Post-June 13th 'Normalcy' in Iraq
Posted by AmishThrasher at 9:19 pm
A few days ago, I posted the following archived news story about Iraq:
World still waits for Saddam trial
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4090081.stm
Six months from December 13th 2004 - unless I'm mistaken - is June 13th, 2005. Given that date has well and truely passed, it may be worth looking at the 'normalcy' that has come about from the 'huge psychological blow' which has seen the insurgency "on it's knees":
Security incidents in Iraq, July 6
SOURCE: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GRA636250.htm
If this is 'normalcy', heaven help us! But at least the insurgency is on it's knees, right?
Diplomats in Iraq are Latest Targets
SOURCE: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002359564_iraq06.html
So let us get this straight: if we weren't being lied to, what we are seeing in Iraq is 'normalcy'. The work of an insurgency 'on it's knees'. If this is normalcy, I hate to see what chaos looks like... or what kind of carnage an insurgency that isn't on its knees would bring!
Clearly, what the troops, the Iraqi public, and we - the voting public of nations supporting the Iraq war - have been told fails to stack up with reality. These attacks are happening daily, and are so common that they no longer seem to be newsworthy. We were promised an insurgency on its knees, and normalcy in 6 months. And with ongoing attacks in an environment where senior diplomats are not safe, it is clear that those promises are false.
What we all have been fed - since the start of this conflict - could be described (if we feel kind) as a string of best case scenarios. Instead of levelling with the troops, the people of Iraq, and the voting public about the realities of war; the reality that this could be a bloody and protracted war, we were fed these false promises. The governments of coallition nations like Australia have not levelled with their publics that this war would involve thousands of deaths; rather what we have gotten a parroting of the hollow promises fed to those overseas. The realists who tried to communicate a less rosy, yet honest, picture of what this wretched war would involve have been dubbed 'treasonous' and 'unpatriotic'. The warnings of the realists were left unheeded.
The so-called 'leaders' who fed us these hollow promises are wondering why there's a backlash to the Iraq War, and why their opinion poll ratings are slipping. It is because the public remembers all the hollow promises - the normalcy in 6 months, Saddam's capture bringing the insurgency to its knees, the weapons of mass destruction, etc. - and are asking (as the diplomats get captured and the insurgency continues to attack) why these promises go unfulfilled.
More and more people are beginning to ask themselves the fundamental question: are the guilty politicians merely incompetant, or blatant liars? Or Both?
Whichever way you answer the question, it is increasingly becoming clear that those who have made these outrageously false comments are fundamentally untrustworthy. The act of war, of sending thousands of people (including both civilians and our troops) to their deaths; the defence of our nations is arguably one of the most critical powers we entrust our politicians with. If they show, as they are showing, that they are undeserving of the most critical powers; that they handle even their most critical powers with utter incompetance (or lies), surely the guilty politicians are undeserving of power.
Period.
World still waits for Saddam trial
Last Updated: Monday, 13 December, 2004, 09:35 GMT
...
In a television address, President Bush declared: "In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over."
General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, said the capture had dealt the insurgency "a huge psychological blow" that would "pay great benefits over time".
And the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, Major General Jay Odierno, whose troops were credited with seizing Saddam, declared the insurgency to be "on its knees".
"Within six months I think you're going to see some normalcy," he added.
SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4090081.stm
Six months from December 13th 2004 - unless I'm mistaken - is June 13th, 2005. Given that date has well and truely passed, it may be worth looking at the 'normalcy' that has come about from the 'huge psychological blow' which has seen the insurgency "on it's knees":
Security incidents in Iraq, July 6
06 Jul 2005 10:20:54 GMT
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, July 6 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents reported in Iraq on July 6 as of 1000 GMT. U.S. and Iraqi forces are battling a Sunni Arab insurgency against the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government in Baghdad.
BAQUBA - The U.S. military said one of its soldiers was killed and two others wounded on Tuesday after a roadside bomb attack north-east of Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Insurgents attacked an Iraqi police patrol in eastern Baghdad early on Wednesday killing one policeman and injuring 10 others, police said.
KIRKUK - A suicide car bomber killed one Iraqi soldier and injured four on Tuesday when he drove into an Iraqi army checkpoint on the main road to Baghdad, the defence ministry said in a statement.
KERBALA - A bomb blew up near a U.S military convoy in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, police said. One Iraqi civilian was injured.
(Reporting by Mussab al-Khairalla and Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad and Sami al-Jumaili in Kerbala)
SOURCE: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/GRA636250.htm
If this is 'normalcy', heaven help us! But at least the insurgency is on it's knees, right?
Diplomats in Iraq are Latest Targets
By Seattle Times news services
Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen ambushed diplomats from Bahrain and Pakistan in separate attacks in the capital yesterday, just three days after militants kidnapped Egypt's top envoy, in tactics that seemed aimed at scaring off foreign governments and isolating Iraq from the Arab world.
Hassan Malallah al-Ansari, the top-ranking diplomat at Bahrain's Baghdad mission, was shot and wounded when gunmen in a pickup tried to abduct him as he was driving alone in the capital's Mansour district, police said. In the afternoon, Pakistani Ambassador Mohammed Younis Khan escaped injury when gunmen in two cars fired on his convoy in the same neighborhood.
The two attacks came on the heels of the disappearance and apparent kidnapping of Ihad al-Sherif, chief of Egypt's diplomatic mission in Baghdad. A message posted on an Internet forum yesterday said the group calling itself al-Qaida in Iraq was holding al-Sherif, who was last seen Saturday night
Egyptian officials stated their intention last month to convert their diplomatic mission in Iraq into a full-fledged embassy, and al-Sherif was to be elevated to the status of ambassador.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly telephoned her Egyptian counterpart to offer any help the U.S. government could provide in gaining al-Sherif's release.
SOURCE: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002359564_iraq06.html
So let us get this straight: if we weren't being lied to, what we are seeing in Iraq is 'normalcy'. The work of an insurgency 'on it's knees'. If this is normalcy, I hate to see what chaos looks like... or what kind of carnage an insurgency that isn't on its knees would bring!
Clearly, what the troops, the Iraqi public, and we - the voting public of nations supporting the Iraq war - have been told fails to stack up with reality. These attacks are happening daily, and are so common that they no longer seem to be newsworthy. We were promised an insurgency on its knees, and normalcy in 6 months. And with ongoing attacks in an environment where senior diplomats are not safe, it is clear that those promises are false.
What we all have been fed - since the start of this conflict - could be described (if we feel kind) as a string of best case scenarios. Instead of levelling with the troops, the people of Iraq, and the voting public about the realities of war; the reality that this could be a bloody and protracted war, we were fed these false promises. The governments of coallition nations like Australia have not levelled with their publics that this war would involve thousands of deaths; rather what we have gotten a parroting of the hollow promises fed to those overseas. The realists who tried to communicate a less rosy, yet honest, picture of what this wretched war would involve have been dubbed 'treasonous' and 'unpatriotic'. The warnings of the realists were left unheeded.
The so-called 'leaders' who fed us these hollow promises are wondering why there's a backlash to the Iraq War, and why their opinion poll ratings are slipping. It is because the public remembers all the hollow promises - the normalcy in 6 months, Saddam's capture bringing the insurgency to its knees, the weapons of mass destruction, etc. - and are asking (as the diplomats get captured and the insurgency continues to attack) why these promises go unfulfilled.
More and more people are beginning to ask themselves the fundamental question: are the guilty politicians merely incompetant, or blatant liars? Or Both?
Whichever way you answer the question, it is increasingly becoming clear that those who have made these outrageously false comments are fundamentally untrustworthy. The act of war, of sending thousands of people (including both civilians and our troops) to their deaths; the defence of our nations is arguably one of the most critical powers we entrust our politicians with. If they show, as they are showing, that they are undeserving of the most critical powers; that they handle even their most critical powers with utter incompetance (or lies), surely the guilty politicians are undeserving of power.
Period.
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