An eye-opening piece.....the OPPOSITE of "fair and balanced"

[PaceAdvantage]

NBC Skips Brookings's More Upbeat Iraq Judgment That ABC, CBS Find Newsworthy

By Brent Baker | July 30, 2007 - 21:11 ET
NBC Nightly News on Monday ignored a development both ABC and CBS found newsworthy, that after eight days in Iraq, two Brookings Institution scholars who describe themselves has “harshly” critical of Bush's Iraq policy, determined the situation in Iraq is better than they assumed and so the “surge” should continue into next year. Instead of reporting the fresh assessment from Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, NBC anchor Brian Williams, citing “a draft U.S. report,” aired a full story on how “there are disturbing new details about corruption at the very top of the Iraqi government.” But the NBC Nightly News has hardly been reticent before about running soundbites from O'Hanlon with dire warnings about Iraq.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-b...ind-newsworthy

[Lefty]

O'Reilly was "dead-on" when he said NBC has become the most far far left of the Big 3.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Lefty

O'Reilly was "dead-on" when he said NBC has become the most far far left of the Big 3.

Hear, hear! Where's the Fairness Doctrine when you need it?

Boxcar

[lsbets]

I'm not going to start a new thread, this kind of fits with the general topic of folks who don't want us to do well in Iraq. From today's Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...073001380.html

"House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war."

"Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

So, the #3 Democrat in the house has now stated publicly that success in Iraq would be bad for his party. I said 3 years ago they were rooting for failure. They are scared to death that Petraeus may succeed. Yeah, they support the troops.

[bigmack]

Head of NBC is now Jeff Zucker who appears to lean in a specific direction. Another one they missed: Charles Rust-Tierney, an attorney and former head of the ACLU in Virginia, was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography. Agents found videos in his home of little girls being violently raped by adults. The New York Times and NBC News, ignored the story entirely.

[JustRalph]

The story from abc

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2900174&page=1

[GaryG]

This is what MSNBC lets Chuckles get away with:

[hcap]

Not quite impartial or anti war as youse guys think....

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/073007.html

It’s also disingenuous today for O’Hanlon and Pollack to present themselves as harsh critics of Bush’s Iraq War when, in fact, they either advocated the invasion (in Pollack’s case) or eagerly promoted the surge (as O’Hanlon did). At minimum, they should have given a fuller accounting of their past positions.

[hcap]

Reuters..

The average number of daily attacks in Iraq hit a new high in June, as the final US troop deployments for President George Bush's "surge" strategy arrived in the country.

Attack statistics obtained by Reuters from the Defense Department showed a June average of 177.8 attacks per day on coalition and Iraqi forces, civilians and infrastructure.

That surpassed a previous daily peak of 176.5 attacks in October 2006 and made June's daily total the highest since Bush declared major combat operations at an end in May 2003.
.................................................. .................................................
AP adds: "Iraqi deaths rose, with at least 2,024 civilians, government officials and security forces killed in July, about 23 percent more than the 1,640 who died violently in June, according to Associated Press figures compiled from
police reports nationwide."


From Juan Cole

"July is like a blast furnace in Iraq, with temperatures approaching 120 degrees F. in the shade. Guerrillas typically lie low in this unfavorable environment, compared to other seasons, and so the casualty rates go down. Instead, this year the killing season has gone on as if it were spring."

.................................................. ........
O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack could be wrong and NBC could be right

[hcap]

Oh yeah, Pollack, a former CIA analyst, was a leading advocate for invading Iraq in the first place. He published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq in September 2002, just as the Bush administration was gearing up its marketing push for going to war****

Holly shit. Another gathering storm bullshit analogy from the neocon playbook. The only thing that was "gathering" was the brownish underwear in the neocons oh so anal retentive asses.

Hey Boxhead? Are you out there. Can you say Imminent?


**** "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

Andrew H. Card, Jr.
White House Chief of Staff
The New York Times -- September 7, 2002

[lsbets]

Minimize and demonize, because as the Dem Whip admitted, success in Iraq would be very bad for his side. Yep, I'm sure Juan Cole has a much better handle on Iraq from his office than folks on the ground. Despite the undeniable fact that the surge is showing signs that it is working, it is more important to spin it to where it is a failure. The Brookings Report backs up what I have been hearing from the guys over there. But, our soldiers succeeding would be bad for some folks, so they need to make people believe they are failing. It is sickening. Rooting for failure, at all costs, and then claiming to support the troops by wanting to bring them home.

[JustRalph]

Originally Posted by lsbets

Minimize and demonize, because as the Dem Whip admitted, success in Iraq would be very bad for his side. Yep, I'm sure Juan Cole has a much better handle on Iraq from his office than folks on the ground. Despite the undeniable fact that the surge is showing signs that it is working, it is more important to spin it to where it is a failure. The Brookings Report backs up what I have been hearing from the guys over there. But, our soldiers succeeding would be bad for some folks, so they need to make people believe they are failing. It is sickening. Rooting for failure, at all costs, and then claiming to support the troops by wanting to bring them home.

I can't believe they actually admit they want us to fail......because it would be "Bad for them" several Dems have said this lately.........downright un-American.............but what's new............

[JustRalph]

From Mike Barone at CBS.com

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3123989.shtml



Their argument is one many Democrats in Congress don't want to hear. Literally. This is the transcript of the response of freshman Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last Friday to the optimistic testimony of Gen. Jack Keane, one of the original advocates of the surge:

And I just will make some statements more for the record based on what I heard from--mainly from General Keane. As many of us--there was only so much that you could take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while. So I think I am back and maybe can articulate some things--after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.

But let me first just say that the description of Iraq as in some way or another that it's a place that I might take the family for a vacation--things are going so well--those kinds of comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying, here's the reality of the problem. And people, we have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue.

Read that last sentence again. "And people, we have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue." The reality, that is, of how she sees it. Which is, apparently, that Iraq is a totally lost cause. She can't bear to hear anyone say anything otherwise.

But one thing students of the history of war know is that things can change in war. And apparently they've been changing in Iraq, at least in the opinions of Michael O'Hanlon, Kenneth Pollack, and Gen. Jack Keane. Democrats like Boyda would like to preserve in amber the state of public opinion that prevailed during the 2006 election and for the first half of this year that we have been defeated in Iraq. The more cynical among them want to make political gain from that; the less cynical want to end a conflict that is taking American lives as fast as they can.

[Lefty]

Kind of sad and pathetic when an elected official says she's frustrated by having to listen to GOOD NEWS! Unfriggnblvble.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by lsbets

Minimize and demonize, because as the Dem Whip admitted, success in Iraq would be very bad for his side. Yep, I'm sure Juan Cole has a much better handle on Iraq from his office than folks on the ground. Despite the undeniable fact that the surge is showing signs that it is working, it is more important to spin it to where it is a failure. The Brookings Report backs up what I have been hearing from the guys over there. But, our soldiers succeeding would be bad for some folks, so they need to make people believe they are failing. It is sickening. Rooting for failure, at all costs, and then claiming to support the troops by wanting to bring them home.

I don't think the surge is working, maybe if 100,000 more were sent it could-but it is only a temporary fix. I know you think Cole is wishing for defeat-for that matter ANYONE who disagrees with you, but from Juan Coles' website
William Polk
.....

http://www.juancole.com/2007/08/exec...lusion-of.html

Executive Summary of the conclusion of Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism & Guerrilla Warfare from the American Revolution to Iraq. By William R. Polk, to be published on September 15, 2007 by HarperCollins.

"Is there some new magic formula for success? Generals David Petraeus and James Amos argue that there is. They have laid out a counterinsurgency doctrine. (December 2006 Counterinsurgency Field Manual). But it is not new. When tried in Vietnam, it did not work. As Petraeus and Amos admit, the key element in insurgency is political: “each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate.” Is this a feasible objective for foreigners? One searches the historical record in vain for an example of success. The foreign occupying force, by definition, is alien. Vietnam showed that even when the aliens (us) had a numerous and established local ally (the South Vietnamese government) that ally was more apt to be alienated by its association with the foreign military force than that force was to be “Vietnamized” by their native ally. In sum, the single absolutely necessary ingredient in counterinsurgency is extremely unlikely ever to be available to foreigners."


I hate to admit it, but Tom and JR may be correct. The only thing that may work for any extended period of time-is to unleash wholesale slaughter and genocide.

Indiscriminate all out nuclear bombings of civilians. Is that what you want?
Dealing with asymmetrical counterinsurgency guerrilla warfare is not going to work