(1) Before reading Krugman's article below, view this video
to get
some perspective:
By PAUL KRUGMAN
September 7, 2007
Here's what will definitely happen when Gen. David
Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he'll assert that the
surge has reduced violence in Iraq -- as long as you don't count Sunnis
killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs
and people shot in the front of the head.
Here's what I'm afraid will happen: Democrats will look at
Gen. Petraeus's uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe.
They won't ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse
them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they'll
desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that
politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops,
if he feels like it.
There are five things I hope Democrats in Congress will
remember.
First, no independent assessment has concluded that
violence in Iraq is down. On the contrary, estimates based on morgue,
hospital and police records suggest that the daily number of civilian
deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year. And a recent
assessment by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found no
decline in the average number of daily attacks.
So how can the military be claiming otherwise?
Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula
that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths
(not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs
are excluded, and one intelligence analyst told The Washington Post
that "if a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If
it went through the front, it's criminal." So the number of dead is
down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.
Oh, and by the way: Baghdad is undergoing ethnic
cleansing, with Shiite militias driving Sunnis out of much of the city.
And guess what? When a Sunni enclave is eliminated and the death toll
in that district falls because there's nobody left to kill, that counts
as progress by the Pentagon's metric.
Second, Gen. Petraeus has a history of making wildly
overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be
convenient for his political masters.
I've written before about the op-ed article Gen. Petraeus
published six weeks before the 2004 election, claiming "tangible
progress" in Iraq. Specifically, he declared that "Iraqi security
elements are being rebuilt," that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward"
and that "there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to
shoulder more of the load for their own security." A year later, he
declared that "there has been enormous progress with the Iraqi security
forces."
But now two more years have passed, and the independent
commission of retired military officers appointed by Congress to assess
Iraqi security forces has recommended that the national police force,
which is riddled with corruption and sectarian influence, be disbanded,
while Iraqi military forces "will be unable to fulfill their essential
security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months."
Third, any plan that depends on the White House
recognizing reality is an idle fantasy. According to The Sydney Morning
Herald, on Tuesday Mr. Bush told Australia's deputy prime minister that
"we're kicking ass" in Iraq. Enough said.
Fourth, the lesson of the past six years is that
Republicans will accuse Democrats of being unpatriotic no matter what
the Democrats do. Democrats gave Mr. Bush everything he wanted in 2002;
their reward was an ad attacking Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an
arm in Vietnam, that featured images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam
Hussein.
Finally, the public hates this war and wants to see it
ended. Voters are exasperated with the Democrats, not because they
think Congressional leaders are too liberal, but because they don't see
Congress doing anything to stop the war.
In light of all this, you have to wonder what Democrats,
who according to The New York Times are considering a compromise that
sets a "goal" for withdrawal rather than a timetable, are thinking. All
such a compromise would accomplish would be to give Republicans who
like to sound moderate -- but who always vote with the Bush
administration when it matters -- political cover.
And six or seven months from now it will be the same thing
all over again. Mr. Bush will stage another photo op at Camp Cupcake,
the Marine nickname for the giant air base he never left on his recent
visit to Iraq. The administration will move the goal posts again, and
the military will come up with new ways to cook the books and claim
success.
One thing is for sure: like 2004, 2008 will be a "khaki
election" in which Republicans insist that a vote for the Democrats is
a vote against the troops. The only question is whether they can also,
once again, claim that the Democrats are flip-floppers who can't make
up their minds.
(3) A response to Krugman:
Re: Time to Take a Stand
Anyone with a sense of history will have to chortle at
the latest claims, and for that matter the previous
year's set of claims, and the year before that's, about
how the Iraqi government and military are doing better
than ever. If you were around during Vietnam, you will
recall the stories, that came out every year, about how
the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam, aka the
puppet troops), how 80 battalions were being trained,
about how the army is taking over more missions
previously assigned to US forces, and usually there was
a favorite province where every year the gullible media
would be taken on tour to see all the progress (the
fact that the province in question had never had much
Viet Minh or NLF organization, being ruled by one of
the weird religious sects, was never mentioned as it
would ruin the Happy Days! message). There were
several years running when I recall the figure of 80
battalions in training being mentioned, and by gosh,
the same number (maybe the same battalions?) has been
cited for Iraq several years running. The small print,
as usual, what generally never makes the story, is that
6 of these battalions are rated as combat worthy, and
by that they mean that 3 of the battalions are believed
to be good enough to be trusted with live ammunition,
and relied upon not to run away when shooting starts.
And every time, some serious military intellectual will
scratch his head and not be able to understand why
these guys aren't all that eager to die for "their"
government that we have given them. And why the guys
on the other side still seem willing to brave the
insane amount of firepower the US military can
generate. "Just doesn't make sense, must be outside
agitators, Chinese Communists, uh, Iranian fanatics,
Mooslim extremists, devils from hell, crazy people.
They just don't act right."
Do you think there is extant somewhere in the British
archives a report from some general claiming 80
battalions of Loyalists training in North America,
ready to take over the duties of His Majestie's forces
soon? Wanna bet?
Jack Radey
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