Wolf Howling: spin

Showing posts with label spin. Show all posts

Friday, April 4, 2008

The Smoke Clears In Basra & The WaPo Spins Like A Top

More information is becoming available about the difficulties of the Iraqi military's offensive in Basra and the other cities in the south of Iraq while the Washington Post puts an incredible spin on the operation.

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Today, we learn more about the offensive from Bill Roggio:

1. One recently formed battalion freshly out of basic training was thrown into combat and disintegrated.

2. "Overall "1,000 to 1,500 Iraqi forces had deserted or underperformed,” according to the Times, a number “that represent a little over 4 percent of the total” forces in Basrah."

3. The offensive was rushed at the order of Maliki, apparently because of reports of ever increasing violence in Basra. The offensive was scheduled for this summer when all forces would be in place.

4. There was a complete breakdown in coordination with British or American forces. I am not sure what the command and control assets of the Iraqi Army are today, but they fell on their face. This is a "rookie" mistake.

5. Outside of Basra, Iraqi units took the lead against Mahdi Army uprisings in all areas but Baghdad. The Iraqi Army was able to secure Hillah, Kut, Karbala, Najaf, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, and Amarah in a matter of days after the fighting started. By March 29, the fighting in these cities largely stopped.

And then we have the Washington Post. Their article Basra Assault Exposes U.S., Iraqi Limits, is a despicable example of agenda journalism, spinning the offensive to turn chicken salad into chickenshit. To go through some of the real lowpoints of the article:

. . . The offensive, which triggered clashes across southern Iraq and in Baghdad that left about 600 people dead, unveiled the weaknesses of Maliki's U.S.-backed government and his brash style of leadership. On many levels, the offensive strengthened the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Those bald assertions are just completely baseless. As I wrote yesterday:

Claiming the outcome of the Basra offensive as anything other than a tactical defeat for Sadr ignores the reality both of the offensive and the aftermath. The government went into Basra in order to establish government control over the city. The militias do not control Basra today, the government does. True the government has not destroyed Sadr’s militia, but it did not need to do so. And the media's speculation about the offensive spiraling into mass hostilities have proven groundless.

The Iraqi Army are, at this moment, continuing operations, going into every section of the Basra hunting for wanted criminals – the majority of whom are Mahdi Army members. This in fact was what the offensive was originally intended to do. Army soldiers now control Iraq's port, having replaced all of the port's "security forces" that were, in reality, highly corrupt militia forces. The Army is conducting house to house searches for weapons. The Mahdi Army suffered significant casualties over the six days of fighting – "571 Mahdi Army fighters have been killed, 881 have been wounded, 490 have been captured, and 30 have surrendered . . . "

Sadr did not order his fighters to stand down because they were winning. Both Time Magazine and Bill Roggio reported that the high casualties, inability to resupply - the Army sealed the border with Iran - and low morale gave rise to Sadr’s call for a cease fire. To claim that Sadr won something out of this exchange is simply not justified on these facts.

Read the post here. While WaPo asserts that Sadr somehow won and that this is a defeat for the U.S. and Maliki, it is complete bull.

. . . The United States has spent more than $22 billion to build up Iraq's security forces, but they were unable to quell the militias.

Wow, this is amazing in its degree of either complete misunderstanding of military operations or it is simply being deliberately disingenuous. As to Basra, as I wrote yesterday:

The worst terrain from an attacker’s point of view is a large city. In the military, its referred to as MOUT – military operations on urban terrain. It is a multidimensional battlefield ranging from sewers to skyscrapers with virtually unlimited cover and concealment for defenders. In large cities, such as in Russia during WWII, the Germany military lost entire divisions in MOUT operations, and that was even with a willingness to destroy the infrastructure and total unconcern with civilian casualties.

Basra is a highly developed city of 1.7 million people. That is huge. The Sadrists were defending, they had knowledge of the impending offensive months in advance and fortified defenses, and they were supported with Iranian heavy weaponry, if not field leadership. The Iraqi government was not out to level the infrastructure nor to break the will of the people through causing civilian casualties. Expecting the Iraqi government forces to cake walk over the Sadrists in a period of six days in that scenario is just incredibly unrealistic – just as it is unrealistic to walk away with any sort of inflated belief in the strength of Sadr’s militia. In that type of environment, six weeks after initial contact would likely be a point where one could make assessments about the strength of the Iraqi Army or the strength and sustainability of Sadr’s militia – certainly not six days.

Note also that the Iraqis put down Sadrist uprisings in every city that they ignited, as indicated above.

. . . And it was Iran that helped broker an end to the clashes, enhancing its image and illustrating its influence over Iraq's political players.

Are these reporters do everything possible to denigrate the U.S. and the Iraqi government? One, what does it say about Sadr's relationship and that of his militia to Iran that they should have such extensive and ready influence over his decision to call a cease fire? Two, the only thing Sadr got out of this cease fire was a short term reprieve. Given Iran is allied with Sadr, how does this enhance Iran? What an ass.

I will end my fisking here - and direct you to Talisman Gate who does just a tremendous job of fisking both the Wapo artice and an equally despicable one from the NYT.

Friday, March 28, 2008

McCain Through The AP's BDS Lens

McCain gave a good speech on foreign policy that the AP then took and put through their own unique BDS spin cycle, framing it only as a split from Bush foreign policy while missing the import of McCain's radical foreign policy proposal for neutering the UN and strengthening Western democracies.

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McCain recently gave a foreign policy speech that was notable for several points and which signaled a dissatisfaction with the status quo. It was a plain vanilla speech in many ways, at least until interpreted by the AP:

"Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed, . . . We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies."

This is typical of the humility of McCain that one hears in his many speeches. Given that many of our "allies" as acting as craven and spoiled children, if he can make them cooperate by ignoring their recent past actions and making them feel more important, so be it. It is always much easier to get cooperation with honey than curses. But the AP takes this and puts it through their own unique spin cycle, transferring their own beliefs onto McCain and then interpreting his speech in that light:

McCain's speech was intended to signal to leaders abroad - and voters at home - that he would end an era of what critics have called Bush's cowboy diplomay. McCain never mentioned Bush's name, though he evoked former Democratic Presidents Truman and Kennedy.

It was, in effect, a fresh acknowledgment from the Arizona senator that the United States' standing on the world stage has been tarnished and that the country has an image problem under Bush.

Critics at home and abroad have accused Bush of employing a go-it-alone foreign policy in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when the administration spurned international calls for caution and led the invasion into Iraq.

Wow, talk about spin. This is the AP redlining the rpm's. The cowboy diplomacy label is a canard. When Bush entered office, our "allies" were Shroeder in Germany and Chirac in France, both of whom were highly anti-American. The "cowboy diplomacy" label grew out of Bush's refusal to give them a say in our foreign policy. Bush has always sought out support from other countries - as well documented today in a WSJ article. There is no apparent split here between McCain and Bush, merely a different method of expression.

To continue:

"The United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone," McCain said in the speech, noting that the United States did not single-handedly win the Cold War or other conflicts in its history. Instead, he said, the country must lead by attracting others to its cause, demonstrating the virtues of freedom and democracy, defending the rules of an international civilized society and creating new international institutions.

McCain wants to lead the nation as he leads his life - in accordance with principles, not hypocrisy. And McCain is correct that we need lots of allies if we are to effectively deal with the potentially existential problems we face today, both militarilly and economically. There is nothing in those words that conflicts with Bush foreign policy, yet the AP acts as if this is a complete change.

McCain is in fact proposing some radical changes in his foreign policy, though because they do not obviously conflict with the Bush media construct into which AP is fully invested, the AP misses it. McCain wants to set up a sort of shadow UN composed only of democracies. It would wholly neuter that most cherished of leftist institutions. Yet the import of all of that seems to pass by the AP, who report without comment:

. . . [McCain] renewed his call for creating a new global compact of more than 100 democratic countries to advance shared values and defend shared interests. Later, he told reporters he discussed his League of Democracies idea last week with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

You can read the AP article here. The only way in which the AP can report McCain's speech as a stark divergence from Bush's policies is if they have fallen into the trap of believing their own spin over the last eight years.

Good Foreign Policy Or The Hundred Years War?

Watching the far left in action is like watching a Piccasso painting brought to life. It is surreal and with only a tenuous relationship to reality. Such is their latest device to attack John McCain on the issue of Iraq. Krauthammer responds.

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Today's Krauthammer article is doubly depressing - one, because the left is clearly being untruthfull and playing America for fools, and two, because Krauthammer felt sufficiently concerned that it might works that it justified a response. The topic is McCain's remark to the effect that he would not have a problem maintaining long term bases in Iraq. The left is playing this up as the return of the Hundred Years war and that McCain is willing to commit us to endless warfare. It is incredibly sophomoric on several levels.

One, that is clearly not what McCain meant within the context of what he said - as you will see in the full quote in the Krauthammer article below. Two, McCain has long been about committing sufficient force in Iraq to completely quell the violence and bring hostilities to an end as soon as possible - in other words, end the war by actually winning it as soon as possible. There is light at the end of the tunnel on that - assuming it is not tossed away by the partisan democrats for votes. Three, everywhere we have put long term bases after a war - Germany, Japan, Italy, Korea - there has been no further warfare by or against that nation. So whether to maintain a long term base or two in a strategically important region with predatory neighbors who threaten our interests would seem a complete no-brainer. So how the far left can think they can somehow play this to their advantage is beyond me - but they do. And today, Krauthammer responds:

Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted -- "Make it a hundred" -- then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: "We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so." Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: "It's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

. . . The desirability of a similar presence in Iraq was obvious as long as five years ago to retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, one of Barack Obama's leading military advisers and his campaign co-chairman. During the first week of the Iraq war, McPeak (an Iraq war critic) suggested in an interview that "we'll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right." (Meaning, if we win.)

Why is that a hopeful outcome? Because maintaining a U.S. military presence in Iraq would provide regional stability, as well as cement a long-term allied relationship with the most important Arab country in the region.

As McPeak himself said about our long stay in Europe, Japan and Korea, "This is the way great powers operate." One can argue that such a presence in Iraq might not be worth the financial expense. A legitimate point -- it might require working out the kind of relations we have with Japan, which picks up about 75 percent of the cost of U.S. forces stationed there.

Alternatively, one might advocate simply bolstering our presence in Kuwait, a choice that would minimize risk, albeit at the sacrifice of some power projection. Such a debate would be fruitful and help inform our current negotiations with Baghdad over the future status of American forces.

But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to Politico, they have found it: "Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years.' "

The device? Charge that McCain is calling for a hundred years of war. Hence:

- "He says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (Barack Obama, Feb. 19).

- "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years" (Obama, Feb. 26).

- "He's willing to keep this war going for 100 years" (Hillary Clinton, March 17).

- "What date between now and the election in November will he drop this promise of a 100-year war in Iraq?" (Chris Matthews, March 4).

. . . As Lenin is said to have said, "A lie told often enough becomes truth." And as this lie passes into truth, the Democrats are ready to deploy it "as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain's national security credentials against him," reports David Paul Kuhn of Politico.

Hence: A Howard Dean fundraising letter charging McCain with seeking "an endless war in Iraq." And a Democratic National Committee news release in which Dean asserts: "McCain's strategy is a war without end. . . . Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq."

The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: "It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage 'endless war' based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea."

The Democrats are undeterred. "It's seldom you get such a clean shot," a senior Obama adviser told Politico. It's seldom that you see such a dirty lie.