What You Don't Read in the Papers

[Occhidiangela]

From someone on the ground in Iraq.

  1. This is good news that hasn't been fit to print or report on TV.

2. It is much easier to point out the errors a man makes when he makes tough decisions, rarely is the positive as aggressively pursued.

Since President Bush declared an end to "major combat" on May 1...

... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.

... over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.

... nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.

... the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.

... on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average.

... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.

... by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools - 500 more than scheduled.

... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.

... all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.

... doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.

... pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.

... the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to Iraq's children.

... a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms.  This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.

... we have restored over three-quarters of prewar telephone services and over two-thirds of the potable water production.

... the wheels of commerce are turning.  From bicycles to satellite dishes to cars and trucks, businesses are coming to life in all major cities and towns.

... 95 percent of all prewar bank customers have service and first-time customers are opening accounts daily.

... Iraqi banks are making loans to finance businesses.

... the central bank is fully independent.

... Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.

... satellite TV dishes are now legal.

... foreign journalists aren't on 10-day visas paying mandatory and extortionate fees to the Ministry of Information for "minders" and other government spies.

... there is no Ministry of Information.

... there are more than 170 newspapers.

... you can buy satellite dishes on what seems like every street corner.

... foreign journalists (and everyone else) are free to come and go.

... a nation that had not one single element - legislative, judicial or executive - of a representative government, now does.

... in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils.  Baghdad's first democratic transfer of power in 35 years happened when the city council elected its new chairman.

... today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.

...  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.

... Shia religious festivals that were all but banned, aren't.

... for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrate the pilgrimage of the 12th Imam.

... the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large nd small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.

... Uday and Queasy are dead - and no longer feeding innocent Iraqis to the zoo lions, raping the young daughters of local leaders to force cooperation, torturing Iraq's soccer players for losing games, or murdering critics.

... children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.

... political opponents aren't imprisoned, tortured, executed, maimed, or are forced to watch their families die for disagreeing with Saddam.

... Iraqis no longer live in perpetual terror.

... Saudis will hold municipal elections.

... Qatar is reforming education to give more choices to parents.

... Jordan is accelerating market economic reforms.

... the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iranian -- a Muslim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democracy and for peace.

... Little or none of this information has been published by the Press corps that prides itself on bringing you all the news that's important.

Iraq under US led control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII.   Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.

It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build something else in its place.

These are things worth writing about. Get the word out.

Now, some of that is news, some strikes me as "painting it all a different shade of gray" but what is important to consider is that some of the internal improvements are ignored by the Press. Why? They are still held hostage to "if it bleeds it leads" and so they chase the rocket attacks all over Iraq as the story worth printing. Also, the fellow who wrote this probably missed that "US Led Control" is an odd condition for a nation to be under if one wants to declare success, and he then talks about the years of trouble in Japan and Germany. That bit did not seem to gel with me. ;)

Since this article was written, a number of Iraqi soldiers have quit their units. The UN has pulled out since UN agencies, and their staff, have demonstrated that they are not willing to risk their lives for their fellow man.

Hmmmmph, what next?

Is the operation in Iraq a success?

Hard to say, you might as well ask if a cake is a success 15 minutes after you put it into the oven, or if a baby is a success three months into the womb. It may be an ugly baby after all, or a delicious sponge cake, but "success" will have to wait for that batch of batter to cook for a little while. As I see it, success will be measured about 10 years from now.

But, somewhere in the back of my head, I hear a voice that says: " Someone once again fell into the "we can win this war quickly" trap. See the bottom of my sig for what Clausewitz thinks of that.

[TheDragoon]

Thanks for posting this. Some of this stuff shows just what I've been telling people about what the media was likely NOT printing. :)

[--Pete]

Hi,

From someone on the ground in Iraq.

Now that's a good reference. No need to find out who, or what his qualifications are, or how he got this information. Unless, of course, it doesn't support your position.

Now, some of that is news, some strikes me as "painting it all a different shade of gray"

No, none of this is news. It is a list of unsubstantiated (and from where we are unsubstantiable) statements. News is "who", "what", "where", "when", "why", and "how" with enough documentation and background to make it credible. Some of the statements might be true. And a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Is the operation in Iraq a success?

Wrong question. Was the operation in Iraq justified is more in line with what we should be asking. And, if the purpose was "get a son of a bitch out of power", where do we stop? A hell of a lot of countries in this world are being led by SOBs and could use some friendly bombing by USA troops to help them straighten out their act.

Sorry, preemptive war *might* (just "might", no more) be justified if there is a real threat. That threat was what was sold to the American people and it was a lie. AFAIK no one got killed because Clinton lied about getting his dick sucked. Shrub's lies to the American people had a bit more repercussion.

Was the invasion of Iraq justified? Or should the administration be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity? I'm for reopening the courthouse in Nuremberg.

--Pete

[jahcs]

Is there any more information on the source and where you found this information? The news is definitely encouraging.

[Moldran]

Wrong question. Was the operation in Iraq justified is more in line with what we should be asking.

That depends on your criteria for a justified war, of course.

This war removed one of the most terrible and dangerous dictatorships of the present world.
It did this very fast and with *relatively* few casualties. It was more than justified in my opinion. It should have been done 10 years earlier, but hey - better late than never.

And, if the purpose was "get a son of a bitch out of power", where do we stop?

Tricky question. In any case, it is better to get at least one "son of a bitch out of power" than none at all.

Where you should stop after Iraq, I don't know. I do know that stopping before Iraq would have been a mistake. A mistake with potentially terrible consequences.

If it was necessary to lie to the American public in order to make the removal of the Baath regime possible, then it is a good thing that they were being lied to. If what you imply is true, that the war would not have started if Bush had spoken the truth, which I doubt, then his lies probably safed more lives than they costed.

I'm for reopening the courthouse in Nuremberg.

To put charges against the leading Baath fascists, I assume. You need to get hold of the rest of them first. And Nuremberg would definately be the wrong place. Let that job be done by Iraqi courts in Baghdad.

[Occhidiangela]

Occhi

[Guest]

"Was the invasion of Iraq justified? Or should the administration be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity? I'm for reopening the courthouse in Nuremberg."

whatever

Was the stock market boom of the late 90 an act of genious or should we try Paul Rubin for treason fo setting up recession?

Was Lee Iacocha(spelling) a brilliant businessman or a scoundrel and thief?


Talk about "wrong question". Your question is utterly absurd.

[Occhidiangela]

Some of this stuff I covered in the PM, some not. Please PM me if you desire a better explanation for why I chose to do it this way. :) I'm good for it.

For public consumption . . .

What the listing amounts to is a compilation of stuff from the source to his folks.

As to the "wrong question," you have a good point, since that is one of my favorite lines, and as I see it, most of the questions asked by pundits are the "wrong question."

Going into Iraq was a calculated risk, in two ways. One was risking that it would make the situation in the Middle East worse. Regardless of what was publicly spoken, that risk analysis was done. Politics is an exercise in risk management, at best.

The other calculation was, as I analyze the political thought process involved, that either "success" of the wrong sort, or out and out failure would scotch the chances for re-election of the incumbent. Given our system, that would mean that, by default, an opposition leader takes the helm and pursues unproductive policies -- as seen by those who counselled for the course of actions taken -- of neo-appeasement and "trusting" the international community, of which we are a part, to solve a problem. I think I addressed the timing issue in another thread, either here or at RB.

As to questions, no one has yet answered my original pre conflict question, now cynically modified:

Can you spread Democracy the way they initially spread Islam, at the point of a sword? (Make the question contextual to the region, eh? )

I don't know, but the historical record is that some of the attempts have been pretty dismal failures: Viet Nam, Dominican Republic, to name a couple. Haiti . . . the jury is still out, and if one uses a basket case nation as a showpiece, is it really success?? (Well, if you go back to Haiti of 1919, when FDR kindly wrote for them their new Constitution . . . 'tis a failure.) I personally don't think so. What is happening in Mozambique, lately, anyway? What is really happening in Iran, for that matter, and is the Information Age really enabling folks to find their voices? Depending on who you ask, Tianemen Square trumps dictators, and that model will work anywhere. Others of us a less trusting in the cookie cutter approach.

So, to my original question, and the now cynical rewording, the answer won't be on the street for about 10 years. I still stick with my original premise, from a conversation with Jester and some others, that the most likely form of government in Iraq five years hence will be: an Islamic Republic. Not a carbon Copy of the Iranian version, but one the folks living in Iraq invent with much skullduggery and bruhaha in the process. Just as we did, in forming our own version of a Parliamentary form of government over here a few hundred y ears ago. They just won't have the luxury of being sorta left alone to shape their own destiny to the extent that we were . . . sucks to be them, on at least one score.

Justification for the war?

The prospect and assessment, Big PIcture wise, that things would get worse, not better, without action. That to me is a rational approach for justification: long term, big picture view, and one not well ascribed to or understood by a great deal of the public, although there are loads of smart folks who do look through that lens, and of course they all tend to disagree. Just like the smart folks here disagree on that and other topics. :) More than one way to peel an onion, what is the "best" way?

As to "who else should we de-SOB- ify?" I have to say, that question must be considered on a case by case basis, not on a "one size fits all cookie cutter" basis. One size fits all caught us during the Cold War far too often, along the lines of tarring too many places, one way or the other, with a brush of a too general policy. Pinochet seems to be the poster child for that, or even Castro and Tito.

I am guessing that one assumption for the course of action being utile was that, since it is oil rich, Iraq has the material wherewithal, long term, to pay for its own downstream needs, both rebuilding, building, and sustaining a viable nationstate and economy.

It's the short term costs, the big ones like 80+ billion (and the impact that has on medium and long term debt service) that get headlines, and well they should. But just like the Blowinski Caper, some of the sound and fury act as a smokescreen for substantive issues, or detail of interest.

Given the kleptocracy that is most government on the planet earth, the assumption that Iraq will 'pay its own rebuilding bill' in the long haul is . . . optimistic, at best. I am guessing that there are pirhanas aplenty who are drooling,scheming at how to siphon off bits and pieces of the material wealth of Iraq, even as we "speak" here on the forum: the pirhana's speak all of the languages of the globe.

And I think I know why Koffi pulled out. The UN's 2% override on Iraqi "oil for food" will end soon, to Koffi's intense fiscal dismay. :blink:

Enough meandering musing here.

I am waiting for the spring, when the "you lied to us" card will resurface, and I am sure that between now and then some more digging will be done by the folks who will use that card to their benefit. I'd be shocked if more detail were not unearthed between now and then. When it surfaces, that ever elusive and pointless "approval rating" metric will doubtless plummet. And then:

Like father, like son? We shall see.

[Occhidiangela]

Find your own. I choose not to name from whence I got that, for my own reasons.

But, for more info like that, mountains of it can be found from US Central Command's web site, the public utterances of various Coalition mouthpieces, from public releases from Mr Bremmer's office. In short, it too is less than "pure" in its context. What those factoids are is a part of the attempt to influence the information campaign related to the Iraq War. Since the shooting is still going on, I'd say the war is not yet over, wouldn't you?

[jahcs]

Thank you for suggesting the Central Command website. It has some information not found in the mainstream media.

Most of what I hear is mainstream media or from friends in Afghanistan and Iraq. The mainstream is filtered and screened for what sells and my friends don't have access to the "Big Picture," just their own small section of it.


edit: Occhidiangela, just wanted to add my post requesting some source info was written during the time Pete and The Dragoon wrote. I didn't mean for it to look like I was piggybacking on Pete's request for more info.

[Occhidiangela]

"Sorry, preemptive war *might* (just "might", no more) be justified if there is a real threat. That threat was what was sold to the American people and it was a lie. AFAIK no one got killed because Clinton lied about getting his dick sucked. Shrub's lies to the American people had a bit more repercussion"

As to the fellatrix madness, tempest in a teapot. What, the President of the US, one of the toughest jobs on the planet, does not rate a little knobber now and again? Geeze, folks, that's kinda harsh. I am just glad to see Newt took that face shot and dropped from sight, payback is a bitch, right Newt? (The way I see it, the pain from Congress could never have come close to equalling what the "hell hath no fury" pain from the wife publicly betrayed could inflict, long term.)

As to threat discussions. Doing nothing solves nothing, but doing "nothing" was never on the table. Keep on with the UN process was an option, and therein lies the a key problem: what prospect for success with 12 years of crappy track record? It's a gamble, and lots of under the table crap going on with a bunch of allies and others not so friendly. There are and were doubtless other options, many of which never saw the light of day: some because they were stupid, some due to complexity and too many moving parts.

"Threat" in what time frame?

If you see a threat in the mid term, and know-predict that inaction only makes it more probable, how are you to deal with short attention span sheep who are happy to defer dealing with a threat until it hits them in the face, until it is un-unscrewable?

The subjective assessment is: how long does it take for this threat to manifest itself, at which point it becomes Too Damned Late?

Here is part of your answer, and I am not all that keen on it. But none of this crap is easy, none of it, even though many of us want it to be rendered simpler to better understand it. It's all dirty business, as was the bombing of Serbia for 71 days.

Assume "wait and see" for another year, and then RISK that the election goes to the opposition. On that branch of "the possible" one can safely assume 4 more years of appeasement/UN work trying will solve the problem. (Track record => low confidence there.) So, your shortest time horizon is 6 years. In that time, if the correctioin is not made, will the threat be more dire? Many variables come into play, and your comments some months ago at the lack of elegance in manipulating international partners are well taken by this rogue.

Given Short Attention span Congress and public, who are all too often happy to rely on hope as a method

(see the damned foolishness lately on the tax cuts after the war started, talk about the insanity of Guns AND Butter that did in the Soviets . . . and Lyndon Johnson, a Texan)

then I'd say those who argue that "the threat was not dire enough TODAY" did not look at the problem closely enough. It is at least a 6 year time frame, which was, politically, completely unmarketable. There was therefore no clean way to sell it and have actual OPTIONS available. It is not an option to toss two straw men into a decision brief, with one Course of Action presented. (Hehe, that works both ways, I know, I once had an Admiral ram that point home to me rather forcibly, accompanied by a PowerPoint brief thrown my way, a few years back.) If you argue that not enough imagination was exercised, you may be right. Were there only two courses of action available to choose from?

And that, Pete, is just the tip of the iceberg. The WMD and its spectre were important images used for the PR campaign to support a two pronged course of action: 1441 and a multinational effort to "once and for all" solve WMD measures already in place and going nowhere, with the serial being that if that fails, (which it did in the Security Council) what eventualy happened. The attempt to use a demonstration, a show of force, which was a series of deployments in October, before 1441, ended up being a bluff called by Saddam: much to the sorrow of more than one man in Iraq.

If you seek a clean, simple justification, which I don't think you are, I expect you'll wait a long time. If you are disappointed in the process itself, and how many options weren't even up for consideration . . . you are in good company. Given the choices perceived, the justification borders on "good enough" at best. But a hell of a lot of that depends on where you sit.

FWIW: It strikes me that some of the PR was incidental, and not of White House's doing. (That country song: Do You Remember- what in the blazes did that have to do with Saddam Hussein?)

[Vandiablo]

Maybe we don't read it in the papers because it's no longer true?

... the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.

What a coincidence, a couple minutes before reading your post I just happened to see this:

Recruits Abandon Iraqi Army:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2003Dec12.html

I'm not reading the article, I'm off to play Diablo after I finish the LL. I'll skip this thread since I put more stock in the Post than in "someone".

-Van

[Vandiablo]

Just skimmed the article, it says that 480 of 900 have dropped out. Low pay was one of the big issues listed. So, yes, the first battalion is active, but woefully understaffed and undertrained.

So it's a half full/half empty thing, maybe, ... BUT in this case we see that the newspaper provides a lot more detail, and truth, than the unknown "someone".

-Van

[Mavfin]

Regardless of what political/press/diplomatic maneuvering took place (or didn't take place), what's done is done. The consequences of a complete American pullout of Iraq at this time would probably not be very good, in the short term, and especially in the long term. I'm not going to chew over old fat about whether it should have been done or not. It has been done, and we have created a power vacuum in Iraq, conveniently located in the middle of the Middle East. If that vacuum is left unfilled, i.e. by an American pullout, what or who is going to fill it? Will we like the consequences of such an action. I highly doubt it.

Live today, not yesterday.

As far as the thing about what nations get to have contracts to rebuild Iraq: If a nation goes to war, and another nation's government chooses to yell to the world that they're wrong, that's fine. They have their own sovereignty and right to say that. But they probably shouldn't expect to profit as a result of the war, after the war is over. And they may find that they can't buy their way in when it's over, either.

Either you stand with us, or you stay on the sidelines. Either is your right as a nation, but don't expect the combatants to let you profit after they've done the risky work for you. Japan and Australia, among others, understood this. Others didn't, including France and Germany. They all made their choices.

While we're talking about administration personalities: John Ashcroft makes me wish he wasn't from Missouri. He was a horrible governor, a worse senator, and I'm not even going to speculate on how the heck a POS like him became Attorney General. He makes Shrub look like the greatest man that ever lived. Trust me. We know John Ashcroft in Missouri, and he's WAY worse than W ever thought about.

Now, my (edit: next to) last opinionated point. It's going to be really sad if next November I have to vote for W, because the Democrats can't come up with anyone better than Harold Dean as a frontrunner. If you don't understand why I don't like Harold Dean, see my point above about the effects of pulling out of Iraq at this time. $80B would just be a drop in the bucket to the long-term costs of that.

Oh, and one more. The Supreme Court got one right. To paraphrase: 'Soft money is a corrupting influence on politics'. Well, DUH! Took'em long enough.

[Moldran]

Can you spread Democracy the way they initially spread Islam, at the point of a sword? (Make the question contextual to the region, eh? )

Are post-WW2 Germany and Japan not proof that it is possible ? It sure is no guaranteed success, but it obviously is not impossible.

[Occhidiangela]

If you bothered to read my post, I addressed the current events in re desertions, quitting,etc.

As to someone, I am not going to be baited into discussing why I choose to reveal or not reveal my "sources" and if you don't like it, so be it.

PM me if you want to know more.

[Occhidiangela]

But beware the cookie cutter approach.

Japan had now many local nations supporting it post WW II? none, as I recall, given their less than stellar conduct as an occupying force.

Germany was occupied after being beaten into the ground by the Red Army and the Allies in the West for three years.

Iraq was over run, rather quickly, and there are numerous local regional factions who are relatively unscathed who can and will stir the pot for their own ends.

In short, METT-T is not identical, and not even that similar. And, unlike post WW II and pre Watergate and Viet Nam, the Press were more forgiving of sitting presidents insofar as foreign policy is concerned.

Between Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, that trust was breached by the Oval Office too many times over for the Fourth Estate to ever "trust" the man in the area to that extent again.

Kennedy: Diem, Bay of Pigs, et al By 1963, folks like JP Vann were coming home and saying "we can't unscrew this pooch" and no one wanted to hear ground truth: why? There was no relevant metric. (Thanks, McNamara)

Johnson: Practicing escalatio on the Viet Namese (Footnote: Tom Lehrer for that turn of phrase) Guns and Butter? That dog still don't hunt.

Nixon: Getting caught at Watergate and the "secret" bombing of Cambodia

Eventually, the slack given to FDR, Truman, and others simply was taken in: forever. Even as charsimatic a guy as WJ Clinton had the piss taken out of him by the media, and it was not all Blow_job_Gate.

[Jester]

Could you make sense?

Kthxbye.

Jester

[Jester]

"Live today, not yesterday.

As far as the thing about what nations get to have contracts to rebuild Iraq: If a nation goes to war, and another nation's government chooses to yell to the world that they're wrong, that's fine. They have their own sovereignty and right to say that. But they probably shouldn't expect to profit as a result of the war, after the war is over. And they may find that they can't buy their way in when it's over, either."

Which is true? That we forget about yesterday and focus on what's best for the future? Or that we hold grudges over who did what?

If we're wiping the slate clean about why we went to war, why doesn't this apply across the board? Or, alternately, if we're remembering which countries wanted in and which didn't, why aren't we remembering their reasons?

Jester

"Oh, and one more. The Supreme Court got one right. To paraphrase: 'Soft money is a corrupting influence on politics'. Well, DUH! Took'em long enough."

Yeah, but money talks, and therefore is covered by free speech. ;)

[Vandiablo]

Well, ya, you betcha, I admitted I had just skipped in and planned to just skip out. My posting that I disagreed with "someone" does not necessarily mean I was countering your thoughts. I guess I'm not used to your style where you start a thread quoting someone and then disagree with them, so I didn't think there was any danger in pointing to something I just saw that was relevant and disagreed with yer quote. I hafta remember that when I try to cut corners, it's usually obvious and often not appreciated.

As for sources, I was cracking on "someone" because I figgered this is a friend of friend of friend email. If you got that message directly from someone you know over there, my apologies. I was in no way implying that the true identity of "someone" be revealed, just that the quote smelled like a pass-it-on email campaign made for political reasons.