Posted on 08/19/2007 3:38:06 PM PDT by TSchmereL
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework . . . While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They have very little, if anything, that is positive to say about the situation in Iraq.
I think this is called the Rumsfeld plan.
That's probably why it's fit for the NYT.
The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority....
Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere....
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence."
Amazing how the same people who are so cynical about commerical marketing fall hook line and sinker for this short of political marketing
But even if they are sincere, which I doubt, they have an ego centric view based on their tiny slice of the battle field. Nothing surprising here that they happened to be in a crappy part of Iraq. However, to look out your window and claim you now understand how the whole world works is absurd and childish. Yet that is what these clowns do.
Interesting isn’t it that these clowns get coverage from the NY Times, yet these guys don’t. Curious, what was the political orientation of these “Soldiers” before they went to Iraq. Who is paying
Vets for Freedom
Hmmm....why does this message seem familiar?
“I’ve seen horrors... horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it’s judgment that defeats us. “
Colonel Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
three words: summary court marshal.
“to look out your window and claim you now understand how the whole world works is absurd and childish. Yet that is what these clowns do.”
One could ask why it is childish for these soldiers to make assumptions on Iraq based upon their 15 month experience there, but you are not childish for claiming that you understand how this works, without stepping foot in Iraq at all.
Maybe these guys are part of the democrat propaganda machine. Maybe not. Maybe they have been paid, or maybe they haven’t. I don’t put much faith in the NYT op ed page. I also happen to believe that things are better in Iraq than what these soldiers have experienced. However, for you to call them clowns for not understanding how things are in Iraq, is a bit hypocritical. They are soldiers who have served our country, and at least one is seriously wounded. There are Democrat soldiers too, and they still deserve respect for their service.
What’s weird about this article is that they write way beyond their little corner of the war. They write about things that they would have no first hand experience or knowledge of, even to go as far as to criticize us for refugees still living outside the country’s borders, which obviously they can’t verify.
Not to say these guys are stupid, just saying the statements and assertions made in the article are way beyond their pay grade, which makes me suspicious as who was doing the bulk of the writing.
In otherwards, were these guys used as props to give this editorial legitimacy?
What does the UCMJ say about Soldiers publishing political views in a newspaper that has and continues to commit treason against the US and offer aid and comfort to the enemy? The fact that they published in the nyt is telling.
There are Democrat soldiers too, and they still deserve respect for their service.
Things in Iraq are probably going ‘better’ than it would seem from a reading of this article, which I thank the poster of.
Better is a funny term. There are likely millions of Iraqi’s whose lives have been improved.
The conflicts in Iraq are being confined to terrorist/insurgent/rebel/you name it holdouts.
As ‘negative’ as their comments seem, it would be unwise for any of us to ignore what they say.
Better for us, as you indicate, to listen, combine, verify, evaluate, then act. Much like our military intelligence does.
The ‘truth’ is probably somewhere between negative of the posted article, and the positive of the upcoming testament of General Petraeus.
It all depends on which end of the horse you are looking at.
I agree 100%. My problem with the comments is the disrespect of the soldiers because their opinion is not in line with the poster’s. They may be paid writers of propaganda, but it is possible that they are actual soldiers. There are soldiers of all political views, and soldiers with many opinions. They have earned the right to their opinions through their service to our country. They shouldn’t be called clowns or worse, just because they say something we don’t want to hear. I disagree with their completely negative assessment, but I don’t disagree with their right to say it.
bump
I wish to begin by conveying our respectful appreciation of their service, and our hopes that their Staff Sergeant Murphy will recover quickly and fully from his injury. It will surprise no one that I am going to argue against some of the conclusions they offer, but I do not wish disagreement to be read as disrespect. Their service honors our nation, as does the fact that they feel they can provide a frank assessment of their observations to the public.
The piece they have published offers a despairing look at the situation in Baghdad, where elements of the 82nd have been operating for fifteen months. I do not intend to challenge their understanding of the facts on the ground, as they are based on direct observation. I assume the truth of every fact they report. What I wish to challenge is their conclusions about how events will, they seem to say "must," develop.
The whole piece is difficult to excerpt and not lose the flow of the analysis. I recommend reading the whole thing.
Can the delicate sensibilities on FR absorb anything critical about Iraq? Or will these guys just be dismissed as liberals?
Have you been there? From what I hear from those whose boots are on the ground in Iraq......this post rings true.
Maybe, but to write in this manner, and in this number, would have required assemblage/coaching elsewhere.
Iraq is not the quiet confines of campusville.
A new entry to Skippy’s List:
Skippy is not allowed to write op-eds for the New York Times.
It seems strange for people here to be critical of anecdotal stories, and the policy implications of those stories, from the troops on the ground. I recall recent posts about an Iraqi child being rescued from a well by U.S. troops and many posts about individual acts of courage and generosity by those same troops. Buy the premise, buy the joke as CAG officers used to tell young pilots about believing false visual cues during carrier landings — but it seems to me the principle is the same no matter which way it cuts.
1. That's why the NYT is promoting them. They could be the only 7 people outside Manhattan who thought the war was going badly and the Times would be promoting them.
2. Their assessment differs from that of most soldiers and other people who've taken a good close look at things on the ground, such as Michael Yon.
3. The tactics they back are the ones Rumsfeld used, which led to us getting our butt kicked for three years. In other words, their grasp of tactics and strategy is so poor they can't recognize a bad move even when it's already resulted in failure.
As usual, I'm not impressed with the latest effort by a Freeper to undermine the war effort.
Maybe they're just clueless. I mean, they're basically saying "To much American buitt-kicking, let's go back to the Rumsfeld plan." Not smart.
Can critics of the war ever compare bad reports from Iraq with good reports from Iraq and get the full picture, or are y'all too busy whining that FR is too "delicate" to swallow every bit of defeatist propaganda?
I'm not saying anything about their politics, but after the Beauchamp case, nobody should be assuming that every soldier is truthful about Iraq. About 99.999% of them are (and probably these guys are) but there are some liars and political activists in their ranks and we know that for certain now.
I'm not critical of those things and doubt many Freepers are. The point is that this ran in the NYT. anything running in the NYT should be taken with a grain of salt no matter who wrote it.
I seem to remember a muslim solder fragging his fellow soldiers...
This comes as no surprise....they need a sargents report to pre-empt the generals report...
You watch...senators will have this crumpled article in their hands demanding to know why petreas is lying...
Hell...they pushed an article the other day that said “betreas” in the frickin headline...
The left only loves soldiers who denounce war...
Don't be ridiculous.
While I'm very reluctant to side with the 82d ABN on ANYTHING in Baghdad (I worked hand-in-hand with them around Sadr City for 3 months), these guys are pretty much dead on.
Acknowledging reality is not the same as treason, no matter how badly so many on this board wish it to be otherwise.
You cannot do it, yet because you people spent time in Iraq, you think you are “experts”. You are no more “experts” about Iraq then you are of the local conditions around your home.
Notice also the key thing here. WERE in Iraq, not ARE in Iraq.
So why should I listen to the crybabies and not these guys?
By your standard they are “experts” too.
http://www.vetsforfreedom.org/
What the people are doing is acting as unpaid, unwitting propagandists for Al Qeda. All they are doing with this perpetual whining is help undermined this country’s morale in a fight it has got to win. They are giving propaganda aid to the people in the Democrat Party doing everything they can to lose. They are NOT helping the mission with this sort of drivel. They also demonstrate a pretty complete ignorance of how the surge is working.
War sucks. That not news. Crying about how bad it suck while you were there does NOT help “fix” the matter. They should simply quit whining and deal with it.
To say “Well I was in Iraq and it sucked so everything in Iraq sucks” is childish and ignorant.
Sorry having to fight terrorists doesn’t fit in with the pathetic Neo Isolationist Cold War era “Realists” dogmas.
Time to grow up and realize that the comfortable assumptions and pat dogmas of the 09-10-01 world are dead. Quit clinging to their corpse.
Napoleon in Spain, the Nazis in Eastern Europe and the Russians in Afghanistan tried these "brutal" tactic. How did it work out for them? That right, they all lost, badly. Way past time the Dinocons learn Counter Insurgency is not Total War.
“not impressed with the latest effort by a Freeper to undermine the war effort?”
Are you saying that I posted this column to “undermine the war effort?”
I have nothing to say negative about our war effort. You can check my history of comments here on FR. I do not post comments or threads that “undermine the war effort.”
I think we should be able to discuss dissenting opinions about the war in Iraq without accusing each other of “undermining the war effort.”
I think these soldiers’ view is overly pessimistic. However, some of their observations deserve to be analyzed. I do appreciate your contribution towards that effort.
Interesting take. So, you don’t feel that the ‘average GI’ would have the brain pan sufficient to craft such observations without “outside coaching”?
Apologies for the friendly fire. Mistook you for one of the surrender monkeys I had a tussle with last year.
I like to say that they all own copies of "Zapp Brannigan's Big Book of War."
I find it hilarious that they call the former regime a ‘Baathist Tyranny’ then go on to complain about disbanding Saddam’s terror army and not forgiving Baathists fast enough.
They sold out. You may think that’s smart but I don’t.
Maybe they get their information from the same place that you do. They do have television and news there.
This just in!:
Seven Democrats found in U.S. military.
Ummm....haven't finished reading this yet....but...references to "Janus?"
Is it possible that this rings a little "coached" to me? Any reason they wouldn't have used, say, "two-faced?"
5.56mm
I think I've fairly summarized the internally-inconsistent complaint, here.
America is bad because we have tried to please every party....we should instead be more nuanced.
If I Google just the terms "Janus-Faced" and "nuanced" from this article, I get a helluva a lotta John F. Kerry hits.
Not every one.
"Saddam was hanged at dawn on Saturday for crimes against humanity after Iraq's prime minister rushed through an execution few believed would help stem the sectarian violence tearing the country apart."
Forgot to ping you to my link above. It’s a very interesting blog.
ping for later
My computer is having difficulty getting to the NYT website. I’ll try again in a couple of hours.
Be careful:
"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq."
Is there assessment completely negative? That’s not how I read the article. What they seem to be saying (to paraphrase badly) is that if we abandon the idea of having an Iraq which squares up precisely with American goals we are more likely to succeed sooner. If we hold out for unrealistic goals, we won’t even be able to achieve compromise objectives.
oops, *their assessment*
I’m not talking about intelligence, I’m talking about experience. This is a pretty broad sweeping article about the situation in Iraq. They likely wouldn’t have access to the intelligence to back up the assertions made in it. I think these sargeants have the character not to speculate about things they don’t know about, for example refugee camps outside the borders. I think someone else other than them did the bulk of the writing.
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