Dave Schwartz
03-03-2005, 10:38 AM
A positive Opinion of the situation in Iraq:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05058/463080.stm
Jack Kelly: All but won
The media can't see that Iraq is close to secure
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Lt. Col. Jim Stockmoe, chief intelligence officer for the First Infantry
Division, roared with laughter as he recalled the increasing missteps of the
resistance in Iraq in an interview earlier this month with British
journalist Toby Harnden, writing for The Spectator.
"There were three brothers down in Baghdad who had a mortar tube and were
firing into the Green Zone," Stockmoe said. "They were storing the mortar
rounds in the car engine compartment and the rounds got overheated. Two of
these clowns dropped them in the tube and they exploded, blowing their legs
off."
The surviving brother sought refuge in a nearby house, but the occupants
"beat the crap out of him and turned him over to the Iraqi police," Stockmoe
told Harnden, "It was like the movie 'Dumb and Dumber.' "
"The nine election day suicide bombers averaged about three victims each, a
strike rate so bad that Allah might soon start rationing the virgins to show
his displeasure," Harnden wrote.
Stockmoe has heard so many similar stories that he created an Iraqi version
of the "Darwin Awards." Created in 1993 by a student at Stanford University,
the Darwin awards commemorate those who "contribute to our gene pool by
removing themselves from it in a really stupid way."
The number of insurgent attacks has fallen off significantly since the
Fallujah offensive last November, and the attacks that are being made are
less effective.
There are about 50-60 attacks a day on coalition forces, about half the
pre-Fallujah level. Almost all are within the Sunni Triangle, and most are
ineffective. "Most of these are ambush-style attacks that result in no
casualties," noted StrategyPage.com.
The news media report the attacks, but tend not to report, as StrategyPage
does, that "dozens, sometimes over a hundred, of the attackers, or suspects,
are arrested every day."
Unbalanced reporting has given Americans a false impression of how the war
is going, said Austin Bay, a retired colonel in the Army Reserve who was
called to active duty in Iraq last year.
"Collect relatively isolated events in a chronological list and presto: the
impression of uninterrupted, widespread violence destroying Iraq," said Bay,
who is also a syndicated columnist. "But that was a false impression. Every
day coalition forces were moving thousands of 18-wheelers from Kuwait and
Turkey into Iraq, and if the insurgents were lucky, they blew up one.
However, flash the flames of that one diesel rig on CNN and 'Oh my God,
America can't stop these guys' is the impression left in Boston, Boise and
Beijing."
It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months
more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The
situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place
60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared
secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt.
Suribachi.
Proof of this was provided by Sen. Hillary Clinton. Iraq is functioning
quite well, she said in a press conference in Baghdad Feb. 19. The recent
rash of suicide attacks is a sign the insurgency is failing, she said.
"When politicians like [Clinton] start flocking to Iraq to bask in the light
of its success, then you know that the corner has been turned," a reader of
his blog wrote to Bay.
More substantive signs abound. The performance of Iraqi security forces is
improving, as are their numbers. Nearly 10,000 men showed up at a southern
Iraqi military base Feb. 14 to volunteer for 5,000 openings. Only 6,000 had
been expected.
Sunni Arab politicians have admitted they made a big boo-boo in boycotting
the Jan. 30 election, and are pleading to be included in the political
process. Some ex-Baathists are seeking terms for laying down their arms.
Those who get their news from the "mainstream" media are surprised by
developments in Iraq, as they were surprised by our swift victory in
Afghanistan, the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, the success of the Afghan
election and the success of the Iraqi election.
Journalists demand accountability from political leaders for "quagmires"
which exist chiefly in the imagination of journalists. But when will
journalists be held to account for getting every major development in the
war on terror wrong?
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05058/463080.stm
Jack Kelly: All but won
The media can't see that Iraq is close to secure
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Lt. Col. Jim Stockmoe, chief intelligence officer for the First Infantry
Division, roared with laughter as he recalled the increasing missteps of the
resistance in Iraq in an interview earlier this month with British
journalist Toby Harnden, writing for The Spectator.
"There were three brothers down in Baghdad who had a mortar tube and were
firing into the Green Zone," Stockmoe said. "They were storing the mortar
rounds in the car engine compartment and the rounds got overheated. Two of
these clowns dropped them in the tube and they exploded, blowing their legs
off."
The surviving brother sought refuge in a nearby house, but the occupants
"beat the crap out of him and turned him over to the Iraqi police," Stockmoe
told Harnden, "It was like the movie 'Dumb and Dumber.' "
"The nine election day suicide bombers averaged about three victims each, a
strike rate so bad that Allah might soon start rationing the virgins to show
his displeasure," Harnden wrote.
Stockmoe has heard so many similar stories that he created an Iraqi version
of the "Darwin Awards." Created in 1993 by a student at Stanford University,
the Darwin awards commemorate those who "contribute to our gene pool by
removing themselves from it in a really stupid way."
The number of insurgent attacks has fallen off significantly since the
Fallujah offensive last November, and the attacks that are being made are
less effective.
There are about 50-60 attacks a day on coalition forces, about half the
pre-Fallujah level. Almost all are within the Sunni Triangle, and most are
ineffective. "Most of these are ambush-style attacks that result in no
casualties," noted StrategyPage.com.
The news media report the attacks, but tend not to report, as StrategyPage
does, that "dozens, sometimes over a hundred, of the attackers, or suspects,
are arrested every day."
Unbalanced reporting has given Americans a false impression of how the war
is going, said Austin Bay, a retired colonel in the Army Reserve who was
called to active duty in Iraq last year.
"Collect relatively isolated events in a chronological list and presto: the
impression of uninterrupted, widespread violence destroying Iraq," said Bay,
who is also a syndicated columnist. "But that was a false impression. Every
day coalition forces were moving thousands of 18-wheelers from Kuwait and
Turkey into Iraq, and if the insurgents were lucky, they blew up one.
However, flash the flames of that one diesel rig on CNN and 'Oh my God,
America can't stop these guys' is the impression left in Boston, Boise and
Beijing."
It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months
more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The
situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place
60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared
secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt.
Suribachi.
Proof of this was provided by Sen. Hillary Clinton. Iraq is functioning
quite well, she said in a press conference in Baghdad Feb. 19. The recent
rash of suicide attacks is a sign the insurgency is failing, she said.
"When politicians like [Clinton] start flocking to Iraq to bask in the light
of its success, then you know that the corner has been turned," a reader of
his blog wrote to Bay.
More substantive signs abound. The performance of Iraqi security forces is
improving, as are their numbers. Nearly 10,000 men showed up at a southern
Iraqi military base Feb. 14 to volunteer for 5,000 openings. Only 6,000 had
been expected.
Sunni Arab politicians have admitted they made a big boo-boo in boycotting
the Jan. 30 election, and are pleading to be included in the political
process. Some ex-Baathists are seeking terms for laying down their arms.
Those who get their news from the "mainstream" media are surprised by
developments in Iraq, as they were surprised by our swift victory in
Afghanistan, the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, the success of the Afghan
election and the success of the Iraqi election.
Journalists demand accountability from political leaders for "quagmires"
which exist chiefly in the imagination of journalists. But when will
journalists be held to account for getting every major development in the
war on terror wrong?