Surging Inhumanity

Know what I learned from Guy Raz on Saturday? The Surge™ worked! Ignore the role of ethnic cleansing, and forget about there still being 4+ million refugees and internally displaced persons (and no major improvements in sight), a death squad and human rights abusing regime in place - because, according to Guy Raz, "before the surge in Iraq, we kept hearing that there were no good options for Iraq. This is a choice between bad and worse. But the surge seemed to have worked out."

Well, how about that. Everybody thought the outcome could only be bad or worse - but the miraculous Surge™ turned out to be GRRREEEAAAT! It's not really surprising since NPR has been hawking the Surge™ , and Raz was talking to one of NPR's favorite Bushista military men, Jack Keane. Raz does seem to be feeling the love keanely when he not only compliments him on the Surge™ but also on his strategic genius:

"Jack Keane, the counterinsurgency plan you wrote for Iraq worked at the time. You were instrumental in getting David Petraeus installed as the ground commander there. Do you think that kind of plan could work in Afghanistan?" (kiss, kiss)

Hmmm, somebody must be thinking about a 2012 Petraeus-Keane dream team...with you know who for White House Press Secretary...

No One Doubts

Linda Wertheimer apparently never listened to the Lourdes Garcia-Navarro's report that she introduced on Friday morning. Garcia-Navarro does a commendable job reporting on factors besides the Surge™ that have decreased the slaughter in Baghdad, but that doesn't stop Wertheimer from opening with this salvo:

"...the impact of the troop Surge™. The last of the troop reinforcements left Iraq this summer and no one doubts that they helped improve security in Baghdad..."

That's odd, since Garcia-Navarro's report takes a brief look at several of those non-existent doubts. She interviews a Sunni who talks about the ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods (confirmed in the NPR-ignored satellite report), the pre-Surge™ realignment of Sunni insurgents with the Americans (which Juan Cole over at Informed Comment has repeatedly credited to the Sunni realization that they had lost the sectarian war against the Shia), and the cease-fire of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi army.

These factors all point to many doubts about US troops improving security in Baghdad - and Garcia-Navarro's report doesn't even cover some of the more disturbing aspects that are implied in her report. For example, in the (NPR-ignored) satellite study of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad, the authors conclude that the Surge™ had no positive effect on security (unless you count the ethnic cleansing that the Surge™ accelerated). Garcia-Navarro's report also doesn't mention that the Mehdi army ceasefire was largely achieved by...Iran! And finally Garcia-Navarro doesn't even mention the city of walls that has "improved the security" of Baghdad's inmates.

And of course Wertheimer's "no one doubts" doesn't even consider the opinions of the Iraqis, and why should she when NPR can't even report on how many of them have died between "liberation" and the Surge.

Turning the Lights Off

I'm still waiting for NPR to report on the satellite evidence that debunks NPR's routine touting of the amazin' success of The Surge™. The Reuter's report on the satellite evidence quotes the team that analyzed the evidence:

"Our findings suggest that the surge has had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved."

Science Daily, covering the report quotes its authors:

"By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."

Pretty sad and horrible. And NPR? Seems like they like the lights off, too.

One Important Question

Consider this assessment of Iraq offered by Bob Siegel on Tuesday's ATC:

"Despite recent security gains in Iraq, one important question remains: 'If American troops leave, is the Iraqi army ready to assume responsibility for the country's security?'"

The unstated premise of Siegel's question is that American troops have brought security to Iraq. Let's just say that 5 years (and counting), 5 million refugees (and counting) and one million (and counting) dead Iraqis is one a hell of a legacy of security for the Iraqi army to maintain. No wonder Siegel questions whether it is up to the task.

The reduction of the eventual exit of American forces from Iraq (hopefully sooner rather than later) to just one question is pretty silly (and continues the McCain lie of selling of the Surge as some kind of great success). There are actually endless questions remaining; I'll suggest a few of the obvious:

• Will the people responsible for the war crime of invading Iraq ever be brought to justice?
• Will the US ever pay reparations for the destruction of infrastructure that it wreaked on Iraq?
• Will the corporations who swindled the US and Iraq out of "reconstruction" billions ever be held to account?
• How many foreign extremists have been created by the Iraq War?
• Will the US soldiers physically and psychologically wounded in Iraq ever receive the services they deserve?
• Will Baghdad ever be a religiously, ethnically mixed city again?
• How will the sectarian divides created by the US war play out in the next several years?
• Will the Shia-dominated government of Maliki seek to crush the Sunni minority once the US forces are gone?

You can probably come up with a few of your own...

Surgin'

According to Michele Norris on Thursday's ATC, NPR was "curious about John McCain's premise that applying the lessons of Iraq could lead to victory in Afghanistan." Opening the report, Norris says, "McCain asserts that the best way to turn around the situation in Afghanistan is by using the experience in Iraq as a blueprint." This is followed by McCain's voice asserting "...it is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan; it's by applying the tried and true principles of counterinsurgency used in the surge - which Senator Obama opposed - that we will win in Afghanistan."

What NPR should be curious about is whether the very premise of McCain's claim is true. Has the Surge has been a "success?" Unfortunately, as anyone who follows NPR knows, NPR has simply accepted that the Surge has succeeded.

In the report Norris talks to Nathaniel C. Fick, counterinsurgency advocate and fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Fick is all for using the "lessons learned" in Iraq, Vietnam, Malaya, etc. (NPR has a long history of promoting US/British counterinsurgency) as the US seeks "victory" in Afghanistan. If you listen to the report you won't hear anything about these lessons from the Surge: rearming parties to an unresolved sectarian conflict, that the US may be helping Maliki crush political opponents, that a lot of the "peace" of the surge is from cantonization of Baghdad and ethnic cleansing.

What NPR should be doing is acknowledging that the Surge has been a smashing success if its goal is to reduce immediate violence and postpone the final horrors of the Iraq War until Bush leaves office. If they were reporting truthfully on the failures of the Surge, then McCain's wish to apply the Surge wouldn't even merit serious consideration, but would reveal itself as the self-evident folly that it is.

Two Crocks for the Price of One

On Friday's ATC, Robert Siegel has one of his chummy chats with the powerful, this time with "our man there now in Baghdad," as he calls US Ambassador Crocker.

From the start Siegel lets Crocker spin out a bunch of lies without a murmur of protest. Crocker says, "Progress comes in different forms, the most important was what we saw in February when Iraq's parliament came together to hammer out some hard compromises across sectarian lines to produce three significant pieces of legislation: an amnesty law, 2008 budget, a law on de-Baathification." Political progress? As Carpetbagger Report pointed out in January, this "progress" narrative is no progress at all.

Siegel also lets Crocker claim that bringing US troop levels back to pre-surge occupation levels is some kind of great achievement: "...because the surge has had significant success...and because in that environment we have seen political and economic progress, by July we will have withdrawn 25% of our combat power from Iraq..." Hey let's pop open the champagne!

But the kicker comes when Crocker drops this smelly one on the table: "...it is completely clear to any informed observer these militias would not be in a position to do what they're doing if they didn't get support from Iran, those rockets that struck in Basra and Baghdad and were fired at the Prime Minister in Basra all were made in Iran." What a surprise, the Iraq boogeyman again. And Siegel's challenge to this is....

"What do you say to Americans who when told that the country faces two challenges there: al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iran. What do you say when they say, If it weren't for our war policy there wouldn't be an al-Qaeda in Iraq and Iraq would be a counterweight to Iran."

Not only does Siegel not demand proof of any kind, he simply accepts the grossly simplistic Bush line that Iraq is all about al-Qaeda and that every problem for the US in Iraq is traceable back to Iran.

Watching Crocker sit in front of Congress and tell lie after lie was disgusting, but no big surprise; after all he's a minion of the Bush administration. But for a supposed journalist at a public news station to repeat and propagate the same misinformation without challenge is a disgrace.

The Amazing, Unbelievable, Miraculous, Astounding, Mindbending, Glorious, Immaculate Military Success of the Surge

In the proud tradition of NPR skepticism about the Surge™ (see June 07, September 07, February 08, and March 08) Morning Edition trotted out old one-outlet Surge™ Protector, David Welna. Here he manages to both campaign for John McCain and be a cheerleader for the Surge™ :

"McCain sounded as if he were describing his own near political near-death odyssey last year as a presidential contender - [McCain interlude: 'We've come a long way since early 2007 and quite a distance even since General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker appeared before our committee last September'] but of course what McCain really meant was that a disputed strategy he'd strongly endorsed, last year's US troop expansion in Iraq, known as the surge, is now widely accepted as having been, at least militarily , a success. [Another McCain insert: 'This means rejecting as we did in 2007, the calls for a reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces at the moment when they are succeeding.']"

Oh yeah, that widely accepted, mythically triumphant, amazingly successful Surge. Who but the reckless and irresponsible could argue with that?

Stooges

In a story on Friday's Morning Edition I heard Jackie Northam say, "he pressed ahead without enough military intelligence or troops." Who could she be talking about? What idiot would do such a thing? Hmmm....

Maliki, of course! Yes, NPR is covering up the mess of the Basra operation so as to make the Bush administration's role look as positive as possible. Northram says "analysts here in Washington say that decision revealed Maliki's weaknesses: he pressed ahead without enough military intelligence or troops, giving the US very little notice of his plans. The offensive quickly began to unravel, threatening to undo recent security gains in other parts of Iraq and forcing the US and Britain to help defend Iraqi security forces."

Nothram works hard in this excerpt, pushing the ludicrous idea (lie) that the Maliki offensive was launched without US knowledge of its extent. But she's doing even more here: she posits that the Basra operation ruined all those miraculous security gains of The Surge™. And not only that, it FORCED the US and Britain to help. You've got to hand it to Northam, she packs a lot of BaSra into one little paragraph.

The tone of Northam's piece was a stunner, too. Imperial prerogatives are simply assumed for the US. Northam states that Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations "says Crocker and the US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, will have to tell Maliki in unambiguous terms, that the US will not tolerate and similar unilateral actions in the future." And she doesn't flinch a bit as she says, "Wayne White is a former State Department analyst and currently adjunct scholar with the Middle East Institute. White says the US could engineer a coup against Maliki, but it may be better to just let the political process play out..." Could engineer a coup? Echoes of Diem, eh...

The last big accomplishment of Northam's piece is that it not only covers up the stupidity of Bush, Crocker, Cheney, and Petraeus - but it covers up the stunning fact that it is Iran that saved the day in Iraq, essentially pulling the administrations chestnuts from the fire. I'd say that is definitely a defining moment, no?

A Real Cream Puff

In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, I recall that the packing house workers are scammed by being shown a crappy house that's been slapped up with a fresh coat of paint to hide what a piece of junk it really is. After a short while of living in the house the poor families realize they've been had. Can it be just over a year ago that Bushco was slapping some super-duper Surge™ paint on its destroyed house of Iraq and daring to sell it as a real bargain fixer-upper? I have to admit that appalling as it was, I was in awe of the chutzpah of Bush, and stunned by how ready the press was to put its money on the whole scam. In spite of the slight downturn in fresh corpses from the US built Iraqi Carnage Factory, there never was any "success" of the Surge™. Yes, there was an eventual lowering daily US troop deaths and headline grabbing car and truck bombings, but what movement was ever made toward solving any of the core problems plaguing the Bush-Iraq project? The real success of the the Surge™ was its role in postponing the coming implosion of Iraq long enough for Bush and friends to hand this disaster off to the next administration. In that sense the Surge™ was a total success...until now.

This week Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi army cease-fire looks like its about over and the production of corpses in Iraq seems to be ramping up again. On NPR, in spite of some decent reporting on the ground from Garcia-Navarro, the whole framing of the issue is how the end of the cease-fire threatens all the wonderful blessings of Surge™. Here's a sampling of the coverage:

• Morning Edition, March 24, 2008 (Guy Raz): "from Petraeus and Admiral Fallon it's pretty straightforward, come August, General Petraeus wants to see a temporary freeze on the troop withdrawals. He basically wants to see whether 135,000 troops will be able to have the same impact on security and stability as a 160,000..."
• All Things Considered, March 24, 2008 (Anne Garrels): Younis, an Iraqi, "credits the US troop surge with improving security."
• Morning Edition, March 25, 2008 (Lourdes Garcia-Navarro): ""Well, that's right, the surge is credited with working for three reasons....So the surge is being reversed now."
• Morning Edition, March 26, 2008 (Inskeep): "Just when many reports were focusing on improvements to Iraq's security, the country is facing a grave challenge, maybe the worst challenge to Iraq's security in more than a year."

It amazes me how this narrative develops a life of its own: the Surge™ was successful, security was so much better, things were really looking up and now those darn sectarian militants are ruining all the progress. Seriously, when I read a piece such as this one from TomDispatch.com about how the Surge™ first accelerated blood-letting and ethnic cleansing, I just wonder how anyone with a heart could consider it a "success."

Spreadin' the Surge

If I were working for John McCain's BS Express and spreading it on thick about the blessings of the Surge™ I might say something like "McCain's political fortunes have improved with the apparent success of the troop surge...but the surge and success were a long time in coming." Sure I'd know that it was a complete lie, something any reporter could could debunk in a flash by doing a little, tiny bit of reading in say maybe The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Dahr Jamail's dispatches, or Juan Cole's analysis. Amazingly, Senator McCain has a full-time volunteer spokesperson at NPR who says exactly such rubbish; his name is Scott Horsley.

Horsley wasn't satisfied with just selling the Surge Success Story, he also jumped on the McCain band wagon of revisionist make-believe about the Vietnam War being lost because "civilian leaders had mismanaged the war." Horsley tells us that "McCain spent nine months...studying how America had entered and lost the Vietnam War. He didn't conclude the war was wrong, but...he did resent how badly civilian leaders had mismanaged the war and how ineffectually senior military commanders had resisted." Just in case you reasonably think that McCain's deluded thinking may be a danger to others and better suited for the Straight-jacket Express, Horsely reminds us at the end of the piece that "McCain himself is a student of history." Yeah, and Scott Horsely is a great reporter, too!