Comments Posted By Drongo
Displaying 231 To 240 Of 246 Comments
"By not bringing its sole source out and by not finding other sources to verify the sole source accounts, AP has not acted in a manner consistent with its Code of Ethics nor in a manner requiring reporters to actually adhere to journalistic ethics in reporting."
If you note from the story, now that he has had his name put out there and has been found, he has been arrested by the thugs in the Iraqi ministry of the Interior (yes, the one with the torture chambers).
Maybe this is why
1) They didn't ID their source closely
and
2) They are lucky to be able to even single source some of their stories
Comment Posted By Drongo On 5.01.2007 @ 19:18
"You are saying that it doesn’t matter if what we read from AP or any other news outlet is true. Iraq is a bloody mess and that’s the only thing that we should know about it? Are you serious?"
Close. It is impossible to know with any degree of confidence whether any particular story coming out of Iraq is true or not. There is such a vile brew of violence, oppression and fanatical loyalty to one's own over there at the moment that almost any story may be (and probably is) skewed in favour of one or other group. Every single group is media savvy and trying their hardest to make the narrative their own. And yes, of course, that includes the US. Wuldn't you be dissapointed in your armed services if they *weren't* playing the propeganda game? Since they obviously are, why would embedded journalists be reliable sources? They are as tainted, by association with one of the propeganda players.
The thing is simply a mater of focus and context. Malkin and the others were clearly convinced that they had hold of a Rathergate story. They were using it to paint AP specifically as the enemy. They don't use falsehoods from, say, FOX news to paint FOX news as the enemy. This is because FOX is, basically, on their side. They perceive AP to be not on their side.
The problem here is that AP is trying, under almost impossibly dangerous circumstances, to get out the news as reported. Undoubtedly some of their reportage isn't true. I imagine that all sorts of people want to sell them all sorts of stories for their own reasons. They then try to filter out the accurate (or newsworthy) ones and publish them. Sometimes they fail to get it right I am sure.
This, however, is not Malkin's point. She was accusing them (indirectly, admittedly) of actively taking part in a deception.
The thing to take fromt he burning story isn't that it is true, or that it is false. The thing to take is that it isn't surprising. With a hundred drilled bodies being found every day or so, it is obvious that acts on a par with burnings are taking place. The notable thing about the burnings story wasn't that some people were brutally murdered, it was the originality of the method.
I find it horrifying that we don't even notice the drillings anymore because they are as mundane as another couple of carbombs.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 5.01.2007 @ 19:13
IRAQ: THE "SCORCHED EARTH" ALTERNATIVE
"Riiiight…and the reason we are going to talk to Iran and Syria is so that we can exchange Christmas cookie recipes…"
Yes, your government's action usually make sense, don't they. The words "desperate" and "last gasp" don't ring true here at all?
Still, good to see the quick to insult thing working for you.
As for the later chap who said;
"Conduct your own research, but Iranian agents have been captured and killed in Iraq by the US military during the course of this war – just because CNN isn’t reporting it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening."
I have no idea where to even start. Since you obviously do, could you show me the evidence? Remembering that, of course, I trust US military sources as much as I trust Iraqi stringers.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 28.11.2006 @ 14:10
"It will never happen this way – but Iran and Syria would royally deserve to have to pick up the pieces in Iraq after they have done everything possible to destroy civil order and keep the country embroiled in violence."
To be absolutely accurate, the US and UK did everything possible to destroy the civil order by bombing the daylights out of it and sending the survivors home without pay. As far as I am aware there is no actual evidence of Iran and Syria being directly involved at all.
I know, I know, evidence is sooooo 90s...
Comment Posted By Drongo On 28.11.2006 @ 12:27
PLANS FOR IRAQ OFFENSIVE CO-OPTS THE ISG
"Too little. Too late."
Much, much too late, I wholeheartedly agree.
I find myself thinking "Maybe noble, maybe malicious, but certainly hopeless" with regard to the whole invasion.
Unfortunately, I almost guarantee that this won't be the last "Big push".
Comment Posted By Drongo On 16.11.2006 @ 14:01
POLITICIANS HEAD FOR THE BRIAR PATCH TO AVOID IRAQ TAR BABY
"No timelines. No “phased withdrawal.†Get Maliki to sign off on US forces fighting and killing the militias. Instead of the half hearted attempt currently underway to reform his government, urge him to go much farther by cleaning out the vipers nest in his own Interior Ministry. Find some way to accelerate the training and deployment of the Iraqi army. Purge the police of militias and death squads."
As I said before, you're faced with the same choices as you've have for the last 2 years. Get out in as good order as possible or continue to bleed slowly as the whole thing falls apart around your ears.
If Malaki permits the US to purge Sadr city of militias, you're looking at a shooting war like Falluja and Najaf. Fine, you do that. What's the plan? Kill them all? That was tried in Falluja and it is still a hotbed of insurgency completely out of the control of central government and the occupying forces. If you imagine that killing Al Sadr will quieten things down you haven't been paing attention. Right now the only thing holding Iraq together at all is that the senior leadership of the militia groups wants in to the political process. The more of their leaders you alienate, the weaker the political process, the more it all falls apart.
Purge the militas from the police force? You're joking, right? The only members of the police force and army with any get up and go are the militia members. You purge them, you kill the government, and you fire the starting gun on the real civil war.
Plus, what are you planning to use to do this? Current force levels are clearly not enough. Institute a draft? You are definitely joking now. The US public will never stand for it.
You just can't win. It isn't defeatism, it is defeat.
Bin Laden is going to be laughing at you now or in the future. Face it. Deal with it. Move on.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 15.11.2006 @ 18:11
"If there were a way to win the War in Iraq, would you support our staying there until the job was done?â€... "
That's the point. There isn't one.
If someone says "I want to run a four minute mile" you can encourage them, train them, push them, invest in them. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but there is value in trying. Not least because being able to do a 4 1/2 minute mile might be good enough.
If, on the other hand, they say "I want to live on the surface of the Sun" there is no point whatsoever in even trying. It is impossible. Give it up. If they have invested millions of dollars into building their rocket and training their crew, the best course of action is to cut your losses right there and then.
There is no plan that will fix things in Iraq. Whether there ever could have been is debatable, but the fact that there isn't now is just obvious, surely. I mean, look at your later example;
"Suppose they were willing to raise troop levels, get serious about training the Iraqi military, tell Maliki to shove it and take off after Mookie and his militia and finish the job that should have been done 2 years ago – kill the bastard and destroy his ability to make trouble."
Raise troop levels. With what? You're already sucking up all the reserves, crippling the Guard and running out of working kit. I suppose one could pull troops out of other garrisons around the world. Is that the plan?
Training the army (and police). These will be the ones who can't be trusted by US troops because lots of them are working with the insurgents. The ones who are deeply divided along sectarian lines. The ones running death squads, stealing US supplied arms and giving them to insurgents, the ones infested with militia groups.
Good luck with that.
As for telling Malaki to shove it, good plan. Show him as the the puppet he is. Remove any hope of legitimacy. Show all Iraqis who have any doubt that the Iraqi state is a mask lying over the (lets's face it) hated Americans.
That'll stabalise things, won't it.
As for killing Muqtada and destroying his militia, well, that could effectively lose you an army. If the Shiites started really kicking off like the Sunnis, the supply lines will be completely cut, every man and his dog would start joining in and the government would collapse utterly. You'll start seeing US casulaties in the hundreds, if not thousands per month, every month.
In response the only military option will be effectivly flattening the homes of a couple of million crazy Shiites. Not only is this obviously monstrous, it won't even work.
In this sort of stabalisation operation, you need hearts and minds from the people and legimacy for the government. The plan above looks like a recepie for the exact opposite. It will kill a lot of people but it won't solve any of the problems.
You don't believe me? Give it a go. I'll be waiting in 6 months to see the disaster.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 6.11.2006 @ 20:30
IS DEFINING "VICTORY" IN IRAQ AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY?
"This was the instant judgement of the President’s political opponents, as dismissive of the President’s pronouncements yesterday as they have been for at least 2 years. Because of that, their credibility as war critics is about as high as the Administration’s credibility on what progress has been made in winning the war."
I don't understand. Critics of this war have been largely on the money for three years and the Bush administration have been generally wrong for the last three years. Why would this make their credibility low?
"But it will not be a threat. It will not have WMD’s. And it will not have Saddam Hussein running the country."
It wasn't a threat, it didn't have WMDs, and it will either be an anarchic breeding ground for hatred of the West and terrorists, or a dictatorship which will, to survive, be at least as brutal as Saddam's regieme when it put down rebellions. Said dictatorship would then, of course, be able to produce WMDs using the money gained from the vast increase in oil prices that have occured, in part, because of the various wars in the Middle East.
I just don't see how this can be spun to be a good thing, strategically.
"It may not even have an elected government if things continue the way they have in recent months as the insurgents and terrorists have ratcheted up the violence to unbearable levels in order to give the Democrats ammunition in the upcoming November elections."
Affecting elections is, of course, central to the insurgent's strategy. One would be a fool to think otherwise. I doubt that it is the driving force behind the 'insurgent in the street', but the planners are well aware of the timetable they are on.
However, is that any good reason to vote for the people who got us into this mess in the first place? They only have what they consider their best interests at heart (misguided or not). They don't give a fig for your interests. Why would their desires affect what you consider to be your best interests?
Comment Posted By Drongo On 26.10.2006 @ 17:46
IRAQ: THE WITHDRAWAL CLOCK IS OFFICIALLY TICKING
"I did not Advocate killing EVERY Muslim in the world!"
Didn't think that you did, though I've become very concerned by the number of people that I have read advocating such mass slaughter, or even nuking places like Iran pre-emptively and massively. Frankly, some people have forgotten some of the other lessons of WWII and it scares me.
"My only point among the facts and figures, was that the Leftists in This country, point to the “numbers†without historical contexts, as an indication of Failure, and you cannot do that!"
The point being made in these claims is usually a comment on the stated reason for the invasion, and the later "Liberation and democracy" goals. The point is to say "If 600,000 extra people have died then we have failed to liberate them". It is an attempt to measure success.
"You know, post -WWII, we had a pretty good little “insurgency†going in Germany"
Yes, I did know that as it happens (I am a big history fan...) but it was of a very different stripe. There you were definitely facing people without a hope of success, and with little popular support by that stage.
As you say, Iraq is a very different kettle of fish.
"For me, after the ground campaign phase of the war was over, and we took Baghdad, I think we had about a month, “goodwillâ€, to make take some concrete steps to head off the insurgency, and that we completely FREAKING flubbed it, at every turn."
I was reading Tim Collins book on his time in Iraq a couple of weeks ago and I was struck by how difficult the job he had was. Success was just taken as a given by the politicians, but it was obviously far more difficult than imagined.
"We should’ve issued the Iraqi Army orders to report to their Barracks, the next day, for new uniforms, and full pay; very slowly and surreptiously carried out a “de-Bathistfication†plan of the highest levels, out of sight, used the rest to keep the lid on the country; put out the PR campaign about how they were the new Iraq Army, and their job was to protect the country from the Iranians and to keep Al Qaeda out; and did what we basically did in Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan!"
I agree with every word, with one change. I'd have made a point, the next day of praising their courage, both in fighting and in surrendering in the face of Saddam's reprisals, their dedication to the free people's of Iraq and their part in the formation of a new Iraq.
Then I'd have given them a payrise.
"I do know this though; giving up and withdrawing, would be the WORST thing; so we have to find something “in-betweenâ€; what exactly, I’m still working that out…"
See, that's where I've ended up and I can't think of anything so I am defaulting to looking after our own. I advocate withdrawl, but only out of the hopelessness of the situation. Not popular I imagine, but everything so far has made things worse.
Comment Posted By Drongo On 17.10.2006 @ 16:30
"Drongo: You are a gracious man, in the face of an over done, and unprovoked assault!"
That's OK, I've got a thick skin and I figured that you weren't really talking to me.
“Less Islamic nutcases†as the indicator of success.â€
you might not be so happy when I tell you that I do differentiate between Muslims and Islamic nutcases. I broadly seperate them as people for whom Islam is a part of their life but not their driving force and people for whom Islam is their driving force. Thus one way to reduce Islamic nutcases is to turn them into plain and simple Muslims. Another way, obviously, is to kill them. My thesis is that killing them tends to influence more Muslims into being Islamic nutcases by driving them into the arms of the most obvious protective umberella available.
That's why I said that killing a million Iraqis will not improve the strategic situation. It will just make a vast proportion of the rest turn more strongly to religion, leading to more nutcases.
The problem is how to reduce the number of Islamic nutcases. Simply reducing the number of Muslims is unlikely to achieve that, in my opinion.
I'm not asking the question to make a point. I'm asking the question because I honestly don't know what the answers even look like these days. At the start of the Iraq war I had a pretty accurate picture of how things were going to work out. I thought that the "Flowers and parades" plan was just far too optimistic, and I also thought that the people planning the occupation obviously didn't know and didn't want to know what they were getting into. So, sectarian strife, abuses on all sides, mass killings, all the fun of the fair.
Now we have in front of us a falling apart state, with a civil war on the go and a heavy dose of radicalism on the side.
The first thing that one needs to do when considering a strategy (as in any project) is "What are we trying to achieve". Only when that has been explored can one go onto "How can we achieve that", because otherwise you have no way to measure success or failure, and with no means to measure success or failure you cannot change tactics meaningfully.
Killing people simply isn't working. Having elections isn't working. Building up Iraqi security forces isn't working. It seems that everything that we do makes more Islamic nutcases.
So, "What are we trying to achieve?"
Comment Posted By Drongo On 17.10.2006 @ 10:10
