posted on September 5, 2007 02:02:10 PM new
Here's a fine column by David Brooks that some of you will find interesting--about what's really happening in Iraq. Sounds hopeful, at last.
Center First Gives Way to Center Last
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 4, 2007
Have you noticed the change in the Iraq debate?
Most American experts and policy makers wasted the past few years assuming that change in Iraq would come from the center and spread outward. They squandered months arguing about the benchmarks that would supposedly induce the Baghdad politicians to make compromises. They quibbled over whether this or that prime minister was up to the job. They unrealistically imagined that peace would come through some grand Sunni-Shiite reconciliation.
Now, at long last, the smartest analysts and policy makers are starting to think like sociologists. They are finally acknowledging that the key Iraqi figures are not in the center but in the provinces and the tribes. Peace will come to the center last, not to the center first. Stability will come not through some grand reconciliation but through the agglomeration of order, tribe by tribe and street by street.
The big change in the debate has come about because the surge failed, and it failed in an unexpected way.
The original idea behind the surge was that U.S. troops would create enough calm to allow the national politicians to make compromises. The surge was intended to bolster the “modern” — meaning nonsectarian and nontribal — institutions in the country.
But the surge is failing, at least politically, because there are practically no nonsectarian institutions, and there are few nonsectarian leaders to create them. Security gains have not led to political gains.
At the same time, something unexpected happened. As Iraqi national politics stagnated, the tribes began to take the initiative. The process started in Anbar Province, when the local tribes revolted against Al Qaeda. It has continued in Diyala Province and even in Baghdad neighborhoods like Ameriya. In the South, moderate Shiite parties have begun to resist the Sadrists, while in many places local groups that look like mafia families struggle to impose order on their turf.
In other words, organic local actors — some thuggish, some not — have begun to impose a security structure on parts of the country. Some are independent, some require assistance from the U.S. troops supplied by the surge.
In Washington, these trends went largely unnoticed, and the debate went on: benchmarks, withdrawal dates, all-in or all-out. But U.S. commanders in Iraq did notice, and shifted their attention. They set out to provide whatever assistance they could to the newly assertive tribes, sometimes against national meddling.
The key piece of reportage illuminating this process is Michael R. Gordon’s must-read essay in last Sunday’s Times Magazine. In one scene, a Sunni tribal leader has been captured by the National Police, who are about to hand him over to the Mahdi Army to be murdered. He manages to call the Americans on his cellphone, who launch a rescue mission. After a tense standoff, he’s freed and can go back to stabilizing his town.
In other words, as Gordon notes, a former Sunni insurgent and enemy of the U.S. ends up calling the Americans so he can be liberated from America’s supposed allies.
The crucial question now is: Do these tribes represent proto-local governments, or are they simply regional bands arming themselves in anticipation of a cataclysmic civil war?
Over the summer, a stream of the best American analysts flooded into Iraq. Upon their return they began writing reports grappling with the tribal resurgence. Slowly, under their influence, the entire debate is shifting. Efforts to transform Iraq into some sort of “modern” nontribal, nonsectarian state are giving way to more realistic visions.
David Kilcullen wrote an essay called “Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt,” which is available on the Web site of the Small Wars Journal. Kilcullen believes the tribal initiatives represent “arguably the most significant change in the Iraqi operating environment for several years.”
Anthony Cordesman has written “The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq,” which is available on the Web site of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Cordesman has been among the most mordant and therefore most accurate analysts of Iraq. In his ambivalent report, he notes that many national institutions are “unsalvageable.” But he observes that there “is a real opportunity that did not exist at the start of the year.” He praises Gen. David Petraeus and comes out, barely, on the side of patience.
As September begins, we’re finally moving beyond abstract debates over troop levels and timetables. The key questions now are: Can U.S. troops help Iraqi locals take control of their own neighborhoods? Is it worth more American lives to help them do so? And, if so, how?
--
_____________________
There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mahatma Gandhi
posted on September 5, 2007 07:51:14 PM new
He's another wacko liberal ...the surge has NOT failed.
But since it has made a difference NOW the liberals can't logically argue that progress ISN'T being made....so now they're taking a new tactic. lol
Let's focus on another challenge we face in Iraq. They'll ALWAYS find something to whine about. They HAVE to.
But their own party isn't supporting their positions. They have NOT voted to stop funding the war because THEY don't want to take responsibility for the consequences of that action. LOL TOO cowardly.
Think your david brooks had better start reading the reports coming out of Iraq by the commanders on the ground....rather than making up this nonsense. lol
The President has said that IF things continue to IMPROVE, we might be able to bring some of our surge troops home earlier than we thought at first. They would have started coming home in Feb. of next year.
So...there'd be NO talk of bringing some of them home earlier because more Iraqi's are stepping forward to fight AQ forces along side American soldiers IF your writer knew what he was talking about.
But then, most anti-war people don't. They'll believe any one EXCEPT our military commanders. tsk tsk tsk
ADMIT DEFEAT and SURRENDER is their motto.
[ edited by Linda_K on Sep 5, 2007 07:52 PM ]
posted on September 6, 2007 07:04:38 AM new
It is an interesting article, Roadsmith and perhaps there is hope if local groups try to take control of their own neighborhoods against Al Qaeda with the assistance of the American troops.
Key figures about Iraq
By The Associated Press Wed Sep 5, 12:55 PM ET
Key figures about Iraq since the war began in March 2003:
U.S. TROOP LEVELS:
August 2007: 164,000
January 2007: 137,000
CASUALTIES:
_Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of Sept. 4, 2007: 3,739
_Confirmed U.S. military wounded as of Sept. 4, 2007: 27,662
_U.S. military deaths for August 2007: 83
_Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors as of June 30, 2007: 1,001.
_Iraqi civilian deaths: Estimated at more than 66,000, with one controversial study last year contending there were as many as 655,000. According to Associated Press figures, there were at least 1,975 Iraqi deaths in August 2007.
_Assassinated Iraqi academics: 331.
_Journalists killed on assignment: 112.
COST:
_Stepped-up military operations are costing about $12 billion a month, with Iraq accounting for $10 billion per month, according to U.S. congressional analysis.
_Total cost to the U.S. government so far is more than $448 billion. A January 2007 study by Linda Bilmes of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government put the total projected cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at $350 billion to $700 billion.
OIL PRODUCTION:
_Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day.
_Aug. 22, 2007: 1.15 million barrels per day. (Power outages on August 16 and 17 affected crude oil production.)
ELECTRICITY:
_Prewar nationwide: 3,958 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): four to eight.
_Aug. 14, 2007, nationwide: 4,110 megawatts. Hours per day: 10.
_Prewar Baghdad: 2,500 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 16-24.
_Aug. 14, 2007, Baghdad: Megawatts not available. Hours per day: 6.1.
_Note: Current Baghdad and nationwide megawatt figures are no longer reported by the U.S. State Department's Iraq Weekly Status Report.
TELEPHONES:
_Prewar land lines: 833,000.
_March 13, 2007: 1,111,000.
_Prewar cell phones: 80,000.
_March 13, 2007: 8,720,038.
WATER:
_Prewar: 12.9 million people had potable water.
_July 13, 2007: 15.4 million people have potable water.
SEWERAGE:
_Prewar: 6.2 million people served.
_July 13, 2007: 11.3 million people served.
INTERNAL REFUGEES:
_Aug. 28, 2007: According to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, approximately 2.2 million people. An estimated 750,000 have been internally displaced since the beginning of 2006.
_Aug. 25, 2007: The Iraqi Red Crescent says the number of registered displaced families inside Iraq doubled since January 1, 2007 — from 447,337 to 1,138,000 as of July 31, 2007.
EMIGRANTS:
_Prewar: 500,000 Iraqis living abroad.
_Aug. 28, 2007: More than 2 million in neighboring countries.
___
Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Defense Department, Department of Energy, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, The Brookings Institution, Iraq Body Count, The Lancet, Iraqi ministries of health and education, U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, U.N. High Commission for Refugees, Committee to Protect Journalists, Harvard University, Economist Intelligence Unit, National Priorities Project, International Telecommunication Union, The Brussels Tribunal, USAID, Iraqi Red Crescent, Office of the Secretary of Defense.
AP researchers Julie Reed and Rhonda Shafner in New York compiled this report.
posted on September 6, 2007 01:59:16 PM newHe's another wacko liberal ...the surge has NOT failed.
After the deadliest summer ever in Iraq, Linda things the surge has been a success. The Iraqi government has only met 3-4 of the benchmarks. I wouldn't call that a success.
"In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious. - John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester
posted on September 6, 2007 10:12:08 PM new
Classic, you better check the times and dates because your reading comprehension is starting to match lindak's.
Besides, I pop in here now and again to see if you've been able to crawl out from under her skirt yet but I see you're still peeking out from it checking up on me for her. Still content being the obedient puppy, eh?
posted on September 7, 2007 12:44:30 PM new
As Congress heads toward a funding showdown over the fate of Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq, there are some pundits and politicians out there who remain, believe it or not, bullish on the future of America’s involvement in Iraq.
During last night’s Republican debate, TalkingPointsMemo points out that John McCain was even trying to out-hawk Mitt Romney. Romney stated that “the surge was ‘apparently working,’ to which McCain replied, ‘The surge is working, sir. No, not “apparently.” It’s working.’” And Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) said this week that the surge is “a huge success! It astonishes me why people aren’t willing to at least acknowledge the successes and then talk about what we do.”
One wonders if these men have seen the recent independent audit from the Government Accountability Office, which failed the Bush administration on 11 out of 18 benchmarks and points out that daily attacks against Iraqis haven’t decreased because of the surge.
The GAO report has been criticized by some surge supporters, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who tried to undercut the GAO’s credibility despite citing their other research in official letters. It also led White House spokesperson Dana Perino to complain that the GAO’s work was “unrealistically harsh because it assigned pass-or-fail grades to each benchmark.” Hey, Dana, there’s a war on out there. This is pass or fail.
Surge co-architect Fred Kagan penned a critique of the GAO report in the pages of The Weekly Standard. He criticized the report as a “fool’s errand” concocted by a hostile Congress, adding: “The assertion that there is no ‘clear and reliable evidence that the level of sectarian violence was reduced’ will surprise those who have been listening to American and Iraqi officers alike brief that the levels have been falling for months—as well as those who have walked the streets of formerly war-torn neighborhoods in Baghdad.” One has to wonder which soldiers he’s listening to, and if his walk in the “formerly” war-torn neighborhoods of Baghdad was anything like John McCain’s infamous trip to market—surrounded by a heavily armed military escort.
Kagan wonders why the GAO doesn’t take the army’s figures at face value. Well, one reason might be because the government isn’t counting Iraqis killed in car bombs as victims of sectarian violence. Ilan Goldberg compares this oversight to “count[ing] murder rates in the U.S. but exclude[ing] all gun violence.”
Why are so many still supporting the failed effort in Iraq? Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media continues to treat Gen. David Petraeus as if he’s Diogenes. The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum notes:
“[Petraeus] is keenly aware of the value of both the media and public opinion, and he did what any counterinsurgency expert would have counseled in his circumstances: he unleashed a hearts-and-minds campaign aimed at opinion makers and politicians. For months the military transports to Baghdad have been stuffed with analysts and Congress members, and every one of them has gotten a full court press of carefully planned and scripted presentations, tightly controlled visits to favored units, and assorted dollops of “classified” information designed to flatter his guests and substantiate his rosy assessments without the inconvenience of having to defend them in public. ... Even though there’s been no discernible political progress, minimal reconstruction progress, and apparently no genuine decrease in violence, he’s managed to convince an awful lot of people that the first doesn’t matter, the second is far more widespread than it really is, and the third is the opposite of reality.”
Greg Sargent of The Horse’s Mouth also breaks down the mainstream media’s failure to be more skeptical about the surge in Iraq, pointing out journalistic breakdowns ranging from “big news orgs repeatedly twisted the words of Democrats who had returned from Iraq to make their assessments sound more positive than they were,” “big news orgs shifted the definition of the success of the surge from a political goal to a military one,” and “many news organizations gave tons of coverage to outside experts who said the surge is working, while giving little to none to people who said it wasn’t.”
“If you step back and survey the totality of media’s performance this summer on the Iraq debate, it becomes a good deal clearer just how awful it’s all been—and just how complicit these failings were in helping to shift the debate,” Sargent writes.
And don’t forget, as the invaluable New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out many months ago, on Sept. 26, 2004, the general wrote a Washington Post op-ed that towed the Bush line completely at the expense of, well, reality.
Six weeks before the last presidential election, Petraeus wrote, “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously.” And those security forces were doing just fine: their leaders “are displaying courage and resilience” and “momentum has gathered in recent months.” Turns out, more than three years later, none of these things have come to pass.
In fact, according to this morning’s Washington Post, the Iraqis “will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months” and “cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven.” Reporter Karen DeYoung adds, “The report, prepared by a commission of retired senior U.S. military officers, describes the 25,000-member Iraqi national police force and the Interior Ministry, which controls it, as riddled with sectarianism and corruption. The ministry, it says, is ‘dysfunctional’ and is ‘a ministry in name only.’ The commission recommended that the national police force be disbanded.”
Smart Bush-boosters like The New York Times’ David Brooks are prepared should the plan fail. This week he wrote, “the surge is failing, at least politically, because there are practically no nonsectarian institutions, and there are few nonsectarian leaders to create them. Security gains have not led to political gains.” Brooks doesn’t quite conclude that this is a reason we should take our troops out of Iraq, but at least he raises the question—long unraised in conservative circles—“Is it worth more American lives to help [Iraqis control their own neighborhoods]? And, if so, how?”
And so we begin again...
Eric Alterman
"In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious. - John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester
posted on September 7, 2007 12:48:27 PM newStill content being the obedient puppy, eh?
What do you expect from a lap dog that has always been content taking orders from people? Don't you know those that served in the military can not think for themselves.
That is why Squiddly Diddly will always be a seamen first class.
posted on September 7, 2007 02:42:35 PM new
Now, Stonecold, you KNOW that they just can't have ANYONE mentioning that we ARE seeing improvement since the surge. LOL
posted on September 7, 2007 06:22:58 PM newSo they are meeting the benchmarks. Again, another stupid liberal trying to deflect the truth
I bet you call that a whopping success. When you set the bar so low, even the stupidest people can meet the lowest goals. If it was up to you and Linda, you would be throwing a parade for the Iraqi people.
After 5 years the Iraqi forces are not even close to securing their own country but yet you call that a success.
It wouldn't surprise me if you said you brought home a test with a score of 25% and your mom hung it up on the fridge and told you how proud she was of you. Good boy stoney, you got a 25% maybe in another 5 years you might be able to pass the test. Keep you the good work.
The same people that are cheering for the Iraqi meeting 3-4 benchmarks are the same one that are part of the 30% that approve of Bush.
What a pitty.
"In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious. - John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester
posted on September 7, 2007 10:24:14 PM new
Again, ANOTHER uninformed statement by ld.
The dems who have been visiting Iraq lately are changing their positions on supporting the war, ld. I'm talking about dems who didn't support the war....were against continuing the surge.
I guess in your world, they're President Bush supporters also. LOL LOL LOL
For crying out loud, ld. REAL some REAL news.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on September 10, 2007 09:38:49 AM new
Real news, like that garbage that is found on Fox News. You got to be kidding right. No wonder why you can see the truth in what is happening.
"In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious. - John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester
posted on September 11, 2007 04:52:11 PM new
Oh but ld, I'm SURE not alone.
Anyone who wants to listen to PRO-American news reports/discussions/debate and NOT all the un-American reports from the others...biased, VERY biased anti-war propoganda are turning into Fox News.
And the other stations/commentators are LOSING viewership.
=============
CABLE NEWS RACE
VIEWERS, SEPT. 10, 2007
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,289,000 FNC PETRAEUS 1,451,000 FNC SHEP SMITH 1,210,000 FNC GRETA 1,180,000 FNC HUME 1,156,000
CNN DOBBS 839,000
CNN KING 834,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 810,000
CNNHN GRACE 806,000
CNN COOPER 651,000
CNN BLITZER 649,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 602,000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on September 12, 2007 11:28:29 AM newAnyone who wants to listen to PRO-American news reports/discussions/debate and NOT all the un-American reports from the others...biased, VERY biased anti-war propoganda are turning into Fox News.
You proved my point, when the conservatives do not tell the entire story you will only see one side of the real situation. Even Bill O said he no longer reports on every bombing in Iraq. I guess he is to afraid to show what is really happening there. Now how truthful is that. "In my experience, those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid, and the envious. - John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester
posted on September 12, 2007 03:46:42 PM new
Like I've said, ld, more and more viewers are turning TO Fox and away from the liberal MSM. They've grow VERY tired of listening to the bias of the anti-war left...and want to hear ALL the news....not just anti/un-American news.
LOL
There's a good reason Fox News has been growing while the liberal left is losing viewship and readership. HONESTY is not something they'll get from the liberals.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
[ edited by Linda_K on Sep 5, 2007 07:52 PM ]
Are YOU a Bunghole?