Has al Qaeda over-played its hand?

[fundingfather]

<p>

Faced with attacks against their sheikhs and clan members, a number of Sunni tribes from Hawija – an insurgent bastion in northern Iraq - have declared war on Al-Qaeda’s frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.</p>

<p>“We shall fight all those who commit such attacks, notably Al-Qaeda,” the tribal leaders said in a statement that has been circulating around Hawija.

<a href=“http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=15914[/url]”>http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=15914&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The question is, will the American media ever give this side of the story?</p>

[driver]

<p>Oh, I wouldn’t hold my breath, but there are some intrepid souls who are actually going out and doing reporting work. It’s starting to seep through.

So why were we told that Iraq was irreversibly in the throes of civil war when it wasn’t remotely true? I think the answers are straightforward. First, of course, some parties in the West are anxious to believe the worst about Iraq. They’ve staked their reputations on Iraq’s failure.</p>

<p>But there’s no way we can let irresponsible journalists off the hook - or their parent organizations. Many journalists are, indeed, brave and conscientious; yet some in Baghdad - working for “prestigious” publications - aren’t out on the city streets the way they pretend to be.</p>

<p>They’re safe in their enclaves, protected by hired guns, complaining that it’s too dangerous out on the streets. They’re only in Baghdad for the byline, and they might as well let their Iraqi employees phone it in to the States. Whenever you see a column filed from Baghdad by a semi-celeb journalist with a “contribution” by a local Iraqi, it means this: The Iraqi went out and got the story, while the journalist stayed in his or her room.</p>

<p>And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don’t pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad. And some of them have agendas of their own.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64677.htm[/url]”>http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64677.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[itstoomuch]

<p>Does it matter?</p>

[Strick11]

<p>Why, yes, it matters. What might have been a civil war, what someone wante to be a civil war has backfired.</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>Here are some other quotes from the article to which Fundingfather linked:</p>

<p>"In the last month-and-a-half, the head of Al-Nuaim tribe, Ibrahim Al-Nuaimi, and one of the heads of the powerful Jubur tribe, Ahmad Mehdi Saleh, have been assassinated in this Sunni rebel bastion, 220 kilometers (137 miles) north of Baghdad.</p>

<p>"Khaled Abdel Hussein, a doctor at Hawija’s general hospital, was also killed by armed men who barged into the hospital building and sprayed it with bullets.</p>

<p>"General Hatem Khalaf Al-Obaidi, head of the police of nearby Kirkuk, was also gunned down while in the area.</p>

<p>"‘It is a terror campaign against our leaders,’ Sheikh Abdel Rahman al-Assai, head of the Obaidi tribe, said.</p>

<p>"'We are not going allow them to silence us and do this to us. The resistance opposes the occupation and is an Iraqi affair.</p>

<p>"‘Terrorists and Takfiris (Sunni extremists) kill, kidnap and terrorise our people. We cannot accept this,’ he said.</p>

<p>"He felt it was legitimate to kill these men as they belong to ‘Zarqawi and such groups.’</p>

<p>“Insurgent activity is rife in the area which has earned the nickname of Iraq’s Kandahar - an allusion to the former Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan.”</p>

<p>It takes an “intrepid soul” (or perhaps even a reckless one) to go out and report on the streets in Iraq. The death count among journalists in Iraq since we invaded has reached 94.</p>

[driver]

<p>If they’re not willing to be intrepid, they have no business going there and pretending to report on that of which they have no first hand knowledge, was the point. No one denies it’s a tough job.</p>

<p>The cites you pull from FF’s OP sound more like a typical day in California gang country…not pleasant, but hardly civil war.</p>

[Strick11]

<p>Actually, they read like the Iraqis are tired of the foreign insurgents, and how ever much they may not like us, they’re determined to drive the real foreign killers out of their country.</p>

<p>As if this was a bad thing?</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>Driver,</p>

<p>You’re trivializing the situation in Iraq.</p>

<p>There were 804 juvenile youth gang killings in the the entire United States (with a pupulation of 295 million) in 2004, according to FBI statistics. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/documents/CIUS_2004_Section2.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/documents/CIUS_2004_Section2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>There have been over 1,000 Iraqis killed in sectarian violence in the last two weeks alone. </p>

<p>You can chide the press all you want for failing to report good news in Iraq, but the situation in Iraq is bad. It’s something short of all-out civil war, but it’s bad. I have little doubt that if we were to withdraw any time soon, we would see all-out civil war in short order.</p>

<p>William F. Buckley is right: “One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.”</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>Greybeard, the point is that the media doesn’t seem to be reporting on the shift that is going on there. No one is claiming that Iraq is a picnic, but most of the soldiers have indicated that it is not nearly as bad as what is proclaimed in the media. OK, that is business as usual in American media - if it bleads it leads.</p>

<p>However, they don’t seem to be reporting on the shifting attitudes that appears to be occuring in Iraq. The above quoted article talks about the falling apart of what used to be allies in the war against America and how now the Sunnis see al Qaeda as an enemy rather than an ally. Also, here is a report by one of the Iraqi journalists who is actually doing the real reporting for the American media:

But you know, the direction of the anger has changed. A year ago everyone was angry at the Americans. Everyone thought they were responsible. But that is not the message I am getting on the street now. People know these attacks are being carried out by the extremists.

<a href=“http://onthescene.msnbc.com/baghdad/2006/02/the_iraqi_stree.html[/url]”>http://onthescene.msnbc.com/baghdad/2006/02/the_iraqi_stree.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>How many American newscasts present this perceived change in Iraqi attitudes? Other than the hysteria about, and almost hoping for, civil war, what else does the media give the American public to think about? Peter Pace was on the Sunday talk shows this week saying that the tips coming from Iraqis about terrorists has gone from 400 per week (I think he used that measure of time) to 4,000. Does this change in attitudes get reported?</p>

[overseas]

<p>Here’s a real shock!</p>

<p><a href=“http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/misc/jazeera_clash.mov[/url]”>http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/misc/jazeera_clash.mov&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Son sent it to me yesterday. I don’t know if the translation is correct, if it is there is something going on…</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>Fundingfather,</p>

<p>Here’s a story on the most recent Military Times poll on the war in Iraq, taken in November and December, and published two months ago in that publication:</p>

<p>"Support for President Bush and for the war in Iraq has slipped significantly in the last year among members of the military’s professional core, according to the 2005 Military Times Poll. </p>

<p>"Approval of the president’s Iraq policy fell 9 percentage points from 2004; a bare majority, 54 percent, now say they view his performance on Iraq as favorable. Support for his overall performance fell 11 points, to 60 percent, among active-duty readers of the Military Times newspapers. Though support both for President Bush and for the war in Iraq remains significantly higher than in the public as a whole, the drop is likely to add further fuel to the heated debate over Iraq policy. In 2003 and 2004, supporters of the war in Iraq pointed to high approval ratings in the Military Times Poll as a signal that military members were behind President Bush’s the president’s policy.</p>

<p>"The poll also found diminished optimism that U.S. goals in Iraq can be accomplished, and a somewhat smaller drop in support for the decision to go to war in 2003.</p>

<p>“The mail survey, conducted Nov. 14 through Dec. 23, is the third annual effort by the Military Times to measure the opinions of the active-duty military on political and morale issues. The results should not be read as representative of the military as a whole; the survey’s respondents are on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the military population. But the numbers are among the best measures of opinion in a difficult-to-survey population. The professional military seems to be lessening in its certainty about the wisdom of the Iraq intervention and the way it has been handled,’ said Richard Kohn, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina who studies civil-military relations. ‘This seems to be more and more in keeping with changes in public views, and that’s not surprising.’”</p>

[Strick11]

<p>[IRAQ:</a> THE UNTOLD TRUTHS](<a href=“http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64752.htm]IRAQ:”>http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64752.htm)

AMONG the many positive stories you aren’t being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets. </p>

<p>It’s routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless.</p>

<p>What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war? </p>

<ul>
<li><p>The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets. </p></li>
<li><p>Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier. </p></li>
<li><p>Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war. </p></li>
<li><p>Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq’s army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army. </p></li>
</ul>

<p>AS a result of its nationwide success, the Iraqi army gained tremendously in confidence. Its morale soared. After all the lies and exaggerations splashed in your direction, the truth is that we’re seeing a new, competent, patriotic military emerge. The media may cling to its image of earlier failures, but last week was a great Iraqi success. </p>

<p>This matters. Not only for Iraq’s sake, but because standing up a responsible military subordinate to an elected civilian government is the essential development that will allow us to reduce our troop presence in the next few years. Much remains to do - and much could still go wrong - but I, for one, am more optimistic after this visit to Baghdad.

The New York Post</p>

[driver]

<p>I have all the respect in the world for Mr. Buckley, when he writes about that which he knows, but I don’t think his recent sailing excursions have included the Persian Gulf. Likewise, I’m sure the good professor from UNC is an astute armchair general, in addition to being a great poli-sci professor. But I’m more inclined to trust the judgement of a boots-on-the-ground former infantry officer (and an often strident administration critic, btw) who has actually been there himself and spent time on patrol. From his follow-up article to the one posted above:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64752.htm[/url]”>http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64752.htm&lt;/a&gt;

BOLGER’S a story himself. He looks like a taller, more-muscular Gary Cooper and has a distinguished career behind him as an Infantryman. But he’s also written a rucksack full of superb books ranging from military history to fiction, and he’s one of the most respected thinkers-in-uniform of his generation.</p>

<p>He’s the right man for his assignment. In an exclusive interview with The Post, Bolger stressed that the coverage of the past few weeks - and of the Iraqi army overall - had been just plain inaccurate.</p>

<p>Building a military from scratch and changing its culture profoundly is incredibly difficult, yet Bolger’s impressed that, after some undeniable birth pains (before Bolger’s tenure), the Iraqi army’s development is accelerating impressively.</p>

<p>“We bail the Iraqis out less and less,” he told The Post, observing that the Iraqis want to do things by themselves - although they’ll need some U.S. support for the next few years. “They want us to make a long-term commitment,” he said, referring not to a heavy U.S. troop presence, but to a mutually beneficial strategic partnership.</p>

<p>Sitting behind his desk in a Spartan office in Baghdad, Bolger exploded another myth - that the new Iraqi military’s been infiltrated by militia members. “It’s actually hard to penetrate the army,” he said. “They’re not garrisoned locally, but mixed into truly national units and deployed around the country.” In the recent flare-up, sectarian issues had not been a problem in a single Iraqi unit.</p>

<p>Bolger mused about the terminology Iraqi officers employ. They refer to terrorists as “terrorists,” but call the native insurgents “criminals” and despise them. He stresses that the Iraqis have it right: “The criminal element is an underestimated element in the violence. A lot of these people are just predators.”</p>

<p>Bolger’s a man whose judgment I trust, having known him for 20 years (we all knew back then that Dan was destined for high rank). If he’s confident, I’m confident. And Dan believes that, if we have a reasonable amount of patience, the new Iraqi military will emerge as the best in the Arab world - and a firm ally in the region.</p>

<p>AS I head home after far too short a stay with our wonderful soldiers, I can only offer Post readers my honest assessment:</p>

<p>Serious problems remain. No question about it. We’ll hear more bad news (some of it may even be true). But from my heart I believe that the odds are improving that, decades from now, we’ll look back and see that our sacrifices were worth it. I found Baghdad a city of hope, its citizens determined not to be ruled by terrorists, fanatics, militias or thieves.</p>

<p>We are doing the right thing.</p>

<p>Nor do I say this lightly. I just learned that the son of an old friend was seriously wounded in Iraq and evacuated to a military hospital in Germany (the latest news I have is that the young man will make a complete recovery - let’s pray that it’s so).</p>

<p>This is a gigantic struggle for indescribably high stakes. We’re trying to help a failing civilization rescue itself, to lift a vast region out of the grip of terror and fanaticism, and to make this troubled world safer for our own citizens. Don’t let anyone tell you we’re failing in Iraq.</p>

<p>The future remains undecided, but the last few weeks may have been a decisive turning point - against our enemies. Iraqis, military and civilian, stood up for their own country, for reason, for peace.</p>

<p>What more could we ask?

And here’s the second page of that Military Times article you cite, GB. Seems that 80% of the troops polled agree with FF’s assessment of media mis-reporting.

'They don’t report good news’
In follow-up interviews, most poll respondents said they remain solidly behind their commander in chief and his policy in Iraq.</p>

<p>“I think we’re fortunate as a country to have someone who has the focus and the persistence that he does because it’s so easy to get sidetracked,” said Navy Cmdr. Jeff Bohler. “The ability of the president to persevere in the face of overwhelming criticism is really impressive. It takes someone with a spine and courage.”</p>

<p>Many attributed the fall in support, both among the public and the military, withto a misguided lack of patience.</p>

<p>“We live in a society where … people want answers right away,” said Air Force Capt. Randall Carlson, a physics instructor at the Air Force Academy, who said he approves of the president’s policies. “Unfortunately with Iraq, there are no easy answers.”</p>

<p>While 73 percent of respondents believe it’s likely the United States will succeed in Iraq, that’s down 10 points from a year ago.</p>

<p>“We’re losing a lot of troops. The suicide bombers are not stopping,” said Air Force Staff Sgt. Melida G. Castano. “It doesn’t look promising at this point.”</p>

<p>But others blamed the loss in confidence on the media, which many said has failed to report positive news in Iraq. Four of every five respondents said they believe media reports are often inaccurate.</p>

<p>“They don’t report the good news, and if they do, it’s on the back page,” said Marine Chief Warrant Officer-3 Michael Edmonson.

</p>

[Greybeard]

<p>It’s been a long time since I expected media reports on much of anything to be especially accurate. But I’m having a hard time imagining the sort of good news that should be displacing from the front page the bad news that’s being reported these days (1,000 people killed in a week of sectarian violence, the assassination of an Iraqi general, the destruction of the Askariya shrine).</p>

<p>It’s also no surprise to me (and should be no surprise to anyone who has ever worked in any kind of bureaucracy) that the career officer whose job it is to help train the Iraqi army to take our place on patrols says that we made mistakes before he took the job, but that things are going splendidly now.</p>

[TheDad]

<p>GB: why…you’re a cynic!</p>

<p>It pays to bear in mind that, scaling for population, the estimated 1,000 Iraqi casualites in a week would be the equivalent of 10,000 or more in the U.S.; I think folks would be concerned about that level of violence here and not be nearly so dismissive about it.</p>

<p>Yesterday, Ambassador Khalilizad said that toppling Saddam Hussein had opened a Pandora’s box of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war. Duh. A reasonably bright high school kid with a week to research could have told you that before we invaded; apparently there were no reasonably bright people, high school kids or not, paying attention to this when engaged in their hell bent preparations to invade. But Khalilazad making this sort of statement raises a question: why does the American ambassador to Iraq hate America?</p>

[mini]

<p>So, as the Washington Post reported (and two major tv stations had stories on three weeks ago, as did CNN - but I don’t know about Faux Gnus), the 100-member Sheik militia wants to fight the foreign fighters because, "“We are a group of the Anbar people who want to get rid of Zarqawi . . . because this is the only way to make the Americans withdraw from Ramadi or Iraq in general.” That way, with the Americans gone, they can get down to the serious business of killing each other.</p>

<p>They do recognize the need now, more than ever, given that the U.S. has become less and less capable of doing the job, and the Iraqi military can’t either. “It came from a need to destroy al-Qaeda, which we thought the Marines might have been able to do. We were wrong,since these armed men became stronger and raped other cities.” (Who’s winning and who’s losing?)</p>

<p>“But Khalilazad making this sort of statement raises a question: why does the American ambassador to Iraq hate America?”</p>

<p>Maybe it’s catching?</p>

<p>What about Clinton?</p>

[Strick11]

<p>

Yesterday, Ambassador Khalilizad said that toppling Saddam Hussein had opened a Pandora’s box of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war.

</p>

<p>Yet the evidence to date says that it’s not even producing a legitimate civil war. Oh well, the SOB’s still alive, so just say the word and we can put him back in power any time you like. Of course, he’ll die as a natural course some day and then we’ll have to worry about it all over again since he killed anyone even remotely capable of handling the situation out of fear of a revolt against him.</p>

<p>But until a real civil war breaks out instead of being headed off by sectarian leaders and supressed by the military, maybe we should hold off. </p>

<p>BTW, the 1,000 deaths appears to be greatly exaggerated. The number varies according to who is reporting it, but the one reported by Iraqi morgues is closer to 400, too high, true, but let’s stick to unbiased reports, OK?</p>

[driver]

<p>Yes, again from Col. Peters, who went there and left his hotel room, and didn’t rely on others to report for him:

Whenever you see a column filed from Baghdad by a semi-celeb journalist with a “contribution” by a local Iraqi, it means this: The Iraqi went out and got the story, while the journalist stayed in his or her room. And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don’t pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad. And some of them have agendas of their own.
A few days ago, a wild claim that the Baghdad morgue held 1,300 bodies was treated as Gospel truth. Yet Iraqis exaggerate madly and often have partisan interests. Did any Western reporter go to that morgue and count the bodies - a rough count would have done it - before telling the world the news?

</p>

[spoonyj]

<p>Three years into this thing and we’re debating whether or not Iraq is on the verge of civil war. Not a good sign.</p>

[itstoomuch]

<p>now that I know that 4 of 5 respondents believe that the news May be inaccurate and that there may not be 1300 dead Iraqi in the morgue. Perhaps there are only 130, and someone slipped a zero, but then again it may be 13,000. </p>

<p>I feel so much better that I really can’t believe either the numbers or your quotes, because I’m now one of the 4 of 5. </p>

<p>I guess we won.
I won’t tell you any lies. Because I’m the truth teller.</p>