That old hippie magazine still around? Their writers must be almost 100 years old by now...
Posted on 02/26/2008 7:51:56 PM PST by dalight
Now, in the midst of the surge, the Bush administration has done an about-face. Having lost the civil war, many Sunnis were suddenly desperate to switch sides — and Gen. David Petraeus was eager to oblige. The U.S. has not only added 30,000 more troops in Iraq — it has essentially bribed the opposition, arming the very Sunni militants who only months ago were waging deadly assaults on American forces. To engineer a fragile peace, the U.S. military has created and backed dozens of new Sunni militias, which now operate beyond the control of Iraq's central government.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
rollingstone needs to stay out of politics. LOL
Here, dalight, let me step-up and take a stab at it:
THESE LIBERALS ARE A BUNCH OF ASSHATS!
That old hippie magazine still around? Their writers must be almost 100 years old by now...
Well, one might agree. But, I think this article is more than fluff to be automatically disregarded. This is what the left is spinning to say that the surge doesn’t exist and this is due to hit the news in the next day or so. So this needs serious picking apart using facts not derision.
Rolling Stone. Now there’s a “blast from the past.” I had no clue they were still publishing that hippie rag. I see they are all still “experts” on foreign policy and military matters.
I’m sure you are in total agreement with this article’s pessimistic conclusions.
I just threw up a little in my mouth...
Boy, the level of discourse around here has definitely deteriorated. If you want to just knee jerk and yammer, go for it. But, as they say, in some circumstances its better to say nothing at all, rather than reveal one's own ignorance.
You obviously have no idea what this article says or what I might think about it. Lame.
Rolling Stone has not been relevant since 1997 (there inception).
Correction ... 1967
I remember when Rolling Stone was relevant and had lots of interesting information about music and musicians. It was a newspaper-stock tabloid back then. I used to pick it up at the college student union back in 1971 - 72. I still have them, up in the attic somewhere.
Nowadays Rolling Stone is an embarrassment - - clearly way, way past its prime. My daughter used to bring copies home once in awhile. The ones I looked at were loaded with bitter, humorless political polemics apparently written by kids who were at the Daily Collegian six months ago. I found them boring more than anything.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised the magazine survives.
And why am I supposed to believe a magazine that
1) Who’s editor and owner divorced his wife and ran away with another man?
2) Published article last year about the GOP having the “worst Congress in history” YET wont publish any negative articles about the DEM-LED Congress, which accdg to stats is REALLY the worst Congress in history.
Bah! There’s more about this liberal rag but I don’t feel like typing...
Excuse me? I was just pinging someone who is actually in Iraq and knows a hell of a lot more about the situation than you (or the writer of the article, I wager).
And yes, genius, the comment was sarcasm. Sorry I didn’t use all one-syllable words so you could have followed along better.
Divide and conquer, buy off the local leaders...it’s what works in tribal society. Would Rolling Stone rather have the Sunni tribes killing Americans, or killing Al Qaeda? It seems they prefer the former.
Ask any ye shall receive!
To quote Wretchard of the Belmont Club ...
Nir Rosen in an article entitled "The Myth of the Surge" in Rolling Stone, asserts that the Surge has not only failed to bring long-term stability, but is going to backfire. Rosen claims the Surge has only managed to "arm both sides of the civil war".The major ideas of the article are that the Sunnis have benefited from the Surge; that many of the US sponsored militias had ties to the insurgency and al-Qaeda; that the Iraqi National Police is largely Shi'ite; that participants in the Surge see cooperation with the US as an opportunity to achieve Sunni restoration. And all of these claims are to some extent true. From this Rosen concludes that Iraq is an a calm before another storm of ethnic cleansing. But does it follow?
Here are some assertions which are also true. How do we square them with Rosen's thesis? The Shi'ites are no longer helpless; the former insurgents are now in open view, visible to intelligence and some extent under discipline; the killing (which Rosen believes will pick up in the future) has largely stopped; Sunni refugees have returned; business is up. But most importantly, the Iraqi Army which will exceed more then 13 divisions in strength, is multi-ethnic. Does this sound like a nation about to fall apart?
Maybe. But the odds Iraq will fall apart is much smaller today than it was a year ago. All the surveys taken show a remarkable desire among the ordinary populace to keep the country together. The Surge has not yet won. But neither, as Rosen suggests, has it lost.
The key fact which Rosen's article omits is that the Sunnis are attempting to creep back into the national life on American terms. They have decided to attach themselves to the victors in the role of the defeated. To argue that a surrender represents a subversion may have some force, but not much. The Germans and the Japanese did as much.
For more comments on the subject, including Nir Rosens credentials...
"There are two ways to become a journalist. One way is to start as a cub reporter and work your way up through the ranks. The other way is to wait for a war to break out and then get to the frontlines as a freelancer and report from there, hoping your stories get picked up by mainstream media. Rosen chose the second approach and, while working as a bouncer in a Washington, D.C., nightclub, waited for the right foreign destination to explode, where he would then use his dissident views to help expose the myriad wrongs done around the world in the name of American imperialism."
>>Rosen chose the second approach and, while working as a bouncer in a Washington, D.C., nightclub, waited for the right foreign destination to explode, where he would then use his dissident views to help expose the myriad wrongs done around the world in the name of American imperialism.”<<
Wow. That’s more than enough qualifications to have him report for Al jazeera, CNN, Reuters, the AP AND the Guardian plus the NYT.
Who needs 4 years of journalism school when you have an MBA in being a club bouncer.
Nevertheless, this article points out a vulnerability that the US should be working on... that is getting the converted militias into the regular workforce and the official military probably before October.
Yea I figured that out, but it was already posted. Nevertheless, you still are a jerk.
Its kind of SOP, to turn a good idea working upside down as a venal display of corruption. But, sometimes even a blind sow finds an acorn. I am impressed that the military outfoxed the Al Qaeda types at their own game, but this article points to the need for a new end game to this ploy. This being called civil society. Right now, I am prepared to call this good news, but I can see how the Congress could attack this strategy and bring the Surge to a crawl if the military doesn't heed this warning.
Well, I can certainly gauge the amount of time the writers have spent in Iraq assessing the real situation.
Exactly none. ;-)
denydenydeny wasn't being ignorant. Tongue was planted firmly in cheek.
Alright, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment.
I have a question I hope you or someone here can answer. My 10th grader is currently involved in a school assignment for her honors English class. She had to choose three Statements (of the 12 or so given as choices), choose affirmative or negative, write a research paper and participate in a debate. Of the 3 Statements, the teacher decided which one each student would debate.
My daughter was assigned The “surge” strategy is helping America achieve its goes in Iraq.
We’re having a difficult time finding articles in the school’s research databases so any sites recommended would be appreciated. I’ve explained it as best I could to her already but she’s still struggling to understand since we haven’t found articles that would answer the Prongs (questions she has to answer).
She already has the whitehouse.gov site and is slowing getting info from there. Thanks for any information.
**********************
Clearly you are an authority on the subject.
Why do you think you need to chime in on this?
This is a very good source for what is really happening here.
Good luck to her!
Thanks for the reply. We did find some articles for her to use for the part of the assignment due tomorrow - some here when I learned how to search correctly and military.com, etc. It wasn’t easy to find them either. It’s the second part of the research paper/debate. Not sure if I mentioned it, but she had tons of Statements to choose from and I convinced her to choose 3 that I knew about or thought we could find info pertaining to (and convinced her not to do any of the statements pertaining the candidates and the election) - and her teacher chose one statement for each kid from their 3 choices out of the 12 or so (she chose the Iraq surge (as affirmative), during war “the ends justify the means” (affirmative), and censorship of individual freedom of speech during wartime( negative).
She’s in the affirmative for the surge is working and that was her choice) but you wouldn’t believe how difficult finding info supporting that has been. The school database went down but before it did, she couldn’t find any articles supporting the surge that would help her research paper and debate on the school database. And at least 2 references have to be from the school databases. And she struggled through the whitehouse.gov site.
She finally undestood what I was saying (it’s complicated for anyone but she’s 15 so it’s really complicated) but she needs to cite sites. She completed what’s due tomorrow and I told her I’d search for the next step in the project. It’s especially difficult when they aren’t really teaching this stuff in school, and this is her honors english class so they’re more concerned with the debate format but we need content. Content will provide a paper and debate that can’t be ripped apart. Her honors history class has discussed current events but only as a side, she said “mom, we started on the American Revolution, Constitution, we aren’t in this time period yet” because I asked if they were discussing this in history class.
One of the main problems was just explaining to her what the Statement meant: the “surge” stategy is working in Iraq. She didn’t even know what surge meant(militarily) or what a surge strategy meant and I explained as best I could but she needed actual research sites to cite. Then answering and explaining the Prongs.
Anyway, she used the stuff I found here and on military.com for this part of the project/paper/debate so she’s good to go for tomorrow. And thankfully, after 4+hours, she’s probably more informed than most Americans. Shame she can’t vote yet.
But she still needs to write the research paper and successfully debate the statement. And what she has won’t provide much detail/meat. So your link will be tremendously helpful.
Thank you so much for replying and linking the site. I didn’t even know the site existed.
Every once and a while they publish something by P. J. O'Rourke which is fine by me.
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