American Dien Bien Phu? (MEGA BARF ALERT)

A former president, red-faced, bawls his rage at Fox News' Chris Wallace, who had asked why he had not shut down bin Laden and Co. in the seven years he had to do it. The president of the United States declaims to a partisan audience in Alabama, "The Party of FDR and Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."

America has taken on the aspect of France's Fourth Republic after the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Case in point: "State of Denial," by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame.

As White House press secretary Tony Snow said, the book is cotton candy. It melts in one's mouth. There seems to be little here that is new, shocking or significant. That confidential memos at State and the National Security Council conflicted with the rosier rhetoric of President Bush is hardly news to a nation, a majority of whose people now believe Iraq was a mistake. All it means is that our commander in chief has tried to maintain the morale of the home front.

Among other revelations, we learn that Robert Blackwill of the NSC sent a memo to Condi Rice arguing that 40,000 more troops were needed in Iraq, that George Tenet and J. Cofer Black of the CIA went to see Condi to warn her something big was up, two months before 9-11, that Chief of Staff Andy Card pushed to have Donald Rumsfeld replaced, that Kissinger met often with President Bush to insist that victory is the only real exit strategy. But Henry has been writing that in The Washington Post.

People recently removed from power are leaking to Woodward to ensure that the first draft of history shows that their sage counsel had been ignored. They are scoring points off their own president, who once entrusted them with high office.

Among the more important revelations, however, is an unstated one. So badly are things going in Iraq that men who once had influence over U.S. war policy feel compelled to cut loose of that policy and of the policymakers: Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice. This book exposes their fear that America may be losing the war -- and their determination to swim clear of culpability before the ship goes down.

Of significant interest is the comment of Gen. Abizaid, Centcom commander, to two friends from Vietnam days: "We've got to get the (expletive) out of here," meaning out of Iraq.

Asked by his friends about his victory strategy, Abizaid replied, "That's not my job." A jolting comment indeed from the general who is to lead us to victory.

Unlike history, Woodward's books are fast-paced, frothy reads that reward his sources by heroizing them and paint those who decline to confess to Bob as obtuse, oblivious to what's going on. In earlier books, when things appeared to be going well in Iraq and Afghanistan, this White House collaborated, and was rewarded. Almost all emerged as sagacious and strong. This time, Woodward met with closed doors.

Understandably, for things are not going well in Afghanistan or Iraq, though we do not need another book to tell us that. The question that needs answering is: What do we do now?

According to the National Intelligence Estimate, leaked to The New York Times and partially declassified last week, our intel agencies believe the U.S. invasion of Iraq has so inflamed the Arab and Muslim world it has spawned terrorism. Yet, the same NIE argues that a too-rapid withdrawal could mean collapse of the Iraqi regime, triumph for the jihadists and a calamity for the United States.

But, then, we did not need the NIE to tell us that, either. For the American public, 60 percent of whom believe Iraq was a mistake, also opposes immediate withdrawal, fearing the disaster of which the NIE warns.

Still, the Woodward book, the NIE and the savagery of this campaign seem certain to create a crisis for Bush after November.

How, after all, when one's former aides are telling Woodward the White House and the Pentagon blundered in their management of the war, does one convince the American people they did not?

How, after Bush has called the Democratic Party a cut-and-run crowd, and Democrats have accused the White House and Pentagon of being incompetents in fighting the war in Iraq, does one ask for and receive bipartisan support to stay the course?

What do our troops in Iraq, who risk their lives every day, think when they read that their commanding general believes, "We've got to get the (expletive) out of here," and that a victory strategy is "not my job."

France's defeat at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina lead to a second war of national liberation in Algeria, the fall of the Fourth Republic and the call for Gen. de Gaulle to assume power. The general did, and he rang down the curtain on the French Empire.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

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?

I think they are both lost in overlapping portions of the same wilderness.

What a marvelous and accurate observation. I may have to steal that from you. :-)

It occurs to me watching all the hype over Woodward's attempt to be the next Kitty Kelly, that the US political scene is as much DC Establishment vrs the American People as it is Republican vrs Democrat.

Just because we won in 2000, many of US Conservative have forgotten that the DC Establishment is still our blood enemy. Politics is not just Democrat vrs Republican, it is also largely a battle of the DC Establishment vrs the American people.

That best indication of that divide is John McCain and the RINO Senators. EVEN when the President is totally right, they always find a way to straddle the issue. To try and be on both sides of the issue to avoid being seen as supporting the President. That is why you hear all the rage on the Left that "the Republican Senate sold us out" to Bush over the Detainee bill . To many people in the DC Establishment it is not so much Republicans vrs Democrats but Old Boy Washington vrs the Hick Newcomers. Woodwards supposed interviews, some of which are all ready being disputed, make it pretty clear a number of old Republican politicians and operatives are running scared of the DC Political-Media Complex.

They just cannot seem to grasp that Talk Radio, the 'Net and Cable TV News is destroying their cozy little Information monopoly. They cannot seem to grasp that they can no longer be one type of politician in DC and a different one back home in Red State America. Now days people KNOW what Pols did almost as fast the Pols do it. There are no more media gatekeeper to make sure what happens in DC stays in DC

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