Double Rant--Plus One

Today in Iraq featured a twin rant yesterday (scroll down), which linked over, among other things, to the "unclassified" report about the killing of Nicola Calipari, and the wounding of Guiliana Sgrena and Andrea Carpani.

For those who might not have caught the story elsewhere, a heavily redacted report was initially issued, but a European reader noticed the .pdf was poorly prepared, enabling anyone to erase the redactions. The resulting document might not read exactly like a mini Pentagon Papers, but it's hard not to draw some pessimistic conclusions.

Take the time, though, to look over the rant, which begins by pointing out Donald Rumsfeld annoyance over being reminded about General Shinseki's pre-war assessment of force requirements:

"During the hearing, Rumsfeld assailed critics who were talking about possibly resuming the draft, and said he was tired of hearing about former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's prediction a month before the invasion that 'several hundred thousand' troops would be needed to occupy Iraq."

That quote frosted my ass. So Rummy’s “tired of hearing about” General Shinseki? Boo-fucking-hoo. Cue the violins and break out the Kleenex for poor, abused Rummy.

Let’s put this in perspective: General Shinseki predicted a long, difficult and costly occupation while Rumsfeld and his Chairborne Rangers predicted flowers and music. General Shinseki wanted a heavy force structure for the initial invasion while Rumsfeld insisted on a skeleton force. General Shinseki was right and Rummy was wrong.

Rummy’s stubborn, ideological insistence on a “lean” force resulted in nation-wide disorders after the fall of Baghdad. Rummy’s incompetence armed the insurgency when he didn’t give the Army enough resources to secure Iraqi weapons and ammunition depots. General Shinseki was right and Rummy was wrong.

Rummy’s rosy predictions and flawed force structure led directly to the complete collapse of the CPA’s reconstruction program - and don’t forget that Rummy directly supervised Baghdad fashion maven and incompetent administrator Paul Bremer. The ever-growing insurgency is a direct result of Rummy’s earliest decisions. General Shinseki was right and Rummy was wrong.

And all roads from Abu Ghraib lead straight to Rummy's office door.

Rummy, you incompetent, ignorant, arrogant son of a bitch, pucker up and kiss my greasy ass.

Indeed. So, Don is upset, eh? Somebody should ask him how a wounded soldier must feel. Or, the family of a soldier who's been killed. Or the family of an Iraqi civilian who's been either killed or wounded. And, just to demonstrate Mr. Rumsfeld's capacity for evil, why not let him wax on about how good it makes him feel when insurgents are killed.

I've mentioned over and over--not that I've got the ear of a higher up, but nonetheless it's my 1st amendment right--that our policy in the Middle East should be one of identifying then supporting MIDDLE EASTERNERS with whom we can ally with. Which, if you think about it, is a highly reasonable stance, considering that they LIVE THERE AND WE DON'T. And, at least until we began blasting away in Mesopotamia, there was the possibility of doing just such a thing (of course, the Bush strategery was to shove Ahmad Chalabi down their collective throats, thereby demonstrating an almost bottomless capacity for stupidity on his part--of all the potential pro-US Iraqi nationals, Bush chooses the most obvious crook).

Instead, for what can ONLY be deemed to be a case of political expediency, Team Bush ran off to slay the toothless dragon, and now is thoroughly attached to the Iraqi tar baby, partly because the situation was always going to be a hell of a lot more complicated than their collective GOP pea-brains could grasp--and partly because Rummy, proving that evil is not necessarily genius, decided to test his own theory about warfare, sending a skeleton force. The rest of Team Bush must truly be delusional--thet are the embodiment of democratic subversion, yet they somehow thought that Iraqis would allow themselves to be herded into a western-friendly government...without having the first consideration that Iraqis, being a modern, multi-ethnic society, might have any number of political agendas. But, geez, that would've meant no flight-suit photo op...

Now the ugly truth is...well, out, as it were, but the one true herd of bleating sheep--namely, the domestic media--continues to march in lock-step with the administration, not even taking the first step towards showing a degree of independence. Ergo, the story of the war slides down to the back pages, or shows up on local newscasts when a young man or woman is buried with full military honors. Photographs of flag draped coffins are deemed unacceptable, and even the wounded are brought back to the US late at night, so as not to upset the citizenry.

I spent the afternoon (blogging at home today--took the day off) looking over the post-action report (part II of Today's rant) on the Sgrena matter--Yankeedoodle summarizes some things that caught his attention if you don't have time to read the whole thing. Interestingly, The New York Times actually notes it--in the last two paragraphs of a story about the Italian rebuttal. Nicely buried, but the statement of fact seems to have escaped most of the media, and you certainly won't see any administration official, much less the pResident, asked about it:

The report said that tensions along the expressway had been heightened by 135 insurgent attacks on the road in the previous four months...

Look at that line again--135 attacks in four months, or, roughly 120 days. That's on an single stretch of road that covers not quite twelve miles. Nor are these attacks necessarily furtive actions undertaken in the dead of night. The Times doesn't bother to mention it, but the report notes two thirds of the attacks occur during the day. In the last nine months, insurgents have mounted over 15,000 attacks on coalition forces. Baghdad alone has seen some 3300 attacks just in the last four months (2400 directly against coalition forces, the rest presumably against civilians, police, ING, etc.). During the week when Calipari was killed, 166 IED incidents were recorded. Of these, 131 detonted, 35 were defused or detonated in controlled explosions (or were duds), and 82 casualites resulted. From February 27th through March 25th, 422 attacks were launched against the 3rd ID.

This material, "redacted" from the officially released report, are startling, particularly when you consider how little of this is reported in the press. Just doing the math, you can determine that upwards of 50 attacks A DAY are launched by the insurgents. Which makes this little tidbit of news about the low morale among forces loyal to Musab al-Zarqawi something that stretches credibility. In reality, Iraq is turning into a meat grinder par excellence, which seriously undermines the ability of the United States's ability to conduct effective foreign policy.

Now, why the media can't simply read the goddamned report--and write about it--is beyond me.

Finally, Today in Iraq links over to this smackdown of Jonah Goldberg by Greg Mitchell. Goldberg launched into yet another tired "but it ISN'T Vietnam" screed recently, which Mitchell nicely disposes of, using a metaphor similar to Billmon (who likened the war to Vietnam--on crack). Mitchell suggests speed--close enough.

He goes on to caustically note the straw man arguments Goldberg trots out like so many tired horses, but notes the BIG similarities--the lies that were proffered to start the fighting, the wholesale destruction of cities, the outrageous costs, the pathetic attempt to nationalize the conflict--and, in the end, the certainty that the United States will LOSE. In my book, we've already lost, and might as well come to grips with the consequences, given that this is a bit more serious than the "old college try." Now, whether or not we LEARN anything is a different matter. Evidently, one lesson, ending roughly thirty years ago, just wasn't enough for the wingnut warmongers.

The shame is that some citizens STILL bought their overpriced, used-war.