Friday, April 14, 2006
A lopsided scorecard...
Compare and contrast the fawning press coverage given to MG General Swannack (Ret.), my old division commander when my battalion was attached to a brigade which was attached to the 82nd Airborne, and his call for a new SecDef
and the Icarus Drowning press treatment given to XVIII Airborne Corps Commander LTG John R. Vines, announcing that his intelligence is telling him that Al Qaeda is conducting a strategic withdrawal from Iraq.
In other words, Al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq.
I know, we've heard that before - the "last throes" of the week and all that. But a gradual disengagement by Al Qaeda would certainly help explain the substantial decrease in the number of car bombs and the number of civilian casualties, dontcha think?
And when you factor in that an increasing number of those civilian dead is as a result of the Shia getting some long overdue payback, then the slowdown in civilian casualties is all the more remarkable, because not only is the number of murdered civilians down, but Al Qaeda is responsible for a smaller fraction of them than before.
And if you follow events back to the early indications of red-on-red violence, and the rebellion against Al Qaeda by local sheikhs in Ramadi and out by the Syrian Border - ably reported on by Bill Roggio last year, it makes more and more sense.
What news outlets will successfully disengage themselves from the narcissistic gossip-fest catfight of all the retired generals and take a step back and look at the big picture?
Well, forget it: I'll do a compare and contrast for you...
Number of news stories this afternoon hitting on Swannack: 1,037.
Number of news stories hitting on John Vines: 8.
And one of them is The Jawa Report - a blogger.
Anyone still think they're being well served by the mainstream media?
Splash, out
Jason
and the Icarus Drowning press treatment given to XVIII Airborne Corps Commander LTG John R. Vines, announcing that his intelligence is telling him that Al Qaeda is conducting a strategic withdrawal from Iraq.
In other words, Al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq.
Al Qaeda in Iraq and its presumed leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, have conceded strategic defeat and are on their way out of the country, a top U.S. military official contended yesterday.
The group's failure to disrupt national elections and a constitutional referendum last year "was a tactical admission by Zarqawi that their strategy had failed," said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps.
"They no longer view Iraq as fertile ground to establish a caliphate and as a place to conduct international terrorism," he said in an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
I know, we've heard that before - the "last throes" of the week and all that. But a gradual disengagement by Al Qaeda would certainly help explain the substantial decrease in the number of car bombs and the number of civilian casualties, dontcha think?
And when you factor in that an increasing number of those civilian dead is as a result of the Shia getting some long overdue payback, then the slowdown in civilian casualties is all the more remarkable, because not only is the number of murdered civilians down, but Al Qaeda is responsible for a smaller fraction of them than before.
And if you follow events back to the early indications of red-on-red violence, and the rebellion against Al Qaeda by local sheikhs in Ramadi and out by the Syrian Border - ably reported on by Bill Roggio last year, it makes more and more sense.
What news outlets will successfully disengage themselves from the narcissistic gossip-fest catfight of all the retired generals and take a step back and look at the big picture?
Well, forget it: I'll do a compare and contrast for you...
Number of news stories this afternoon hitting on Swannack: 1,037.
Number of news stories hitting on John Vines: 8.
And one of them is The Jawa Report - a blogger.
Anyone still think they're being well served by the mainstream media?
Splash, out
Jason
Comments:
What decrease in civilian casualties?
Here.
Are you talking about the Brookings institute study (PDF format)? Sorry, but the figure for March of 446 civilian deaths is WRONG. There are at least 901 reported civilian deaths.
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Here.
Are you talking about the Brookings institute study (PDF format)? Sorry, but the figure for March of 446 civilian deaths is WRONG. There are at least 901 reported civilian deaths.
