Militants staging attacks in Iraq are as strong now as they were a year ago

"Militants staging attacks in Iraq are as strong now as they were a year ago, America's top soldier has said. Between 50 and 60 attacks are carried out each day, the same number as in 2004, according to Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4488099.stm

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/04/27/myers.insurgency/


Well who would have thought?

 

Have to love the monikers that are used to describe patriotic resistance fighters of any nation but our own. How interesting that US troops arent referred to as "militants". Obviously a car bomb equates to militancy whereas days long bombardment of Baghdad or the virtual levelling of Fallujah (with their officially ignored death tolls) is "liberation".

Isn't PR wonderful?

 

Thank you for the disinformation, Balbus. Your disgust at any sign of progress in Iraq hasn't changed.

For those who can't be bothered to click through, he're what Balbus left out of Myers comments:

Well who would have thought you would leave those quotes out?

Furthermore, a quick look at the BBC chart shows that indeed attacks are at the level of a year ago - only because they have declined dramatically over the last six months.

On the other hand while bitterness of the the anti-war left peaked at the elections, it has failed to decline significantly since then, helped by further disinformation campaigns.

 

Right, and anything Richard Myers says must be true. We all know that him and Rumsfeld tell it to the American people like it is. They are just such good people.

 

Delete

 

Pointbreak, I don't wanna sound like a dick but all your useless, harassing posts don't have any effect on what we think about the war in Iraq...Or atleast me. Just the fact that they are ineffective doesn't mean shit, it still means just as many Iraqis are trying to blow up cars and blow shit up and they aren't any more liberated then they were before Saddam was toppled.

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

Oh come on Point do you really think this was the war advertised by the neo-cons? It was the one perdicted by many people but not the neo-cons.

Remember this was meant to be a “cake-walk” where liberated Iraqis would be showing US troops with rose petals and the exiles would be swept into power and the oil and contracts would flow and peace would reign in the middle east.

Remember all the ends to the war? How things would be over when the troops got to Baghdad or with the Presidential announcement or with the interim government or the handing over of sovereignty or the elections. I hear now that there is talk of things becoming stable after the constitution is agreed on, what after that when hell freezes over.

I’m upset Point because this could have been done a lot better but this had just been on fuck up after another and until people stop making excuses for the idiots that have caused the fuck up, we can’t as a world try and deal with the many problems it has caused.

 

Why did you feel the need to intentionally distort what Myers said with selective quotes?

Why did you feel the need to intentionally mislead by suggesting that attacks haven't gone down, when they have?

If you cared about Iraq, you would have celebrated the elections. Instead, you avoided the biggest story of the day and decided to share an old anecdote about how someone overheard Americans expressing support for the IRA.

And then, on the day Syria leaves Lebanon after occupying it for decades, you come here and fulful your duty as Minister of Disinformation and try to spread doom and gloom about Iraq.

You seem determined to ignore historical events of incredible importance just so you can remain focussed on blaming and finding guilt in America at all times. I remain totally unconvinced that you care in the least what is happening in the middle east.

 

Oh really PB? Would you then welcome "elections" in which no campaigning took place, no positions were espoused to inform the electorate of options, no candidates were even named and ballots were marked only with hundreds of meaningless symbols without any idea for most what the hell they stood for.

This is your idea of acceptable "democracy"? Oh and all whilst under occupation by a foreign power.

Obviously you have exceptionally low standards indeed. Then again, given the fact that you refuse to acknowledge our history of fraudulently branded manipulations of other nations' political systems around the globe over the past half century, it's hardly surprising that you should put the blinders on to see only the pretense officially claimed as "democracy" by your neocon and pentagon heros.

Since you make such apology for it, you should move there and enjoy this wonderful system you gullibly assume has been created. Anyone with any intellectual honesty and even basic historic appreciation for our record of "installed" democracies see it (and those Washington cronies parading as the "choice of the Iraqi people") for the same old lie wrapped in new PR packaging.

Actually its you who seems to forget history and indeed revise it to suit your ideological blindness.

Do some actual research for a change and youll find that Syria's occupation of Lebanon was invited by Lebanese Christians precisely to help maintain peace between the war torn religious factions and to prevent further Israeli incursions into their land. That same Zionist agenda is being played out through sanitised and skewed historic revisionism which you seem all too ready to buy into.

 

Oh Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease Point get a grip.

I gave the first two paragraphs of an article with a link to it, which is very wide of intentional distortion.

As to the IRA comments of mine please give the context or give a link I’m quite happy for you to do so I have nothing to hid or fear, but if you did, it would be very clear that you in this case are the one trying to intentionally mislead people.

What happened to you man, I used to really respect you, but this kind of post is just incredibly disappointing.

I mean come on rather than just seeing any criticism of America as some anti-American slur try actually thinking about the subject.

I ask again is this war the one the neo-cons were advertising, the cakewalk?

Just this week both a Member of Parliament and a General in intelligence have been assassinated in Iraq.

Would you say there was no need for concern if in the US both a Congresswoman and a senior Pentagon official had been assassinated with two days of each other?

Your seeming lack of empathy for the plight of Iraq is breathtaking.

Please Point before all your credibility is gone, think before you post.

 

I though Bush stated "Mission Accoplished"??? What happened?? And who would of though they would still be attacking after we just walked right into Baghdad?

 

Perhaps he'd have more empathy for the plight of Iraqis and their rightful outrage if his entire hometown, house and family were bombed into perdition "in order to save it" by a foreign power.

 

Sorry, but Myers said "Almost any indicator you look at, the trends are up. So we're definitely winning". You selected a quote which was deliberately designed to give the opposite impression. If you stand by that distortion, fine. But don't try to made this a debate about whether or not Iraq was supposed to be a cakewalk, that's a straw man argument.

Angryman, try to remember the legitimacy of Iraqi elections is decided by Iraqis, not you. They risked their lives to vote and consider the result legitimate. Who in the world could possibly care if you're still in denial of that?

 

Yet Iraq still cant form a Government and why should they, Americans are the ones loosing more life that anyone else out there. Say what you want about our "fore fathers" breaking away from England, but atleast we were willing to stand up and fight even though we were the major underdog!

 

No PB, unlike you, who gullibly and unquestioningly accepts the soundbites and contrived images of mainstream media for his take on world affairs, I and those with any intellectual honesty comprehend that Democracy has clear conceptual and procedural requirements for legitimacy.

A tiny minority of Iraqs 23 milion paraded before cameras to suit the PR sold by the Pentagon's and Executive Branch's propaganda machinery does not make democracy. Easpecially so when those eligible for election are handpicked by Washington for inevitable installment through this fraudulent "made for TV" spectacle (repleat with the very soundbites you have ingested and regurgitate so effectively like a good little sycophant).

So go on, boy, move to Iraq and tell us all how wonderfully democratic it is. Perhaps you will gain many friends in Fallujah who share your pie in the sky delusions about their "liberation".

Do send us a postcard!

 

I think Iraqis living in Iraq are pretty well placed to conclude for themselves whether the elections were legitimate. And they concluded the elections were so important they were willing to risk their lives for them.

In comparison to that, I fail to see the relevance of long-winded leftists in Brussels with anger management issues.

 

As opposed to a Murdoch press indoctrinated right wing shill in the UK, hardly any credible source of critique there.

Of course, the reality in Iraq is far from what you wish to believe since most Iraqis do not subscribe to this installed government nor did more than a small minority vote since most polling stations weren't even manned.

But of course, we can all see how you avoided the aspects of this fraudulent election process enumerated in my earlier post. Obviously we can expect you to be moving there soon to show the people of Fallujah what a wonderfully legitimate democracy they are living in.

Be sure to look both ways when crossing the checkpoints!

 

For Iraq, that is a HUGE step in the right direction. The country has been a dictatorship for thousands of years. Obviously the people had SOME idea what the candidates stood for; the sectarian division is evidence of that.

You can't possibly expect the first free election the nation has ever held to be without flaws. America's first elections had problems too. The Iraqi election might not be "acceptable" by American standards, but America has a strong democratic history whereas Iraq does not. No, the election was not perfect, but to claim it was illegitimate (when it was recognized as legitimate by almost every election watchdog) is just silly.

 

Don't be ridiculous. Election watchdogs, the UN, the Iraqis - these people do not decide if an election is legitimate. Only Angryman and the anti-war left can decide if an election is legitimate.

And as it turns out, elections in the US, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Georgia, and in Ukraine are not legitimate.

On the other hand, the nearly three decade long Syrian occupation of Lebanon was legitimate.

 

There were very few "watchdogs" and only in very selected locations. Hardly anything but a typical Western paid for status quo whiewash. You really need to adopt a bit more discernment about media claims about "watchdogs", Kandahar. Plenty of those who serve in these watchdog institutions are also quite verifiably linked to Western corporate interests which have long had designs on Iraq.

Again its obvious that our pro-empire building apologists take a selective and excusatory approach to the clear and unequivocal concept of "democracy", much as one would expect. Nevermind that the Vienna and Hague Conventions forbid occupying powers from interfering in the internal political composition of the occupied nation. Nevermind as well that this so called "choice of the Iraqis" wouldnt last a week without the continued presence of our US forces to prop them up.

Indeed, Bush and co can lie repeatedly to press there case for perpetrating War of Aggression - which for anyone else would be immediately decried by our resident bushbots as war crime - but as soon as they say they have achieved "democracy" and parade selected images of a few isolated lines of people for CNN to jabber about, all lies are forgotten and it can't possibly be anything other than legitimate. How incredibly laughable!

Obviously PT Barnum was correct, there is a sucker born every minute.