Beauchamp's Little Venice story partly true

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Not that I really wanted to give any more attention to the young dung beetle, but I did ask if anyone had info about his tale of a Little Venice in Baghdad where the streets ran waist-deep with shite and the children frolicked in the sewage. Like the rest of Beauchamp's fantasies this was based around a nugget of truth and then it was embellished with as much horror as Scotty thought it would need to match the narrative in his head. Reader/Blogger El Capitan took time away from surfing to post pics of the actual Little Venice as he saw it, a nice oasis in the city where the Euphrates flows through a set of canals and bridges and the kids feed ducks rather than dodging turds.

Thanks for posting these Cap'n, just another nail in young Beauchamp's coffin. Go take a look at all the pics.

Matt Sanchez (FGPS) has a cool video talking with a 13 yr. old Iraqi about life, the unverse and everything.

"Because they don't shoot at us"

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[The Wolf]

This looks like the area near the old US embassy in the Green Zone/IZ. This was over near the GRD compound. I lived across the street from it with the CA guys- it WAS gorgeous. Sewage? Don't recall any severe smell or grossness, other than the water was usually brown. Lots of ducks, tho! Oh, and NO kids...

Wolf

[john Ryan]

Well The Green Zone is pretty nice spot.
But perhaps there the Green Zone was not where Beauchamp was stationed ?
In any case his writings are I think not really the reports that deserve the most of our attention.

[Lands’nGrooves]

Blind squirrel…nut…yadda, yadda, yadda…

[girlfriendofasoldier]

This is off-topic- but I had to share. This falls into the Do as I say/Not as I do category.

So this morning… I’m pulling out of my neighborhood- stopped at a redlight, at the neighborhood entrance behind this van. The back of the van was plastered with bumper stickers. (Mostly anti- war, anti-bush, anti-troops, etc…).. It was called “Gypsy Taxi” according to a sign on the back window... So I’m sitting behind it- reading a bunch of the global warming, carbon offset, coexist, vote for hillary stickers, when the van departs the red light…. Leaving a trail of muffler puke behind it! I have never seen such an exhaust in my life and it went in through my air vents. *yuck*.

Man- they really are setting a good example about that carbon. If you see “Gypsy Taxi” tell him/her to fix their muffler!

((I am not lying. It was gross.))

What an Oxymoron!

[chiropetra]

You're right John. There are more important stories. But you may not like the result examining them.

(As an aside, so far this is the only 'Little Venice' anyone has found in the Baghdad area. Score another for the TNR Fabulist.)

You mentioned one yesterday: The multiple bombing that killed over 200 people. Here's another: The case of the dog in the night time.

Taken together they're highly instructive.

Let's start with the most important one; the one that our old friends the MSM don't seem to want to examine too closely.

Last weekend tens of thousands of ordinary Shia gathered from all over Iraq in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad in a pilgrimage on one of Shia Islam's holiest days. Men, women and children marched through the streets in an enormous river of people, worshiped at the shrine and then went home. Shia 'heretics', mind you, special targets of Al Qaeda and other Sunni terrorist organizations.

Total terrorist attacks on the pilgrims: None. Deaths of pilgrims caused by terrorism: None reported.

In other words Al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups completely passed on this juicy target. Not because they didn't want the chance to kill Shia, but because they couldn't. Security in Baghdad was simply too good.

Now let's look at the attack the terrorists did make. Terrorists, probably AQ, killed more than 175 people with multiple truck bombs.

Where? In villages in Northwest Iraq almost right on the Syrian border in Kurdistan. An obscure part of the country close to the AQ haven of Syria. In other words, one of the softest targets in the whole country.

Why there? Because its one of the constantly shrinking number of places in the country where terrorists can mount such a massive operation. They chose their target not because they wanted it, but because it was still within their capabilities.

That's a story worth more than the misadventures of a sick liar.

[chiropetra]

One other note on the attack in the North.

Not only was the location remote and obscure, but the victims were mostly members of an unpopular minority religion. This isn't going to terrorize many Iraqis or stir up ethnic strife. In fact in terms of Iraq it makes no strategic or tactical sense at all.

But of course operations in Iraq weren't the target. We were.

You have to understand that we, the American public, are being played by Al Qaeda. Most of Al Qaeda's (as distinct from other terrorists groups in Iraq) high-profile attacks are aimed at American public opinion. (The remainder of the big stuff is aimed at infrastructure like bridges.) We are the targets of an extremely sophisticated media campaign, waged in part through our own media.

This was theater. Theater of blood. It was done to influence American public opinion and to encourage the 'useful idiots' (Lenin's phrase) in our own country.

You were the target, John. You and people like you. Al Qaeda understands perfectly that the critical theater in this war is in the United States. Unlike nearly any other foreign enemy we have ever faced Al Qaeda knows how to manipulate American opinion.

Recently the 'official' anti-war line has shifted from 'it's a military failure' to 'maybe we're suceeding militarily, but we're failing in Iraqi politics.'

Maybe, maybe not. But what none of the anti-war establishment wants to admit is that our biggest failure is in the propaganda war inside our own borders. They refuse to recognize that we are being consciously and deliberately manipulated by our enemies.

Perhaps because they are the group most susceptible to those manipulations.

[Rich Casebolt]

Dang, chiropetra ... talk about "fire for effect!"

Excellent, coherent, and detalied analysis, that stands in stark contrast to the strained-gnat-filled parrot droppings the opposition has been leaving here lately.

Bravo Zuly ... and carry on, in your defense of what is just, right, and good.

[Rich Casebolt]

Excuse me -- that would be Bravo Zulu!

(if i was perfect, they couldn't afford to pay me at my day job ...)