Posted on 10/03/2006 4:36:23 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
It all boils down to nothing more then that.
This is old news. Time to move on. (Using a well-worn Clinton tactic.)
Well....Woodward himself admited that he and his publisher and his newspaper intentionally released this book now in order to affect the election. So woodward, Simon and Schuster and the WAPO are all working hand in glove with the DNC. It should not surprise anyone; the only surprise was that Woodward actually admitted this on air.
Why don't the Republicans just float the same line? You hear the Rats over and over again saying that they're patritotic and looking out for national security as a first priority...total rubbbish...or delusion.
It got buried under two gay and pedophile stories.
Such an ignominious end to such a fine book /sarcasm.
Oh my. Stories like this just might prevent Bush from being elected to a third term /sarcasm
Do they offer solutions, other than "cut-and-run"? Do they offer a strategy other than "let's-give-terrorists-rights"?
Similar to the standard "according to high level anonymous sources".....
http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Security_Forces
Listening to all the Media hysteria over Bob Woodward's latest attempt to be the new Kitty Kelly, one is struck by just how wrong the Drive By Media is on every aspect of the Iraq War.
Here is the raw data on Iraq. Seems Bob Woodward latest work is simply a regurgitation of every falsehood, half truth and exaggeration present by the Junk Media on Iraq since 2003.
In a vain attempt to falsely validate preconceived notions, Mr Woodward demonstrated how the Left has managed to be wrong on every aspect of the Iraq War. Mr Woodward's central thesis is that attacks are "as high as they have ever been". Perhaps that is true. Even if true those attacks are getting less and less effective. If conditions are worsening why were the Iraqis taking higher monthly casualties in 2004 and 2005 with a smaller force?
Simply put BW, like the rest of the American Political Left is full of it. They have had their minds made up about Iraq from even before the war started. In his latest work it is clear Mr Woodward simply went to find people who would say what he wanted to hear. It is also becoming apparent that when he did not hear what he wanted, Mr Woodward simply misquoting the source to put his Democrat Party Masters spin on the data. Apparently this current book is his act of atonement to the DC Establishment for writing a fairly balanced book on President Bush last time.
If you chart the data at the sources above, you see a base line of violence. While the violence ebbs and flows the base line is steady at 65 Coalition casualties a month. The Iraqis are averaging a steady 200 casualties a month. No sustained rise in baseline casualties to validate the "Iraq is heading for Civil War" Democrat Media Machine spin.
What is particularly significant about the Iraqi Security Forces casualties is they are averaging the same casualty levels with a much larger force. As of Aug 2006 there is a 300,000 Iraqi security force in the field with about 5,000 being added a month. By the end of the year the Iraqi Security Forces will be complete fielded. Right now out of 18 provinces in Iraq only 2 are considered "not ready" for transition to Iraqi control. Of course the two provinces are Anbar, the province along the Syrian border and Basrah the Shi'a stronghold along the border with Iran. Yet even in both those areas significant progress has been made just in September 2006 alone.
In Anbar the Iraqi tribes have entered into an agreement to work with the Iraqi Government to root out the foreign terrorist groups. In Basrah, the British and Iraqi forces just started operations to crack down on the Shi'a militias.
Iraq: British, Iraq troops begin Basra mission
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1709154/posts
Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents (The NY Times is deeply saddened)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1703582/posts
This data totally undercuts the spin presented by Bob Woodward, and other Democrat Party propagandists, that Iraq is "heading for Civil War" or is "spinning out of control".
What Woodward et all seem to fixate on is Iraqi Civilian casualties. What they forget is a terrorist or a militia member killed in intra tribal gang warfare is considered "an Iraqi civilian casualty". So when you hear a news story that says "40 bodies discovered around Baghdad" MOST of them are probably casualties from gang on gang violence. While that violence is an on growing crises we and the Iraqis will have to deal with, it is not a fundamental threat to the long term survival of the Iraqi Government.
Obviously the immediate counter the Leftist propagandists will claim is that ;We are not making fast enough progress" That is nonsense.
look at the data on Iraqi security forces. More and more of the job is being taken up by Iraqi forces. 2 of 18 Providence have been turned over to complete Iraqi control. Out of 18 Iraqi provinces all but 2 are at least partially under Iraqi control All the progress in the war is on our side. The enemy is making no progress. Time is on our side, not theirs.
Another factor on Iraq the Leftists fails to grasp is how the war in Iraq has fundamentally changed in the last 6 months. Because the external Terrorist threat has been significantly reduced, we are able to focus on other lesser threats. Witness what the British down south, and the US in the Baghdad region, are doing. They are working with the Iraqis to weed out the gangs and militia that sprung up in the wake of Saddam's fall.
Counter Insurgency is slow, painful work. But the progress is all on our side. The "Insurgents" has demonstrated no ability to politically or militarily evolve. Guerrilla war strategy consists of 3 phases.
1. Stage one: very small unit harassment actions.
2. Stage two: continuation of state one with an evolution to large units actions. Development of larger and large geographic areas fully under Guerrilla control.
3. Stage three: conventional warfare between large units.
The Terrorists are still stuck in stage one of Guerrilla Warfare. They can wreck stuff and kill people they cannot grow. They cannot take and hold ground or engage in anything beyond small scale hit and run attacks.
Their failure to develop a shadow political structure to act as a polar opposite to the Iraqi Government is their fatal flaw. They simply lack the structure or local support network needed to move beyond state one
The claims and assumptions stated as "fact" by Mr Woodward on Iraq are fraudulent. Considering he has got just about everything on Iraq completely wrong in his recent public statements, one has to wonder just what else he make up for this book?
Have you heard about his death-bed interview with Casey? Of course Casey's wife, the CIA and the CIA people guarding his room knew nothing about it...Woodward is damned good!
"This is old news. Time to move on. (Using a well-worn Clinton tactic.)"
And, don't forget "Its the economy, stupid." What'd the Dow do today?
Bob woodward is making all this stuff up just to sell his book.
Bob Woodward is full of chit. And what to the Democrats propose to make Iraq better besides cut and run? From NRO re: Woodward's campaign season lying:
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Woodward Misleads [Mario Loyola]
Tonight on 60 Minutes Woodward is going to argue that the administration has been misleading the American people by claiming things are getting better in Iraq, while in fact they are getting worse.
He cites a "Secret" chart showing that attacks have reached almost 900 per week in Iraq, which Woodward says are attacks "against our troops." This is misleading on several counts. First, this blockbuster "secret" information is in fact continually updated and systematically released by the Defense Department in the high-profile quarterly Report on Stability and Progress in Iraq. ( See p. 31).
Even worse, Woodward implies that the attacks he's talking about are attacks are "against our trooops." But they are not. As the Report explains (again, P.31):
For this report, the term "attacks" refers to specific incidents reported in the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) Significant Activities database. It includes known attacks on Coalition forces, the ISF, the civilian population, and infrastructure.
And in fact, as the following page shows, attacks against Coalition forces have dropped since the summer of 2004, while casualties of Iraqi Security Forces have increased dramatically as ISF have moved to take main responsibility for providing security in the country ( p.32). Also the attacks remain confined mostly to one out of 18 provinces (Anbar) and Baghdad, while the vast majority of the country — 14 out of 18 provinces — has remained peaceful and largely secure. In light of these factors, ongoing progress in the political realm is bad news for the insurgency. Why? Because insurgencies fighting a domestic government eventually lose if they cannot win.
Meanwhile, the very statistic Woodward cites in support for his proposition shows that his proposition is fallacious, which I'm sure will prove to be the case with much of his latest Potpourri-of-Beltway-Gossip-Posing-as-a-Book.
Posted at 2:02 PM
Then again, Farenheit 911 was touted as a "Documentary", and the wingnuts lapped it up.
Like P.T. Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute".....
I want someone to write a book on the life of Bob Woodward. This I would buy ;-)
It get's better...now pat buchanan has written a hit piece based on woodwards book. buchanan quoting woodward...Barnum's dream.
Fortunately, most common sense voters tune out the rhetoric as the election draws nearer....(Democrats NEVER let common sense interfere with their straight-ticket ignorant button-pushing)
Who knows? Did the MSM even report on the Dow?
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