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2008-04-02 Iraq

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Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2008-04-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 Jeebus...I read this earlier. These Kool Aid swillin' idjits at Time did everything but unzip Tater's fly.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2008-04-02 01:33|| 2008-04-02 01:33|| Front Page Top

#2 ION TOPIX > US, IRAN FIGHTING COLD WAR IN LEBANON + CLASH OF INTERESTS IN LEBANON.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-04-02 03:20|| 2008-04-02 03:20|| Front Page Top

#3 See? I told you, the War is lost.

Posted by Harry Reid 2008-04-02 06:07|| 2008-04-02 06:07|| Front Page Top

#4 They ARE the enemy.

Correct.

Posted by Excalibur 2008-04-02 10:39|| 2008-04-02 10:39|| Front Page Top

#5 This is the real battle. Shaping the interpretation of events. And the Friends of Tehran are doing well.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-04-02 11:13|| 2008-04-02 11:13|| Front Page Top

#6 A significant event would be a Shia led anti-Iran demonstration in Baghdad or Basra that is big enough to shame at least some of the big media into covering it.

I've been hoping the ISF would capture a couple of Iranian agents and put them on Iraqi TV but maybe so far...

Posted by mhw 2008-04-02 11:28|| 2008-04-02 11:28|| Front Page Top

#7 One side loses a dozen or so out of 10's of thousands and occupies the battle ground, building new outposts and stationing more police and troops there. The other loses HUNDREDS out of a few thousand, and is forced from the battlefield, even to the point of surrendering in some places.

Tell me again how the second group wins?

Only by the press LYING to the public to turn that loss into a victory. Time and the leftists are trying so hard to recreate Tet - which was a military debacle for the VC (from which they never recovered), but was spun by the press into a loss for the US.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-04-02 11:33|| 2008-04-02 11:33|| Front Page Top

#8 i think the fog of war is thick right now. Unless someone is on the ground, watching what is happening in Basra, its hard to know what the deal was really about. Quoting tater tot casualties doesnt prove anything, cause Tater may have been willing to keep sacrificing cannon fodder longer than Maliki could accept green zone attacks. OTOH a lot of MSM stuff has simply parroted Sadr press releases - or stuff like the above, saying Sadr won simply cause he kept his movement together - I think lots of folks here were skeptical of that how "rogue sadrist" meme.

Seems to me that Sadr true to form, wanted to defer a battle to the death, and made a deal he thought he could manipulate. Maliki had his own reasons to accept a deal.

Since Malikis main goal seems to have been to shift the balance of power in Basra, we wont know if he achieved it until we've had more time to see how Basra shakes out.

Posted by liberalhawk 2008-04-02 11:38|| 2008-04-02 11:38|| Front Page Top

#9 Big thing is that the Iraqi Army and other ISF elements are still on the ground, still clearing and controlling Basra, and shooting "criminal" elements (essentially cleaning up the mess that British disengagement allowed to flourish). They have not been withdrawn, and are building outposts and manning them.

Tater seems to bleed his forces regularly, and needlessly (unless the press continues to carry water for him and accept his version uncritically and nearly unquestioned, and publish that as the truth, ignoring MNF and Iraqi National data)

Posted by OldSpook 2008-04-02 12:44|| 2008-04-02 12:44|| Front Page Top

#10 It's an Arab thingy. Remember Saddam declared victory after Gulf War I. The press only goes along because it fits their preconceived notions.

It helps when you understand the MSM has their heads in rectal defilade.

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2008-04-02 13:03|| 2008-04-02 13:03|| Front Page Top

#11 LH is right - lots of fog in that war. Pretty typical, especially as we move into the next phase of the Iraq operation, which is about Iraqis sorting things out - unavoidably messy, with lots of soft edges and ambiguous intermediate outcomes and light on the dramatic decisive sorts of things we'd all love to see. What TIME and many others mine here is the distorted framework, for which much of the blame lies with the administration, as part of its steadfast refusal to talk to the country, refute bad analysis, correct bad information, and define the context for our mission.

All that said, the media has been - hilariously -referring to the JAM's debacle(s) in 2004 as resulting in a "standoff". Ya see, any action which does not end in the highly visible, utter and complete elimination of an enemy entity is described as a stand-off. Of course, when there are engagements in which there is such a liquidation of a specific enemy force, as occurred frequently when I was over there, the result is silence in the media. MNF-I has made intermittent feeble efforts to get the info out, but without political leadership to lead the way, the media have easily ignored almost all of those developments (occasional "leakers" like the convoy unit that wiped out a larger attacking force south of B'dad, which got attention because it was lead by a female reservist, are mere blips in a larger screen of the usual downbeat and distorted "glass is 1/10,000th empty" coverage).

Sadr and the JAM do not have to cease to exist for US interests to be advanced in Iraq, or for Iraq to move ahead. That's the likely outcome, but it's not a pre-requisite.

Posted by Verlaine 2008-04-02 13:16|| 2008-04-02 13:16|| Front Page Top

#12 they are traitors, pure and simple.

Posted by Woodrow Slusorong7967 2008-04-02 13:23|| 2008-04-02 13:23|| Front Page Top

#13 Yep, I read a headline in the SF Chron this morning that Sadr followers savor victory. I almost barfed. Such tripe. The media yearn for defeat.

Posted by Remoteman 2008-04-02 14:14|| 2008-04-02 14:14|| Front Page Top

#14 So Who Really Won Iraqi Offensive Against Shiite Militias? (HINT: Not al-Maliki)
By Andrew Cochran on CounterTerrorismBlog

Posted by 3dc 2008-04-02 14:52|| 2008-04-02 14:52|| Front Page Top

#15 A significant event would be a Shia led anti-Iran demonstration in Baghdad or Basra that is big enough to shame at least some of the big media into covering it.

As I recall soon after the fall of Baghdad there was a very large demonstration by the Iraqi people against terrorism. Numbers from 100K to 1M people were involved from all across Iraq. This was *not* pro-american (or pro-US) in fact some of it was anti-occupation - it was mostly anti-terrorism. Weeks in planning.

The MSM (including FOX) totally ignored it. I think there was one small paragraph in some obscure newspaper.

Posted by CrazyFool 2008-04-02 14:55|| 2008-04-02 14:55|| Front Page Top

#16 Iraqi military continues operations in Basrah
By Bill RoggioApril 2, 2008
a different perspective

Posted by 3dc 2008-04-02 15:04|| 2008-04-02 15:04|| Front Page Top

#17 On the Letterman Show, Sen McCain spoke of Donald Rumsfeld's "mismanagement" of the Iraq war. Read: McCain knows that election victory means distancing himself somewhat from current policy, while fulfilling long term objectives. Hopefully, Bush supporters won't be alienated with what will be either implied criticism of the President. From day one, I supported use of disproportionate retaliation as the appropriate response to terrorist attacks. McCain questioned policies that resulted in 3 million Iraqis assuming exile status. And many of the 4000 US dead and thousands of injured, so suffered because Iraqis remained silent to open planting of IED weapons. Tactical grant of impunity to a civil population that supported terrorism - the Anbar Rules have now reduced that - drove a steel rod into the Islamofascists. McCain's association with open anti-islamists - like Rev Parsley - indicates a better understanding of the enemy than that of the President. Ergo: feel free to shed wheel-spinning' baggage, Senator.

Posted by Eohippus Chaiger5009 2008-04-02 17:54|| 2008-04-02 17:54|| Front Page Top

#18 They should of at least fined everyone involved to discredit any victory.

Posted by Crolusing tse Tung2745 2008-04-02 21:47|| 2008-04-02 21:47|| Front Page Top

#19 Does TIME even know where Basra is?

Compared to Roggio's on-scene reports, this looks like they live in "opposite world."

Posted by BA 2008-04-02 21:52|| 2008-04-02 21:52|| Front Page Top

23:51 trailing wife
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