Slowly but surely
Horvath
<comes...@ntani.firenze.linux.it> wrote this crap:
>http://www.msnbc.com/news/956458.asp?0cv=KA01
>
>U.S. troops have been the target of multiple attacks since
>hostilities
>officially ended in Iraq on May 1
>
>When is Enough Enough?
Jack Kelly: There's a war on / Better to fight the hard-core killers
in Iraq
Sunday, August 24, 2003
There is no development in Iraq that the news media do not treat as a
setback, so it comes as no surprise that crepe is being hung by the
cartload in the wake of the suicide truck bombing of the United
Nations compound in Baghdad.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette
(jke...@post-gazette.com).
As I write this two days after the bombing, Nexis indicates there
already have been 183 news stories printed that use the word "chaos"
to describe the situation in Iraq, 33 that use the word "quagmire" and
four that use both.
Television is worse. The "CBS Evening News" broadcast Aug. 20 a report
by Mark Phillips which Mickey Kaus said in his Slate.com column was
"so jaw-droppingly one-sided and opportunistically defeatist" that it
"makes the BBC look like 'The O'Reilly Factor.' "
"Phillips outlines U.S. goals in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . and then
asserts flatly that 'chaos and blood, not security and democracy, have
been the result,' " Kaus said. The only authorities Phillips cited for
this conclusion were two leaders of radical Islamic groups (neither of
them Iraqi).
"That's it. No attempt to even summarize what the Bush administration
might credibly argue that it's achieved, much less to actually film
somebody saying it," Kaus wrote. "Even as an antiwar document, this
was bad journalism."
"Judging from news reports . . . some might think my native Iraq was
in a terrible mess. Not so," wrote Ayad Rahim in The Washington Times.
"Except for the isolated contract killings and sabotage, the country
is calm and experiencing improved conditions day by day," Rahim said.
"A general who previously served in Kosovo said things are happening
in Iraq after three months that didn't happen after 12 months in
Kosovo."
"There is another Iraq the media virtually ignore," wrote Marine Lance
Cpl. John Guardino. "It has been a model of success. The streets are
safe, petty and violent crime are low, water and electrical services
are almost universally available, and ordinary Iraqis are beginning to
clean up and rebuild their neighborhoods. . . . A deep level of mutual
trust and respect has developed between the Marines and the populace
here in central and southern Iraq."
The bombing of the U.N. complex, and the earlier bombing of the
Jordanian embassy, actually are indications the United States is
succeeding in Iraq.
The original strategy of the terrorists was what might be called the
Mogadishu strategy. Kill a few Americans and they'll leave, as they
did in Somalia in 1993.
The terrorists killed a few Americans and we didn't leave. And the
terrorists discovered a downside to attacking Americans. Americans
shoot back. As I write this, Central Command is reporting that Ali
Hassan al Majid, who orchestrated the gassing of the Kurds, No. 5 in
the deck of 55, has been taken into custody. Saddam's sons Uday and
Qusay are burning in hell. Saddam is running like hell. The Mogadishu
strategy hasn't worked.
The terrorists have discovered that if they attack Americans, they'll
probably get killed. So they've shifted to softer targets. But though
this reduces military danger, it increases political risk.
"Baghdad residents condemned the bombing, drawing a distinction
between terrorism against humanitarian workers and the guerrilla
attacks on U.S. soldiers, which many Iraqis consider legitimate
resistance to foreign occupation," the Knight Ridder news service
said.
Guerrillas must swim in a sea of at least some popular support. The
sea is drying up.
Journalists are beginning to note, and lament, that Iraq is becoming a
magnet for al-Qaida types. "It would appear the very terrorism the war
in Iraq was meant to combat is now being drawn into the country with
renewed vigor and no lack of targets," wailed UPI senior editor Claude
Salhani.
As usual, journalists are putting a negative spin on a mostly positive
development. To win the war on terror, we have to kill the hard-core
terrorists. It is better to fight them in Iraq, where our soldiers can
kill them without reading them their Miranda rights first, than it is
to wait for them to strike in Chicago or New York.
We have a "flypaper" strategy. It's working.
He...@Horvath.net
Ave Imperator Bush!
Bush Was Right! Four More Years!