IT'S GETTING BETTER (Must Read!)

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/ ^ | 10/21/03 | Andrew Sullivan

[swilhelm73]

 
IT'S GETTING BETTER: Here's another version of the case for optimism in Iraq. And, on the scene, a great new blog is gathering steam, called "Healing in Iraq." There's a very helpful discussion of what exactly American casualties are being caused by:

[T]his resistance the Americans are facing is not ascribed to one group. There are already about 20 of them we hear about daily. Jaish Mohammad, Saraya Al-Faruq, Saraya Al-Jihad, Kataib Al-Hussein, Kataib Ali, Ashab Alrayat Alsud, Ashab Alrayat Albidh,...etc. Notice the similarity of some of the names with Palestinian militant groups, they have obviously took it upon themselves to make Iraq another Palestine.
And of course we have fingerprints of Al-Qaeda: The Jordanian Embassy and the UN compound bombings, and lately Baghdad Hotel's attack. So it's an unpleasant mix we're dealing with here.
One thing is certain. The attacks are less frequent than say two months ago. The attacks lately have been harming more Iraqis than Americans. Mortar shells in Ba'quba three weeks ago took 12 innocent lives at a grocery market. A bomb planted beside the sidewalk in Adhamiya exploded when a bus stopped next to it killing 7 people. This has made people very bitter and critical whenever they hear about attacks. More and more people are informing against others they know involved with attacks. Large numbers of Arab infiltrators have been arrested. Of course they came from Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

Then there's this fascinating account of a bombing the guy witnessed:

One afternoon I had just got back from work and was going to change my clothes when suddenly *BOOM* The windows shattered all around me in pieces, there was a smell of something like gunpowder. I looked out but there was dust everywhere. I remembered that my brother was outside. I carefully opened the door, and to my surprise found 4 American soldiers in our garden, they were knocking on my grandmother's house door, I worriedly asked them what happened. They told me to stay away. I offered to open the door for them, which I did. They entered and went upstairs all the way to the roof, I stood in the hall with one of them who informed me that a bomb exploded behind their humvee just in front of the house, no one was hurt. They were suspecting someone attacked them from this house. The others came down, apologized to me and my grandmother (who didn't understand what was going on anyway) then left the house.
I went out to find a crater in front of the house. My god that was close. By a miracle nobody in the street was hurt. The idiots who planted that bomb were dumb enough to put it inside a sewers drainage which absorbed the shock of the blast. The only damage was the sound it made. Most of our windows were shattered.
After a while the soldiers left the place. Suddenly a reporter and a cameraman from Al-Arabiyah station appeared, they were so fast. I crossed the street to take a look. They were talking to some bearded guy who I hadn't seen before in the neighbourhood. He was enthusiastically talking about the humvee that flew in the air, and the 4 injured soldiers. I didn't see any of that. I was bewildered. Someone next to me told me that nothing like that happened at all. My brother and a couple of friends of his started to chant in front of the camera: LIAR, LIAR,... Everyone laughed at this, but the bearded guy started to swear by Allah. Someone pointed out that the bearded guy wasn't even in the area when the bomb exploded. Uh oh, I thought, he seemed to know about it before it happened. The cameraman violently shoved my brother and his friend aside telling them to shut up. I stepped forward and gave him a push from behind. He almost fell over. I warned him that the camera he was holding would be in a thousand pieces if he dared touch my brother again. He backed up. A neighbour of ours hollered them to come and see the damage in their house. They refused to do so and left.
In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at .... in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it.
That's the way media in present day Iraq works.

And not just in Iraq, buddy. You should listen to NPR sometimes.
- 2:01:50 AM

 
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "You know, a lot of our guys in Iraq carry around pieces of the World Trade Center. The chattering classes are talking about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. These guys are under no illusions. It's all part of the same war." - Richard Perle, in a worthwhile interview in the Jersualem Post. My favorite aphorism: "Syria is a terrorist organization."

THE RUSSIAN GAMBIT: With Iraqi oil in the, er, distant pipeline, and the Russian markets beginning to pop, maybe Dubya's grand energy strategy isn't looking so foolish after all.

WITCOVER WON'T BUDGE: He stands by his use of the term "imminent threat."
- 2:00:30 AM

[AFPhys]

Here is a rather short article which may be useful fodder for your ping list. It illustrates the way the things _really_ are in Iraq.

[Dog]

Check out what the Arab TV network did....and I bet it was reported over here...

Suddenly a reporter and a cameraman from Al-Arabiyah station appeared, they were so fast. I crossed the street to take a look. They were talking to some bearded guy who I hadn't seen before in the neighbourhood. He was enthusiastically talking about the humvee that flew in the air, and the 4 injured soldiers. I didn't see any of that. I was bewildered. Someone next to me told me that nothing like that happened at all. My brother and a couple of friends of his started to chant in front of the camera: LIAR, LIAR,... Everyone laughed at this, but the bearded guy started to swear by Allah. Someone pointed out that the bearded guy wasn't even in the area when the bomb exploded. Uh oh, I thought, he seemed to know about it before it happened. The cameraman violently shoved my brother and his friend aside telling them to shut up. I stepped forward and gave him a push from behind. He almost fell over. I warned him that the camera he was holding would be in a thousand pieces if he dared touch my brother again. He backed up. A neighbour of ours hollered them to come and see the damage in their house. They refused to do so and left.

In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at .... in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it.

That's the way media in present day Iraq works.

[Timesink]

Media Schadenfreude / Shenanigans ping

[gramho12]

This is a copy of a letter I recently wrote regarding the media's obsession with keeping a scorecard of soldiers deaths in Iraq:

The other day I heard the famous ABC radio news report: " Another soldier killed in Iraq. This will make the 102 soldier killed in Iraq since President Bush announced the end of major combat."

Well, I am getting sick and tired of this scorecard the media keep on this one issue. So, I decided to do a little research on my own, which took me all of 5 minutes to gather in a Google search (is this not available to these hotshot reporters? Oops, I mean journalists).

Since Iraq is about the same size as California, I discovered that in 2002 1,842 people were murdered in that state, 580 of them in LA. So it would not be too much of a stretch to say that it is safer for a US soldier to be in Iraq than in LA. Of course, soldiers can carry guns in Iraq, which they cannot in the glorious state of Cal-ee-fornia.

Now, the statistics I am stating do not include deaths as a result of car accidents, which obviously would make the Iraq/California safety ratio even greater.

So to sum up, we have put 150,000 or so troops in a war, in harm's way, with the threat of chemical and biological weapons always a possibility. We overtook Baghdad in 3 weeks, liberated a people, took out the 2 people most responsible for murdering thousands upon thousands of Iraqis and holding them in terror. Our able troops have helped rebuild hospitals and schools, and kept the peace for most of the country, Our engineers have rebuilt the infrastructure, bringing electricity up to a higher standard than before the war. And on and on....

And we just hit the 6-month mark.

Is it any wonder that more people are so "disenfranchised" from the truth, held in ignorance of these accomplishments from the truth-impaired media that is most reponsible for keeping us informed?

All I can say is, Hurray for Blogs! I love my news unfiltered. I have enough sense and savvy to weed through the information and come up with what is truth and what is fiction.

[Peach]

It seems those who really count completely understand the linkages between 9/11 and Iraq.

[Peach]

Great research on your part!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Whoa...great article. Thanks for the pings!

Andrew Sullivan's doing a fine job of exposing the real story in Iraq.

In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at .... in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it. That's the way media in present day Iraq works.

~~~
In reality, no one was injured and there's a good chance the bearded guy planted the bomb.

Saddam's 'Iraqi Info Ministry' evildoers are still spreading anti-Coalition lies in new jobs in the new free media.

The now free Iraqis are not amused.
~~~

If you want on or off my Pro-Coalition ping list, please Freepmail me. Warning: it is a high volume ping list on good days. (Most days are good days).

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[samtheman]

But according to the dimowits, if only the UN was in there running things, then everything really would be getting better. After all, Bush has no plan. The implication being that the UN must have some wonderful plan. Oh, they have a plan. To resume bilking the Iraqi's of billions. Their ongoing criminal enterprise was suspended by the US in Iraq. Kofi wants to get his hands on those koffers, and our own dear dim dimowits want to open the door for him.

[maica]

Ah, yes, I remember the UN plan for stopping the bloodshed in Liberia - make the US do it!

No inconsistency here is there?

[Valin]

bump