is no substitute for victory. But we have forgotten his warning before with dreadful results, Vietnam being the most prominent example. Will we forget it again in Iraq?

At various times in our own civil war, and that's what this struggle in Iraq is fast becoming, Mr. Lincoln suppressed or suspended various newspapers that spread false rumors or published inflammatory stories, including the New York World and the Journal of Commerce.

Mr. Lincoln's policy toward the press was remarkably similar to Paul Bremer's. His administration did not censor the news nor force papers to print stories favorable to the Union. Even newspapers that continued to abuse the president personally throughout the war went unmolested. But he drew the line at stories that might incite violence or interfere with military operations.

To quote a letter the commander in chief wrote to one of his officers in the field, General John Schofield: "You will only arrest individuals and suppress assemblies or newspapers when they may be working palpable injury to the military in your charge, and in no other case will you interfere with the expression of opinion in any form or allow it to be interfered with violently by others."

That pretty well sums up the American policy in Iraq, too. The authorities have allowed peaceable assembly, however loud or raucous, and a wide variety of editorial viewpoints, including many highly critical of the occupation.

But when Al Hawza printed a phony story about an American missile killing innocent Iraqis — just the kind of canard most likely to incite violence — Paul Bremer suspended its publication for 60 days. He finally got serious.

"That paper might have been anti-American," an Iraqi newspaperman said in defense of Al Hawza, "but it should be free to express its opinion."

But Al Hawza wasn't shut down because of its opinions, but because it was passing off fiction as fact. Fiction that was sure to stir the mob. Mistaken opinions may be debated; false information may be impossible to counter.

As the late senator and sage Daniel Patrick Moynihan once put it, everybody is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts.

The line between fact and opinion isn't always easy to establish, as many an American periodical has discovered in court, but in this case Al Hawza was clearly on the far side of it, printing rumors sure to incite.

The Iraqi weekly is a mouthpiece for a feisty young Shi'ite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who is making his bid for power by outshouting the community's older, more responsible leader, the Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani.

Well known as a disturber of the peace, the wily young agitator increased the volume this past, violent weekend in his Baghdad bailiwick. ("Terrorize your enemy, God will reward you well for what pleases him.") This disturber of the peace might benefit from a 60-day cooling-off period, too. The chances for peace in Iraq certainly would.



Paul Greenberg is a nationally syndicated columnist.

[HKRockChick]

Its called propaganda. The neo-cons used it to good effect, didnt they, and thats why there was support for the war in the first place. I mean the entire WMD crap was a crock. Sadam has this sadam has that imminent threat, they're going to blow us all up, yadayadayada. They just dont like it when the boot is on the other foot.



So who's the bigger liar? Bush and co told a lie that has resulted in thousands upon thousands of deaths and will continue to do so.

[DreamTone7]

An interesting snippet that just so happens to make a lot of sense:



www.worldnetdaily.com/new...E_ID=36463

[HKRockChick]

another exile?



"A relative of Syrian President Bashar Assad is hiding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in three locations in Syria, according to intelligence sources cited by an exiled opposition party"



I'm afraid nothing bushco might say any more will convince me or anyone else. They have zero credibility and more fool the american public for swallowing any mor of this bs. Lets see what other desperate stuff they'll try closer to the elections.



DT, after all this, please dont tell me you still trust bushco the war criminals?

[DreamTone7]

Trust...no. But I do believe that what that article says is true. It fits exactly what I predicted as a possiblity many months before this article was published. Saddam has been pushing oil out through Syria and bringing weapons in through them. Saddam and Syria were buddies, and I don't think he would have passed on the opportunity to stash his supply of WMD there in the hopes of someday reclaiming it...just as dope dealers are prone to do with their stashes when they fear a "raid". But for those who find it convenient to believe the popular opinion that Bush and America are responsible for all that currently goes wrong in the world while other politicians pillage their own countries behind the population's backs, I understand why there would be a tendancy to disbelieve in the possibility of the article being correct.

[NRKofOver]

I think the credibility issue with Bush and Co. goes well beyond the lack of WMD's in Iraq. If they are in Syria, how come we didn't know they were taken there. The numbers spouted off by the administration prior to our invasion were staggering. How can you get tons and tons and tons of illegal weapons into trucks, across the desert, and into another country without us never knowing it? And the latest problems there, wasn't this something our leaders should've known was likely? We had intelligence people entrenched in Iraq long before the war, how come no one knew that religious leaders would incite anti-American violence? We've heard that we're going to 'stay the course' in Iraq, but somehow still manage to hand over the reins to an Iraqi government on June 30th. That seems simply impossible to me.



The Bush administration has been a mess, nothing has worked out as they've said, except for removing Saddam. They've spent billions of dollars for what appears to be nothing other than removing Saddam. The country will not be democratic any time soon, in fact, I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. I think a good argument could be made that our actions have actually caused more destabilization of the Middle East as opposed to stabilizing a part of it. Our leaders are fools, they don't seem to have any idea what they're doing, and they truly scare me. I think we'll have four more years of this group, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Syria or Iraq next on our list for 'democratization'. I'm sure that will be lots of fun too.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[Rev9Volts]

it seems like both sides have their "marketing departments"

[DreamTone7]

True...which is why it is better to rely on what your gut tells you is true rather than some "camp's" rhetoric.

[NRKofOver]

I agree with you completely Dream, that's why I don't watch the news, or 60 minutes, or Dateline, or any TV really, I just look at what's going on and think purely from my heart and my mind and then form an opinion. Maybe someday I'll join a 'camp', but right now, there isn't another human being on the planet who seems to share enough of my personal opinions to go forming a club of some kind.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[HKRockChick]

look around you! CHAOS, just cause a group of idiots decide to lie to the world and flout international law, making America into a rogue state, though no one has the guts to say it to the war criminals' faces. The world is far more unsafe now than before 2000. My GUT tells me bushco need to be tried in the international courts for war crimes, and if we have them for another 4 years God knows what this earth is going to be like. One thing's for sure, more chaos, more death, more terrorist attacks, more innocent lives.



I dont need any marketing machines to tell me what I can see for myself.



And DONT let me start on the use of depleted uranium and other banned weapons.

[HKRockChick]

who are leaving the bushco camp and telling THEIR tales? Nothing speaks louder about a culture than high turnover... DT, you've got to get over this "you hate america" anthem you keep singing, remove your rose tinted glasses and smell the blood and sulphur.



story.news.yahoo.com/news...y_usa_dc_4



U.S. Terrorism Policy Spawns Steady Staff Exodus

Wed Apr 7, 3:57 PM ET Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!



By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration has faced a steady exodus of counterterrorism officials, many disappointed by a preoccupation with Iraq (news - web sites) they said undermined the U.S. fight against terrorism.



Former counterterrorism officials said at least half a dozen have left the White House Office for Combating Terrorism or related agencies in frustration in the 2 1/2 years since the attacks.



Some also left because they felt President Bush (news - web sites) had sidelined his counterterrorism experts and paid almost exclusive heed to the vice president, the defense secretary and other Cabinet members in planning the "war on terror," former counterterrorism officials said.



"I'm kind of hoping for regime change," one official who quit told Reuters.



The administration's handling of the battle against terrorism is a key issue for the presidency, and could be key to Bush's re-election effort.



Similar charges were made by Bush's former counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke, who told the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that the administration ignored the al Qaeda threat beforehand and was fixated on Iraq afterward. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) testifies before the 9/11 panel on Thursday.



"Iraq has been a distraction from the whole counterterrorism effort," said the former official, adding the policy had frustrated many in the White House anti-terrorism office, about two-thirds of whom have left and been replaced since Sept. 11.



The administration vehemently denies the accusations, and says it is making strong progress in the global war on terror.



HIGH TURNOVER



Roger Cressey, who served under Clarke in the White House counterterrorism office, said: "Dick accurately reflects the frustration of many in the counterterrorism community in getting the new administration to take the al Qaeda issue seriously."



Cressey left the office in November 2001, when he became chief of staff of the White House's cybersecurity office until September 2002.



The attrition among all levels of the Office for Combating Terrorism began shortly after the attacks and continued into this year. At least eight officials in the office -- which numbers a dozen people -- have left and been replaced since 9/11. Several of the officials were contacted by Reuters.



The office has been run by four different people since the attacks, and at least three have held the No. 2 slot.



"There has been excessively high turnover in the Office for Combating Terrorism," said Flynt Leverett, who served on the White House National Security Council for about a year until March 2003 and is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.



"If you take the (White House) counterterrorism and Middle East offices, you've got about a dozen people ... who came to this administration wanting to work on these important issues and left after a year or often less because they just don't think that this administration is dealing seriously with the issues that matter," he said.



Rand Beers, a former No. 2 in the office who quit last year over the administration's handling of the war on terrorism, told Reuters the turnover had been "unusually high" since the hijacked airliner attacks in New York and Washington.



"And one of the reasons is frustration with the way counterterrorism policy has been conducted, including the focus on Iraq," said Beers, who now serves as a foreign policy adviser for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), who hopes to unseat Bush in November.



The White House denied there had been unusually high turnover, saying staff tended to be on limited assignments from other federal agencies. A senior administration official said it was "absolutely untrue" Iraq was diverting attention from overall counterterrorism efforts.



Another official said it was wrong to link all the numerous departures to policy concerns over Iraq.



Several current and former officials said burn out from job stress also contributed to high turnover in the office, as did frustration among some staff about the limits of their influence over policymaking in general. Many National Security Council staffers only stay 18 months to two years.



One current counterterrorism official said while the Iraq campaign had been a "huge resource drain," this held true for all major events that compete for scarce resources.



"There's a problem of too few counterterrorism staffers to begin with ... and with the focus on any big issue like Iraq, it is a distraction from the overall counterterrorism effort," the official said.

[DreamTone7]

How is romoving a pair of glasses supposed to improve my sense of smell?



You are entitled to your opinion Deb...just like everyone else. All I am suggesting is that maybe you, and others, are not taking everything into account. Fear and anger are two very blinding emotions. You have shown much anger...and I have strong suspicions about the fear. After all, fear often leads to anger.

[HKRockChick]

"How is romoving a pair of glasses supposed to improve my sense of smell?"







dunno, maybe the lifted weight will unblock your sinuses???



Actually I get quite mad at injustices, have always been that way. But forget what I say or feel. Just look at the facts, and judge based purely on those.



Did bushco invade Iraq or not?

Was Iraq ever capable of launching WMDs at 45 minutes notice?

Did they find WMDs?

Was there ever any link established with Iraq and Al Quaeda?

Has this war stopped terrorism?

Is Iraq a better place? (Hans Blix says not....)

Are all the lies coming out now?



I suggest you stop thinking we all hate America, and look at the facts realistically and objectively. Like over 50% of your countrymen are doing right now, and the rest of the world has done from the beginning.