Ignoring Success in Iraq Posted by: McQ
on Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Ralph Peters touches on a very underreported story which occurred during the unrest in Iraq following the bombing of the Golden Mosque, an event most pundits were sure would lead to civil war. That story? The Iraqi Army:
* 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.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
* 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.
To anyone with any knowledge of the significane and difficulty of such a deployment, the span of control and the possibility for problems in a hostile environment, this is a very, very promising sign. 100,000 is a huge deployment. And in the tense atmosphere within which they deployed, any wrong move could ignite the unrest they were deployed to defuse. According to Peters, the Iraqi Army did a magnificent job that day and did it with restraint.
Can anyone guess how the 2002 version of this army would have handled the situation?
Qadir'S principal American adviser, Col. Tom McCool, said of the recent mini-crisis, "It's a good-news story. The Iraqis performed every bit as well as we expected."
High praise. But more importantly:
"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. "
Pride and esprit are beginning to build within the army. Those are intangibles which any successful military unit must have. And they feed off of success. Having the type success they had in the aftermath of the destruction of the mosque was an important moment in their development into a mission capable force.
And, as Peters says, it's simply not on the radar screen of those reporting from Iraq. Probably one of the most significant factors in deciding when we'll be able to begin redeploying our troops, and, other than Peters, little if anything concerning this success is mentioned in reports coming out of Iraq.
...little if anything concerning this success is mentioned in reports coming out of Iraq.
Because the press, in their eagerness to cast a failure, has done the classic "writing the lede on the way to the ballpark" when it comes to Iraq. And to use a mixed metaphor, "that’s their story and they’re sticking to it."
Iraq must be a failure, period. It must be repeated endlessly, pounded into the heads of viewers and readers. It cannot succeed - that would encourage those Republican empire-builders to take on Iran, maybe, or Syria, or North Korea.
Further, the politicians of this country must be shown that they don’t get to set the perception of issues with the public. Neither do bloggers, talk radio, or any of the rest of the new media. The leftist old media reserve that right to themselves. Only they have the perception and nuance to tell the rest of what’s really happening.
And worst of all, for the leftist media, a success in Iraq would embolden the American federal government to continue to ignore the UN, and eventually pull support for it. It’s an article of faith with them that we need transnational government, and no amount of incompetence, corruption, sexual molestation by UN workers, or anything else is going to turn them from believing the UN is the solution to all the problems of world peace. They see a failure in Iraq an a necessary step to accepting UN supremacy and responsibility for world affairs.
I always apologize to Jon when I make these comments because of his post on beliving the sloppiness of the MSM is a much bigger factor than their bias. Sorry Jon, but the leftist bias of the MSM is so blatant I don’t see how anybody can miss it.
I don’t like Sean Hannity either, but we all know he’s biased because he admits it. But the MSM leftists will never admit it, so I’ll keep harping on it until their influence fades to insignificance.
