COIN- Replies from Mike Yon and Kiki Munshi

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

In my new role as internet idea matchmaker, I have brought together retired Foreign Service Officer Kiki Munshi and the best war correspondent anywhere on this planet Michael Yon. I introduced Ms. Munshi to Mr. Yon's current view from Baqubah contrasted with her incorrect description of it in this post. Ms. Munshi served in the area for 9 months ending this January when she resigned from the provincial reconstruction team, she has spent much of her time since explaining to anyone who will listen that "We are doomed Christopher Robin" Lest anyone wonder about her motivations, she is obviously just an honest civil servant trying to help the administration and all of us win in Iraq. In her own words to Congress this February:

Let me start with a bit of background.  I joined USIA in 1980 and retired as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 2002--somewhat early as I had re-married and because it was an way to avoid dealing with President Bush's Iraq policy.  My career included a good deal of work on democracy and governance aas well as on the transition from a controlled to a free market economy.   

I thought the war pure folly and still am not quite sure why it was pursued so vehemently, but came back from retirement to head a PRT because I had the requisite skills and we Americans have a moral obligation to try to do something about the mess we've created in Iraq.

There you have it, no agenda and an open mind. I read her testimony and there is a good bit of truth in it, along with a whole lot of "we already lost". Her points about how actual re-construction is impossible absent real security are perfectly apt and she notes that our political and security attention span is nowhere near long enough for the actual task at hand. But she completely ignores the counter-insurgency doctrine currently employed by it's developers Gen. Petraeus and Col. Kilcullen. Our own Grim has not ignored it and participated in a discussion with Col. Kilcullen explaining our tactics here.  and Col. Kilcullen explains it in detail here. Ms. Munshi acts as if this surge is simply an example of "same as it ever was". Hardly, it is a fundamentally different approach that addresses most of the problems she sees as insurmountable.

In the comments of my previous post Ms. Munshi had this to say:

Your interpretation of Michael Yon's writing illustrates my point. This week it's quiet where he is. I hope it stays quiet. What about last week and the week before? The tendency to judge "long term" on the basis of very short term perspectives hurts us and hurts our effort in Iraq.

I was correcting your assertion that Baqubah was currently unlivable. Clearly from Mr. Yon's posts it has changed considerably for the better. Obviously this is due to the surge, but your concern is valid if we do not stay and maintain order. That is just the point, we are staying this time. We are not clearing and handing off to sectarian security forces, we are clearing, identifying the occupants and screening them from AQ while they resume their own civil society.

Regarding the condition of Baqubah prior to the surge, it is not surprising that Ms. Munshi assumed it was still an awful place, it was a hellhole before.  Michael Yon sends this about the pre-surge conditions and aftermath.

Hey Uncle J!

No, I don't, but I go down to that place all the time.  Probably will be there tomorrow.  In reality, what Kiki said was in my estimation true before 19 June.  Baqubah was getting REALLY bad.  General Petraeus was here yesterday and said flatly that this was probably the most rigged (meaning boobytrapped) city since the war began.  More so than Fallujah or Ramadi.  Let me tell you...when we rolled in here on the attack on 19 June, I thought we would lose dozens of soldiers killed.  Easily.  I mean I literally upped my combat insurance before the attack.  We lost only 1!!!!  More than 130 IEDs were found EMPLACED.  Caches were a different story.  About 2 dozen buildings were rigged to explode.  About 7 car bombs.  They were ready for us, and there are still lots of IEDs to be cleared and some more fighting to do.  That said, yeah, it was crazy as hell here.  Al Qaeda own this city pretty much before 19 June.

But as we mentioned the bad guys are gone and the kids are playing soccer and getting their pictures tooken. From Mike's July 5th post.

And so on 05 July, or D + 16, after the meeting, Iraqi leaders including the Deputy Governor of Diyala, and also Abdul Jabar, one of the Provincial chair holders, headed to some of the most dangerous areas in Baqubah on what Americans would call “a meet and greet.” At first the people seemed hesitant, but when they saw Iraqi leaders—along with members of their own press—asking citizens what they needed, each place we stopped grew into a festival of smiles.

The people were jubilant. None of the kids—and by the end of the day there were hundreds—asked me for anything, other than to take their photos.

I don't discount the problems that Ms. Munshi points out, they are real and difficult. But she needs to take a look, as do all the other Eeyores out there, and see that our plan deals with these problems. Every tribe that joins us against AQ is one less village they can hide in. It's hard damn work being a hated insurgent with no place to lay up sorry. Sanctuary or indifference is required to allow them a place to rest and refit. We have rolled most of these up and now they are very recognizable if they try to swing into other areas. I'm not sayin' we have rounded the corner, but who would you rather be, an AQ bad guy fresh out of rat holes, or  a US soldier and  Al Ameriki tribe member living alongside folks happy to be safe?

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2819/19884744

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference COIN- Replies from Mike Yon and Kiki Munshi:

» The blood of patriots from Kesher Talk
Lots of discussion today about the NYTimes editorial which blithely suggests mass slaughter of Iraqis as preferable to methodical targeting of insurgents and jihadis, with little loss of American life - over the next few months. Well, this is the... [Read More]

Comments

[jordan]

The situation in Iraq has to be assessed week to week. That's why it's surprising that Kiki would depend on older past experiences, when cursory scans of reporting from the ground show clear improvement over the past week.

I suppose this ideological bent is the reason for our diplomats' poor showing in Iraq from the very beginning. Filling the vacuum filled by that State Dept void, the U,S. military doggedly and persistently sought to convince the tribes to side with the coalition. Now, most of them are. Our soldiers conducted the risky diplomacy with these tribal sheiks that were rightly the responsibility of State, while still shouldering the defense and security burden.

Bing West, on SWJ, spells this out. Also, I would assume both Depts. operate under the same public servant ethos. You execute and put into practice your government's policy, as articulated by the President. You don't subvert it by saying an action is pure folly, which tells people who might otherwise side with our forces that the U.S. government's commitment is far from certain, and maybe not worth banking on.

Why actively try to create a worse disaster by undermining the strategy? That's what I can't understand. If you disagree, fine. But people are in harm's way. People are getting shot, wounded and killed. Is that ever a consideration when anti-warriors choose their reckless words? Or is the only imperative intellectual vanity.

I applaud Kiki going back to serve on a PRT despite the above conditions. But her article says alot, perhaps unintentionally, about our diplomatic shortfalls in iraq, to include lack of appreciation for the nuts and bolts of counterinsurgency, and a scorn for Bush's policy.

The military's cautious optimism and small successes now is hard-fought and hard-won. Apparently they've had alot of other things to fight besides the enemy.

I'd like to get her read on John Burns's NYTimes article on Sunday, and the Bing West one, up on Small Wars Journal. I give Michael Yon alot of credence here because he's been very critical and unforgiving of the military effort in the past.

[Grim]

I'm proud of you, Jimbo. You've actually performed a public service, and improved the quality of American discourse in a real and genuine way. If, from the beginning, we could have brought together journalists/foreign service/military experts to hash out the real picture, America as a nation would be in a better place with regard to this war.

Good work.

[The Rational]

Well done indeed! It's too easy to get away with passing off pessimistic assumptions as fact. Keep us all intellectually honest. :)

[Michael in MI]

Uncle Jimbo - You are never going to convince the Miss Munshi's of the world of anything about Iraq, because their mindset is such that this war is unnecessary. So they will jump at anything and everything to declare failure and impossibility of future success, so that they will get their way and we pull out of the war.

The problem is that there are those of us who look at Afghanistan and Iraq as necessary battles in the overall war against Islamic Totalitarianism, which includes Palestine (Hamas and Fatah), Iran, Syria and Hezb'Allah in Lebanon. Then there are those people who are completely oblivious to the global jihad and think that it will all go away if we would just get out of the unnecessary war we started in Iraq. Just as there is absolutely NOTHING which will stop my support for America being involved in the war against Islamic Totalitarianism, there is NOTIHNG which will convince these other people that we are even in a war against Islamic Totalitarianism and that we MUST succeed in Iraq, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES.

I have learned this from going round and round with people, whom I *thought* were honest critics of the war effort. But the more I debated with them, the more I realized that they simply had no clue of the global enemy we face in the global jihad and are clueless to understand that Iraq and Afghanistan are not wars but battles.

And that is the key to this entire debate about Iraq. One either understands what the battle of Iraq means in the big picture and understands we need to stay there until we succeed (which will be another 5-10 years at least, considering we are not even halfway to the 9 years it takes to quell an insurgency, let alone an insurgency fueled by a religious jihad) or they don't. All these little side debates about whether we are succeeding in Iraq from week to week really don't mean a hill of beans, except to understand whether or not we need to change tactics.

But I disregard anyone who says that we lost, we've failed or we need to withdraw. Because those people clearly do not understand the threat we face and therefore there analysis is meaningless.

[Michael in MI]

"If, from the beginning, we could have brought together journalists/foreign service/military experts to hash out the real picture, America as a nation would be in a better place with regard to this war."

Grim - That's a nice idealistic goal to have, but that is like saying "if we could have brought together pro-abortion and anti-abortion people in order to do what is best for the developing child, America as a nation would be in a better place with regard to human life." It's not going to happen and it never had a chance to happen, because the media are not Americans, they are an interest group. And because they are an interest group, they are going to take the word of supporters of the war about as seriously as Planned Parenthood would take the word of any Pro-Life group out there.

Just read this to get an idea of the mentality of the mass media. They are not open to being convinced of the facts. They are not in the business of reporting facts and news and information in an objective way, they are in the business of pushing their agenda. Period.

Yon's story doesn't get attention because it is humiliating.

It is humiliating because it is obvious that we media – and our allies in the state department, the legal trade, the NGOs, the Democratic Party, the UN, etc., - can't do squat about such determined use of force.

Our words, images, arguments and skills can't stop the killing. Only the rough soldiers and their guns can solve the problem, and we won't admit that fact because the admission would weaken our influence and our claim to social status.

So we pretend Yon's massacre – and the North Korean killing fields, the Arab treatment of women, the Arab hatred of Israel, etc. - doesn't exist, and instead focus our emotions and attention on the somewhat-bad domestic things that we can 'fix' with our DC-based allies. Things such as Abu Ghraib, wiretapping, etc. When we 'fix' them, then we get status, applause, power, new jobs, ego, etc.

Please don't be surprised. We media are an interest group not much different from the automakers, the unions, and the farmers.

[Scrapiron]

Doesn't take much to reach the conclusion this broad entered a job with a full blown PMS attitude. Did someone really expect the facts or truth from her? Just another left wing joke that the American people will soon pay for with thousands of lives in the streets of America. I add a note to my nightly prayer, Please Mr Terrorist, destroy the United States congress, down to the last door knob, when it's in full session. Would that wake up America, doubtful that a democrat has the brain to wake up?

[ajacksonian]

Seems to me that the 'same old, same old' went down the drain in Anbar and Ramadi... and that started in Tal Afar.

This business of insurgents of all stripes killing tribal elders, usurping local authority and generally terrorizing the folks who have to live there seems to have gotten on their nerves. When Zarqawi had bombers going after children and mining soccer fields, that started to burn bridges and showed the colors of what insurgency means: brutal terror inflicted upon innocents. As Michael Yon has shown, Iraqis love their children and deeply.

Apparently we have forgotten, as a culture and a Nation, what it takes to have a common society. And from our lofty perch, we have never experienced decades of brutality and one of the harshest police states ever seen on the planet. It takes a bit to recover from those things and to start knitting society together. We were very lucky in our Revolution to be far away from the mother country and still only have to face down the best military on the planet with men on a one-year hitch. Seven years of mostly losing would lead to victory, but at a very, very steep price and then the first attempt at government would fail and nearly have it all fall into chaos. And we had no outside powers during that latter period and a group of folks that were reallly wondering if such a large place could hold together. One successful Shays and we would not be here in this situation. Twelve long years of death, loss and bare victory with crushing debt that nearly destroyed it all. The US had it *easy* compared to Iraq.

The way forward has been clear for heading on into a year or more now - quiet the quietest areas, build confidence, train forces and battle season them, build infrastructure and press hard and damned hard for the political side to get into place and learn how to function. Do we expect miracles of Iraqis? Are they, truly, so much more capable than we were that they will do all of that in a mere four years, while under attack from neighbors and suffering from killers that refuse to stop killing? Yes they live there. That does not magically transform the folks in Iraq into Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Pulaski, Greene, Kosciuszko... liberty is a hard thing to realize after being under the boot of the tyrant for a generation or more. Freedom is hard to grasp at when you have seen people you know or family members raped or killed before your eyes, or put on videotape to be distributed by a maniacal regime. Learning that first lesson of being able to stand on your own and that liberty must be held onto and fought for so that you can be free... that takes a bit of doing. In 1775 most colonists didn't want to be on *either* side and those that did were pretty well divided... 7 years would change that. Long, harsh, bloody years.

A bitter, hard fought struggle with ourselves and an honorable foe.

Helping up a People who have been under no shade of the Tree of Liberty *ever*? Have we really forgotten what that is about and how hard it is to do? The West has failed every time it does not help, does not at least *try* to make something better after a war. We live with those defeats today and they have grown in size and death toll because of our fear of failure... and use money and lives as an excuse to back away. Forgetting the 10% dead of the Nation used to purchase our own liberty when the Nation was tiny compared to Iraq, can we really not understand that?

Capitalism and Communism failed in the Balkans and both have caused more misery in the Middle East because of our fear of cost and strangeness in a far off land. The peoples of that land are neither devils nor angels, although they are bedeviled by hatred, greed and many looking towards despotic Empire so that they may rule over their fellow man.

I would prefer the Nation not fight, but when we do it is forward, completely, nothing left behind, so that we can prove to ourselves that our own liberty means something to us. And that we believe in those lovely words of All men being created equal. We cannot purchase their liberty for them, but we can show them what it means to do so... and the cost of it. That is the price we agreed to pay as a Nation way back when, and we agreed that it was worth that cost of renewal talked about then and ever onwards to this day. Because the cost of not doing so is tyranny emboldened and liberty retreating.

Until we lose our own, as putting a monetary cost on it makes it worthless.

Show us the hell the enemies of liberty have in store for us, Mr. Yon. And the cost of its purchase so we do not lose our own.

[red river]

That Kiki would willingly give up Iraq to the likes of Al Quaeda in Baqebah speaks volumes. Volumes.

[red river]

The Green Berets would not be needed if the State Department had done their job in the first place.

[ledger]

I agree with UJ on this one.

The situation in Iraq is far better than WoPo writer Kiki Munshi leads us to believe.

Quite frankly, Ms. Munshi has been tainted by the group think at the NYT/WoPo Company. Her writing is slanted. Mike Yon’s writing is far superior.

From Walter Duranty to Ms. Munshi, the stench of slanted journalism has caused me to quit reading any NYT/WoPo stories.

Every time I see the NYT logo or the WoPo logo I quit reading. I am glad that UJ wades into the swamp so that I do not have to.

[Grim]

Mike:

"That's a nice idealistic goal to have, but that is like saying "if we could have brought together pro-abortion and anti-abortion people in order to do what is best for the developing child, America as a nation would be in a better place with regard to human life." It's not going to happen and it never had a chance to happen, because the media are not Americans, they are an interest group."

You've misread me entirely. I was not making a point about the media's behavior; neither Ms. Munshi nor Yon, really, are part of the "media interest group." I was not talking about them.

I was talking about what Jimbo managed to accomplish here. Had we bloggers from the beginning been able to 'get to the source' of different narratives, talk to them directly, and square the different versions of the tale, things would be better now. We've gotten to the point -- passed it about six months ago, at the latest -- at which there are two entirely separate narratives that almost never touch.

What Jimbo has done here is something that I've been trying to do for a while, which is to get someone pushing one of the narratives to actually talk to someone from the other side, and get a version of events that's closest to the truth. Yon can say, "She's right about this part", but we can also see that she's not right about other parts. She herself admits that Yon is right about current conditions, and so forth.

I've been trying to bail some of the leftie bloggers into engaging the military stream for some time, with almost no results. We had a good discussion at Lawyers, Guns and Money a week or two back; that's been it. Otherwise, there's just a flat refusal to rise to the challenge. They aren't willing to talk to the generals, to read the COIN manual, to look at information that's not part of their narrative. (By the same token, it would be a mistake to refuse to even entertain the possibility that people like Ms. Munshi might be right on some details, as Yon confirms that she was. We've also got to be forever ready to look beyond the usual story, and see the facts.)

That was my point -- this is something good, if it can be kept up. Getting both sides to actually talk to you, and hammer out what actually happened... that used to be what journalism was about. This is the kind of thing blogs should be doing; for that matter, it's what newspapers should be doing.

[Michael in MI]

Sorry, Grim, I understand your point now. Though I still don't agree with this:

(By the same token, it would be a mistake to refuse to even entertain the possibility that people like Ms. Munshi might be right on some details, as Yon confirms that she was. We've also got to be forever ready to look beyond the usual story, and see the facts.)

There is a difference between being correct in your facts and framing your facts correctly. You know, as do we all here who read military blogs, that those in the media interest group such as Munshi report the facts and then frame them ALWAYS in the fashion that helps their specific interest, not in a way that is historically correct or put in the proper context or military perspective.

That is *my* point, Grim. I don't read the WaPost, NYT, LATimes or watch ANY TV news and only get my news from reading military blogs. I also only get my military analysis from military blogs. I also disregard any blogs, military blogs included, who are negative and defeatist and do not incorporate the reality of the global Islamic jihad we are fighting. As I said, if people are not putting Afghanistan and Iraq in the context of the many battles of this war against Islamic Totalitarianism, which includes Palestine (Hamas and Fatah), Iran, Syria, Hezb'Allah in Lebanon... and ones that I forgot to include earlier, but which are just as engaged in the global Islamic jihad... C.A.I.R., Muslim Brotherhood, MPACUK, etc... well then I disregard them when they are pontificating on whether or not we should leave Iraq.

And while I understand what you want to happen, I still believe it is a fools errand. To use the abortion analogy again, it seems to me you want Planned Parenthood to talk to some pro-life, pro-abstinence people to get a better understanding of why it is wrong to support abortion. But Planned Parenthood is in the business of abortion and they fully know what they are doing. So they don't care what the other side has to say. They will concede that, sure, you're right, we're killing babies, but ya know what? We don't give a sh*t. It's our business, we are in the abortion industry and we're not going to sacrifice that, just because you are right.

Same thing goes for the media. They are an interest group. Most of them know full well that what they are advocating is wrong and will be a disaster for the Iraqi people. Just like PP, they don't give a sh*t. They are an interest group in the business of pushing their agenda. They don't give a darn about the military, about America, about anything. They care about themselves. Their agenda. Their pet issues. Their popularity. Their influence. Their power. Period.

Yes, if you could not tell, I have grown to utterly hate the media and I consider them all traitors. They have earned that label from all their treasonous efforts during the course of this war effort. From whitewashing Islam, to reporting fake atrocities as fact, to showing fake pictures of non-existent atrocities, to deliberately not reporting progress and success, and downplaying any success they do deem worthy to report, to spreading enemy propaganda videos, to revealing classified operations and classified policies and classified programs to completely dishonoring every one of our soldiers' lives by their slipshod and baised and slanted reporting. I hate them, I really do. I have absolultey no respect for any one of those traitorous bastards and could not give one flying freaking frog flibbit what Miss Munshi or any of the other soulless, traitorous cretins in the MSM have to say in their "reports".

They are all the scum of the earth in my eyes. How many lives would have been saved had the American and International media reported things accurately? How much more progress would have been made at this point if we had even a TENTH of pro-America propaganda pushed in the media as the media pushes of the enemy propaganda? It is bad enough we have the entire Middle East propaganda machine working 24/7 for the past however many decades spreading hatred of the West and teaching their children that Americans and Jews are evil and should be killed. But does the media report that? NO. The F*CK they don't, do they? No, that's not good enough to report is it? But some terrorist down in Gitmo has his freaking terrorist manual, the Koran, pissed on and they blow that up into a freaking worldwide catastrophe!

I want to scream, Grim. I really do. I have on many occasion while reading headlines and comments from these ignorant, deliberately biased freaktards in the media like Munshi. And I hope she and the rest of them read this and get it through their damn heads and it sinks into their souls and they have an awakening to the damage they are doing to this world.

I just don't know anymore Grim. I wish I could be as positive as you seem to be about the possibilities. But I have more faith in the American military men and women to pull off a miracle of historic proportions in the Middle East than I have faith in anything coming from the mouth or pen or computer of anyone in the mass media.

I'm sorry Grim. After the last 4 years of their deliberate misreporting and treason, I have wasted my last ounce of hope on the bastards in the mass media.

[Consul-At-Arms]

I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007/07/re-coin-replies-from-mike-yon-and-kiki.html

[Grim]

I can certainly understand your frustration. I was looking at the latest NYT atrocity tonight -- another piece based entirely on unnamed sources 'in the White House' who assert that 'there is a debate' about doing something we all know perfectly well Bush won't do (in this case, pull back from the Surge before the September briefing on its progress). It's just like the piece from -last- week, where unnamed sources 'in the White House' reported 'there is a debate' about closing GitMo.

There's a huge push on in Times, mirroring the one among some in Congress, to collapse the Surge -before- September. I have no idea why. It's totally irrational as far as I can tell, and can only be based on a complete disconnect with the military that is actually carrying out the Surge. If we get to the end of the year and we aren't able to do the things the Surge set out to do, fine -- I can see how people could look at that and say dispassionately, "We did our best, more resources are not politically viable, and so the only choice is to pull our people out rather than leave them at risk when we aren't going to commit what we need to win."

At this stage, though, there's no reason to make an assertion like that. We're not quite a month into the new policy. There are some positive initial signs, some other signs that aren't positive but that are in line with what we'd expect a successful COIN policy to look like, and certainly nothing to suggest that it is doomed, doomed, doomed. That's why I would like to push people to engage the facts, the new COIN manual, and so forth -- I know a lot of people don't have the background to appreciate what we're seeing. If you do, the Surge looks all right so far, though it's plainly too soon to say for sure how it will work out.

[David]

Wow, so many essays. To me there is only one salient feature hidden (but not much) in all of this, we no longer trust the likes of Ms. Munshi. She is not a reporter but a confabulist. Seriously, Kiki, think fiction as a future course, since reality is beyond you.

[douglas]

Maybe what is needed is for Petraus to come to Washington uninvited, and DEMAND to address congress to get the facts straight and on the record. I don't think Bush will do it, though he should.

[douglas]

After reading the previous posts and comments, I can only say that I feel very sorry for the many Iraqis that were victims of violence while our government gave State time to try to solve the problems there by building 'womens centers' so they could jog indoors. It'd be just another funny waste of tax dollars if it weren't costing peoples lives.

"The most urgent mission of Munshi's team is to promote "conflict resolution" in Diyala province, a demographically mixed region of strong sectarian and ethnic tensions that stretches from Baghdad to the Iranian border. The team works with local leaders on listening techniques and mediation -- "how to take a positive nucleus and expand it," Munshi explained."

That sort of academic drivel just gets people killed. I wonder what the Iraqis that had to deal with her thought.

As for her being an honest civil servant, I'll belive it when she engages in true discussion with UJ, and Yon on this issue, but one comment here in her own defense ain't convincing. Saying things like 'I left 'cause Bush is an idiot, but came back so I could try to correct his errors' is also pretty damning. The job of diplomats is supposed to be to carry out the policies of the Government, and by extension, the Administration, and not "try to do something about the mess we've created in Iraq." (by which she obviously means going into Iraq in the first place). Some correct observations don't buy you credibility. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[douglas]

Grim, "If, from the beginning, we could have brought together journalists/foreign service/military experts to hash out the real picture, America as a nation would be in a better place with regard to this war."

She was there, stationed among the military, and no doubt working with some of the military leadership. If that wasn't enough contact, I don't know what could be. The problem seems to be the disconnect from reality that academia and places like DoS suffer from.

[mike jacobs]

Noting that Ms. Munshi is my age, and suspecting that she was probably politically active by 1968, am struck by how her viewpoint and spin resemble the analysis and assessments of the US media and antiwar legions after Tet 1968. Recall that the Tet Offensive was a defeat for the NVA and a catastrophe for the VC, but a strategic victory for North Vietnam, in light of the US public perception of what it meant that the Tet Offensive could even happen. Wapo, NYT, Congress, and their audiences are, in many ways, replaying 1968, which featured cynical, self-fulfilling prophecy rather than objective reporting and interpretation of the ground facts. Ms. Munshi is part of the problem, not part of the solution, just as her seniors were in 1968.

[liontooth]

Grim wrote:
There's a huge push on in Times, mirroring the one among some in Congress, to collapse the Surge -before- September. I have no idea why.
I think in some of their minds, nothing has changed. They think the US is doing the same as it did in 2004, 20005. Petraeus HAS brought a new strategy and operations to the war. Some of the others who want to collapse the Surge want it to end because they are afraid it will work and don't want it to succeed.

douglas wrote:
Maybe what is needed is for Petraus to come to Washington uninvited, and DEMAND to address congress to get the facts straight and on the record.
I saw some of the Petraeus confirmation hearings and all of the Senators I saw praised him. Petraeus said he wouldn't know the situation in Iraq until after he's been over there. If he comes back in September and says 'it's not lost', that is when these Senators need to be called on it.

[John Ryan]

MSM MSM MSM look Americans have a wide variety of news sources, people choose to consume what they wish. As happened during Vietnam MSM has always FOLLOWED public opinion, not lead it.
Fox News ratings have dropped from their highs because Americans no longer believe them. Today the NYT published its first editorial that said it was time to start withdrawing troops, yet all polls show this is what 70% of the country has wanted for months. MSM is owned by some of the largest corporations in America, and beholden to its shareholders not to any agenda. If people did not believe in the NYT (perfection not withstanding) they wouldn't by it, or place advertisements in it. Because of course it is advertisers that pay the most costs, not consumers. Take a look at who advertises in the NYT that will give you a better idea of what America thinks of the NYT

[referman]

Why can't the military sort out the msm's who are there,sitting in the green zone and collecting info from tele calls from people who said they were there. M Yon and B Roggio,are two of the embeds who are hand n hand with our troops,and are reporting good or bad.But at least they are actually there.I'm playing hooky today couldn't sleep,got a swolen face from an infected tooth!!On my little blog I refrence all the milblogs that people can go, to see the real stories,refermen.vox.com..I started it for my nephew and his brother marines who served.If people just drop in because of the name I might get some people to jump over to the milblogs.This seems to be the only way to get the real stories out blog blog blog..On all the news msm's today I have yet to hear that al sadar has fled to Iran again, or the fact US and coalition forces have been fighting the mahdi army,and we also have proof that the Iranian's are backing sadr's army and the insurgents!Congress is bashing the pres to pull out,But do they see that Iran has already showed, they want Iraq!Iraq is like working on a old A/C unit,once you touch it you own it.When you need parts,you do what you have to do to get it fixed!!The coalition and US forces do not have any pre existing guide lines,but the media's do.It's bad enough our soldiers hands are bound because of the politics of war,at the very least you would think the media should put their polotics aside and get it right this time..Thank GOD we have places to go,read and post our appreciation and our THANKS to all our brothers in harms way.Thanks to BF and the rest of rhe bloggers supporting our troops!!OOOrraahhh!! Semper Fi

[jordan]

Grim, I've been wondering the same. Why now, after they'd already agreed that Sept would be the reassessment date, do they want to upend the whole thing? Not 24 hours after the first inklings of good news came out about Arrowhead Ripper, Lugar comes out and says we have to pull out. Huh?

The only thing I can think of is the lobbying by groups with a vested interest in defeat. The WaPo reported that when the immigration issue was being debated, groups like La Raza and MoveOn were participating in Dem Party strategy sessions every day to the point of drafting and proposing portions of the legislation. Such groups are more than likely the ones generating this "surge against the surge" as UJ called it.

The Dems are twisting Republican arms to get them to switch sides. We need to flood the vulnerable Reps and Senators with demands that they not abandon the troops, the mission, and the Iraqi people. I believe Mitch McConell is one. Are organizations such as Vets for Freedom doing the same, confronting these people face to face in the halls of Congress? Is there an equal effort for a surge against the surge against the surge?

More than anything, they're trying to create a perception of a rising populist tide abandoning the President to force a withdrawal, in Congress and the media. They've claimed the mantle of popular opinion, and it's being accepted, uncritically and without question, by the media.

[David M]

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 07/09/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

[jordan]

FYI, the President is supposed to provide Congress with an interim report this week, but don't know the date. I guess that's part of it. I'd like to know what Bush is going to say. Whatever it is, it's sure to depend on what tribe Ameriki's sheiks, Petraeus and Kilcullen, are reporting.

[liontooth]

John Ryan wrote:
As happened during Vietnam MSM has always FOLLOWED public opinion, not lead it.

And where do you think the public got their impressions, images, and information about Vietnam from? Cronkite's claim of defeat after the 68 Tet offensive was COMPLETELY wrong.

MSM MSM MSM look Americans have a wide variety of news sources, people choose to consume what they wish.

How many people are aware of Michael Yon? The American public still gets most of their news from the MSM.
When the major news outlets hire someone like Michael Yon, you may have a legitimate point.

Fox News ratings have dropped from their highs because Americans no longer believe them.

They dropped because day to day Iraq doesn't get interest like the invasion did. Besides, they are still beating CNN and MSNBC by a 2 to 1 or greater margin. And Fox News has always been small potatoes next to the big three networks.

[Rich Casebolt]

The team works with local leaders on listening techniques and mediation -- "how to take a positive nucleus and expand it," Munshi explained."

You start with three words, Ms. Munshi.

Clear. And. Hold.

Implement those words first, and get rid of the totalitarian minds who would turn your good-faith building efforts against you ... then you have the space to build your nucleus.

A nucleus that would have never come about, bringing understanding between the people of America and Iraq, had we not invaded and eradicated the totalitarian minds of Saddam & Sons.

Your error, like that of many critics, is that you refuse to acknowledge that War is Sometimes the Answer ...

... and that sometimes, those who the Best and Brightest label "idiots" are the ones who actually have some wisdom (true, as opposed to conventional) mixed in with their error.

Go read what Natan Sharansky wrote recently ... and gain that "idiotic" wisdom regarding how to deal with the totalitarians who threaten our civilization.

[Ghost of Habu, The Pit Viper]

Originally posted by John Ryan:
"MSM is owned by some of the largest corporations in America, and beholden to its shareholders not to any agenda. If people did not believe in the NYT (perfection not withstanding) they wouldn't by it, or place advertisements in it. Because of course it is advertisers that pay the most costs, not consumers. Take a look at who advertises in the NYT that will give you a better idea of what America thinks of the NYT"

Ok, let's look at the above a little closer.

First off, the assertion that "MSM is owned by some of the largest corporations in America, and beholden to its shareholders not to any agenda" is flat out ridiculous, particularly in the case of both the Washington Post and the NYT. I case you don't realize it, both corporations have 2 classes of stock, and the family/management in both cases holds the vast bulk of the voting stock.

To paraphrase, "These are companies in which a family that has owned the newspaper or other media outlet for a long time continues to own a majority of the voting common stock of the company but has sold a majority of the common stock as a whole to outside investors. In other words, the owners of the company do not control it."

Don't even try and push your nonsense here, because we do tend to check facts (bloggers are really good at that). And the facts don't back up what you are selling.

Also, "Take a look at who advertises in the NYT that will give you a better idea of what America thinks of the NYT".

Well, that probably explains why their (NYT) yearly income and subscriber statistics have been virtually stagnant these last several years. Course, that's better than their neighbors (also in the newspaper biz), but somehow the marketing line of "Come look at us - We're Stagnant!" doesn't exactly seem like a giant hit in the marketplace.

Of course, the NYT doesn't want to be compared to Fox, or even B5, - maybe they would in overall size and overall profitability (again, against Fox, maybe not), but certainly not in terms of growth in terms of the marketplace.

Dinosaurs like the NYT only want to be compared against other Dinosaurs.

[ScotLongGoneFromScotland]

"MSM has always FOLLOWED public opinion, not lead it."

Bollocks.

[douglas]

MSM follows public opinion? How then does the public form an opinion without facts / information to base it on? Obviously preposterous.

[arch]

Viper:

I beg to differ. The NYT and WaPo are not stagnant. They have had a steady decline in subscribers for several years now. As I mentioned once before, Every quarter I send Pinch Sulzberger a note congratulating him on his latest loss in circulation.

The reason is simple. People don't believe them. One need only read what Kiki and Mike Yon say. Which account do you believe. Me too!

[bthun]

"That was my point -- this is something good, if it can be kept up. Getting both sides to actually talk to you, and hammer out what actually happened... that used to be what journalism was about. This is the kind of thing blogs should be doing; for that matter, it's what newspapers should be doing."

Exactly. While it may not necessarily say the opinions of those engaged in the debate, it may well influence those who are not solidly in the Defeatocrat camp with the facts. Just the facts...

Good work U J.

Since the MSM excuses Mr. Ryan put forth have been thoroughly, logically and/or factually trounced, I’ll just add a hearty HARRUMPH! to the thread.

[bthun]

Please substitute;

While it may not necessarily sway the opinions of those engaged in the debate, it may well influence those who are not solidly in the Defeatocrat camp with the facts.

For the similar sentence above... Yeah I need a proof reader, so sue me.

[Ymarsakar]

I applaud Kiki going back to serve on a PRT despite the above conditions. But her article says alot, perhaps unintentionally, about our diplomatic shortfalls in iraq, to include lack of appreciation for the nuts and bolts of counterinsurgency, and a scorn for Bush's policy.

I think in a sense the military is flexible and capable enough to learn how to do things like diplomacy and what not. The State Department however, is not so flexible. It is not a simple disagreement that Iraq was badly done, but rather I tend to believe that they don't even understand why Iraq is the way it is or why it needed to be taken down. The concepts of the balance of powers, of brute force, violence, and application of levers and psychological motivations is a field that is not seen as important. After all, did not Kiki say that she already had the requisite skills for Iraq? But you know that's not true, because anyone working in Iraq must understand both the political and military situation, as well as the psychological and the cultural facets.

This is not a skillset anyone could have gotten or been trained in, except in Vietnam of course. Going into the situation thinking that you have everything worked out in advance is setting yourself up for failure. The military experienced failure and learned from it, what did State learn? Nothing it seems.

Had we bloggers from the beginning been able to 'get to the source' of different narratives, talk to them directly, and square the different versions of the tale, things would be better now.

There was too much disinformation fog up designed to prevent exactly that, Grim. It took years just to figure out what the reality was behind the rhetoric. Until you figured out what the real was, you couldn't really say much criticism concerning what other people were doing because you are never sure that what they were doing was correct or not. Or as with Bremer, the situation was ages ago in the past after people started talking about it and getting into the guts. The media and government filters were set up exactly to prevent direct public contacts with on the ground folks. Whether this is called bureacracy or bias doesn't really matter, it existed and still exists.

I've been trying to bail some of the leftie bloggers into engaging the military stream for some time, with almost no results.

Compared to them, State is a much better option for comparative dialogue, Grim. I don't think the Left bloggers actually want to do anything, apart from what they are doing now.

Getting both sides to actually talk to you, and hammer out what actually happened... that used to be what journalism was about.

it is the underlying principle by which the First Ammendment works on. That the truth comes out if you have two sides that are equally strong but on opposite sides. The problem is the strength issue and the "all things being equal" issue. All things have not been equal, and there has been a lot of intended sabotage and various other attempts to make things uneven.

I think exposing the narrative for what it is, and having a fair fight over it in public, is a good thing. Because I am confident truth is on our side, or if it isn't, at least it is on our side more often than it is anywhere else.

I have no idea why.

Certainly you must have your suspicions even without inside sources at the Times.

At this stage, though, there's no reason to make an assertion like that.

Or maybe their reasoning is that they don't want to play fair so they'll take whatever trick is available to even the odds in their favor.

If you do, the Surge looks all right so far, though it's plainly too soon to say for sure how it will work out.

one model of analysis is to see how many Leftists an entity/event/action has made, and then raising the efficacy of the e/e/a higher with more Leftist enemies. Usually this runs into that predictability issue, and then you come up with false positives or just intended land mines. But so far, whatever the Left has mobilized to oppose, is a good thing all in all, or if not that then at least not harmful. It is a similar phenomenon to how come the Left always supports and makes excuses for people like Amanie, Hugo, Saddam, and etc.

Maybe what is needed is for Petraus to come to Washington uninvited, and DEMAND to address congress to get the facts straight and on the record.

Congress can do an end run on anybody, but if Petraeus goes directly to the Constituents of the Congressman and his actions then undermine the power of the Congressman, then you'll see some instant results one way or another.

I think the phrase "any kind of press is good press" only applies if you are controlling the narrative.

The team works with local leaders on listening techniques and mediation -- "how to take a positive nucleus and expand it," Munshi explained."

These are the techniques taught at State. But has State understood that such techniques are inapplicable to Iraq? The military certainly has understood that nukes and big bombs aren't going to give them victory anytime soon. Again, flexibility, something the military has overall while their competitors do not.

I wonder what the Iraqis that had to deal with her thought.

Free money. Maybe good for buying weapons to protect their children with or take over a neighborehood.

As happened during Vietnam MSM has always FOLLOWED public opinion, not lead it.

So sayeth the sheep to the shepherd.

Why now, after they'd already agreed that Sept would be the reassessment date, do they want to upend the whole thing?-Jordan

I think the media might have learned something from 2005 January with the purple fingers. Pumping the American people up with expectations of the Bad and then not having it occur, didn't exactly work out right for them. So their objective has been and has always been to depress American morale and hopefully make the depression so severe that the nation suicides. So if they can stop the surge now, they can maintain their narrative and treatment of the subjects.

While it may not necessarily sway the opinions of those engaged in the debate, it may well influence those who are not solidly in the Defeatocrat camp with the facts.

The political camp issue almost exactly mirrors the Gravity treatment Grim used on COIN ops.

[emdfl]

Dump on the program now in hopes that you will cause it to fail before it begins. An excellent strategy if you are terrorist, foreign fighters, al-quida or dhimmicrats.

[jordan]

Good point Ymar. With Kiki's obvious attitude against being in Iraq, having been against it from the very beginning. it's no wonder any Iraqis she was tasked to deal with weren't sure enough of U.S. commitment to get off the fence. If other FSOs held similar opinions during their tours while doing political work with local Iraqis, that would explain an awful lot. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

FWIW, there have been some State Dept.'ers that have been credited with great courage and will to succeed, and done well over there.

[douglas]

You know, to be fair, I suspect some blame goes on pentagon higher-ups and the Administration as they likely played the standard game of giving State a crack at things first. Never mind their pathetic track record. Who knows, perhaps because we had to give State time, we delayed the sort of actions now ongoing under Petraus leadership. Shame if it's so. Ymar's right, the military can learn statecraft, but State can't learn anything.

[Ymarsakar]

Doug, having a Governor-General as we did with Pershing in the Phillippines was something I favored for Iraq in the beginning. A governor-general with the powers of trial, execution, and arrest.

[Ymarsakar]

Btw, people might want to check out this article. It shows a Ameri-Indian's outlook on certain things, which I believe is quite similar to the tribal nature of Iraqis. Good insights there.

“Look, Dr, Yeagley, I don’t see anything about my culture to be proud of. It’s all nothing. My race is just nothing.”

The girl was white. She was tall and pretty, with amber hair and brown eyes. For convenience’ sake, let’s call her “Rachel.”

I had been leading a class on social psychology, in which we discussed patriotism – what it means to be a people or a nation. The discussion had been quite lively. But when Rachel spoke, everyone fell silent.

“Look at your culture,” she said to me. “Look at American Indian tradition. Now I think that’s really great. You have something to be proud of. My culture is nothing.”

“You’re not proud to be American?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m happy to be American, but I’m not proud of how America came about.”

Her choice of words was telling. She was “happy” to be an American. But not “proud” of it.

On one level, I wasn’t surprised. I knew the head of our American History department at Oklahoma State University-OKC, and I recognized his hackneyed liberal jargon in Rachel’s words. She had taken one of his courses, with predictable results.

Yet, I was still stunned. Her words disturbed and offended me in a way that I could not quite enunciate.

I could hardly concentrate the rest of the day. I lay awake that night thinking about what she had said.

On the surface, she was paying me a compliment. She was praising my Indian culture, at the expense of her own. Why, then, did it feel so much like a slap in the face?

As I lay awake that night, I thought of an old story by Kay Boyle, written in 1941, called “Defeat.” It’s about the French women in the German-occupied village of Pontcharra. All the French men were away at war. It was the 14th of July, Bastille Day, when Frenchmen were usually proud to be French. The village women, however, chose that day to give in to the German men.

They did it innocently enough. The women just wanted to wear their fancy holiday dresses. They wanted to drink and dance. And the Germans were the only men around with whom they could do it.

So they gave in.

The Cheyenne people have a saying: A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.

That’s what I thought about as I lay there, with Rachel’s words running over and over in my mind. “My race is just nothing…. ” she had said. “My culture is nothing.”

After class, one older white student, a husband and father, had exchanged glances with me on the way out. He said to me in a low voice, “I don’t want her on my team!”

I understood what he meant. Frankly, I wouldn’t want her on my team either. A woman who won’t be true to her own people certainly won’t be true to someone else’s.

When Rachel denounced her people, she did it with the serene self-confidence of a High Priestess reciting a liturgy. She said it without fear of criticism or censure. And she received none. The other students listened in silence, their eyes moving timidly back and forth between me and Rachel, as if unsure which of us constituted a higher authority.

My goodness, if an Indian woman had said such a thing in front of Indian men, her ears would have burned for a week!

By giving in to the German conquerors, those French women in the Kay Boyle story had betrayed their men. But it was an understandable betrayal. Their men were gone. The Germans were in command.

Who had conquered Rachel’s people? What had led her to disrespect them? Why did she behave like a woman of a defeated tribe?

They say that a warrior is measured by the strength of his enemies. As an Indian, I am proud of the fact that it took the mightiest nation on earth to defeat me.

But I don’t feel so proud when I listen to Rachel. It gives me no solace to see the white man self-destruct. If Rachel’s people are “nothing,” what does that say about mine?

I believe in my Comanche people. I know that someday we’ll stand as equals before the white man, strong, prosperous and self-sufficient. But we won’t get there by listening to empty praise from guilty white women. We’ll get there by studying the white man’s ways and learning to be strong as he is.

Link

The Iraqis despise weakness for only through strength can they survive intact and whole.