BLACKFIVE: Spinning Something Out Of Nothing

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Spinning Something Out Of Nothing

Posted By Blackfive

My two cents on the two main reasons for the recent violence in Fallujah:

FEAR

2. The 82nd Airborne has left Fallujah and was replaced by the Marines. Just like yesterday, the 82nd experienced the same violence for months after they penetrated the city's neighborhoods. The Marines did the same very recently. And it pisses the Baathists off to no end.

That's it. That's the magic formula that I came up with in about two minutes standing in front of a computer.

Now, you have the New York freakin' Times with a story that is awash with Generals in nail-biting indecisiveness and the CPA rippling with the undercurrents of doubt about our role in Iraq. This "news analysis" piece is deficient in both news and analysis - it just spins towards another supposed exageration by the Bush Administration.

U.S. Optimism Is Tested Again After Ambush Kills 4 in Iraq
By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 31 — Hours after the deaths of the four American civilians who were dragged from their vehicle and mutilated in Falluja on Wednesday, an American general went before reporters in Baghdad with the air of measured assurance that has characterized every daily briefing on the military situation across Iraq.
<...>
Nearly a year into the insurgency, the command, in lock step with the civilian administration headed by L. Paul Bremer III, remains relentlessly positive.

But along with the publicly expressed confidence, there are hints that American generals are not as sure as they were only weeks ago that they have turned a corner in the conflict. Nor do the scenes from Falluja on Wednesday — Iraqis mutilating American bodies, and crowds cheering at the sight — appear to fit the theory put forward by the American military that Islamic militants, including foreigners, rather than Iraqi supporters of Saddam Hussein, are increasingly behind terrorist attacks. Falluja, 30 miles west of Baghdad, has been the volatile center of support for the toppled dictator, and a bellwether of the wider war.

This Burns guy goes on to speculate that the infamous Zarqawi letter is a fake and uses some inconclusive evidence to proclaim it so - because he wants all of our troubles in Iraq to be from Iraqis and not Al Qaeda. Is Burns concerned about reporting the truth or spinning the war away from the Bush Administration?

Questions remain about the letter, including whether the writer really was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Islamic militant. But it provided the Americans with a ready-made template for their new interpretation of the war. They said the letter, found on a computer disk carried by a Qaeda-linked courier, was proof that the conflict in Iraq had been transformed from a battle to restore Mr. Hussein into a regional theater for the worldwide war against terrorism.

I haven't heard anyone proclaim that the four contractors were taken out by Al Qaeda. Did you? But the New York Times is concerned that we have been misled, *sigh* yet again, in Iraq - that we are not fighting Al Qaeda in the Sunni Triangle - because that would be further indication that the Bush administration exagerated the terrorists ties to Saddam.

We have been fighting many Iraqis for over a year. Did anyone think that the Republican Guard was filled with Al Qaeda? Did Al Qaeda ambush the 507th Maintenance Company (Jessica Lynch) convoy? Did Al Qaeda execute prisoners, rape prisoners, brutalize prisoners? No, those atrocities were carried out by ordinary Iraqis. This is not news to anyone. "Life is nasty, brutish, and short" especially in Iraq.

So, did John Burns, who's in Baghdad, finally get some Brigadier to come clean and talk about his inner doubts about the mission? Of course not. Here's the conclusion to the "news analysis" from Burns where he finally gets to the point about our generals' supposed evaporating certainty...

On Tuesday, before the Falluja attacks, General Kimmitt, the American military spokesman, appeared to back off at least somewhat from the emphasis on Islamic militants as the principal enemy. At a briefing, he offered an overview of the war in which he suggested that what has occurred, in effect, is a merging of the Saddamist insurgents and the Islamic terrorists into a common terrorist threat, and that, either way, "we just call them targets."
Several Iraqis interviewed on Wednesday, including middle-class professionals, merchants and former members of Mr. Hussein's army, suggested that that the United States might be facing a war in which the common bonds of Iraqi nationalism and Arab sensibility have transcended other differences, fostering a war of national resistance that could pose still greater challenges to the Americans in the months, and perhaps years, ahead.

Was Burns covering I95 traffic before going to Baghdad? Seriously. This guy writes that the attacks on four contractors and five soldiers is going to change a few career warrior opinions on how the war is going?

It's terrible that anyone died. I am sure that the news affected everyone, including the generals. But, let's face it, it's not going to create hints of doubt. If those brutal murders had that kind of affect on our military leadership, I would worry that I woke up in France, instead of Florida, today.

I understand the challenges in Iraq. I don't think it's going swimmingly. We do have problems with the Baathists in the Sunni Triangle. We do have problems with the Shia in the south. The Kurds are smiling smugly, though. I think they are waiting to watch the other two fight it out.

Meanwhile, the New York Times rubs its hands in anticipation of more "evidence" that the Bush Administration duped us, again. It's unfortunate that the New York Times does not have the committment, will and mental sharpness of some of our old soldiers.