How soon before G.W. changes the name of this offensive to the Vault??? Your uncle has been ranting and raving about the so-called security gains of this . . . this Surge for a few weeks now. Why? Because, I don’t like it when they piss on us, and try to tell us that it’s raining! And, that’s exactly what our corporate media has been doing to us. They just parrot all the BS that the Bush (remember; you can’t spell Bush without BS) administration spin/spews at us. Edward R. Murrow, Howard K. Smith, Harry Reasoner, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Peter Jennings are all dead. And so, apparently, are journalistic objectivity and integrity in the vast majority of our television, radio, and print medias. What we’re left with is this embarrassing, pathetic cheerleading squad, that tries to pass itself off as news. Rii-ight! All the news that’s fit to flush! They don’t DARE question anything that this administration says. The current crop (yes, as in vegetable) of anchors and reporters are scared to death of losing their jobs and being black-balled. It’s the same mentality as potential whistle-blowers in the FBI, NSA, CIA (whathaveyou): We’ll risk our lives, but we won’t risk our jobs! It’s sad for them, but even sadder for us. We, ultimately, are the victims, because we’ve been conditioned, for a very long time, to trust these people. Well, it’s time we wake up. It’s time we take the blinders off. It’s time we get back to critical thinking.
A while back I cited the al Sadr ceasefire as having more to do with the perceived gains than The Surge. For the sake of brevity, I left out that we were also paying some of the Sunni militias to fight al-Qaida, and in some instances our troops were avoiding certain hot-zones, at certain times. If you don’t engage the enemy, the enemy can’t kill you. Yes, our military leaders were playing probability games. All so the Bush Machine can pound their chest and point their finger and say: See, the surge is working! This is finally coming to light, as an AP article recently declared: “Report: U.S. no closer to goals in Iraq than it was a year ago”. Of course, in many newspapers this article is buried among the back pages. Your uncle is willing to bet that many of you didn’t see it.
Well, to further illustrate the situation I submit to you the following teaser, and link to a story, in today’s The Nation. It’s written by Tom Engelhardt. Don’t enjoy, because this isn’t pleasurable. But, DO read it.
“Don’t Betray Us, General:
Admit That Iraq Keeps Getting Worse,
And That The Surge Failed
By Tom Engelhardt,
TheNation.com April 8, 2008
They came, they saw, they deserted.
That, in short form, is the story of the recent Iraqi government “offensive” in Basra (and Baghdad). It took a few days, but the headlines on stories out of Iraq (“Can Iraq’s Soldiers Fight?”) now tell a grim tale and the information in them is worse yet. Stephen Farrell and James Glanz of the New York Times estimate that at least 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen, or more than 4% of the force sent into Basra, “abandoned their posts” during the fighting, including “dozens of officers” and “at least two senior field commanders.”
Other pieces offer even more devastating numbers. For instance, Sudarsan Raghavan and Ernesto Londoo of the Washington Post suggest that 30% of government troops had “abandoned the fight before a cease-fire was reached.” Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times offers 50% as an estimate for police desertions in the midst of battle in Baghdad’s vast Sadr City slum, a stronghold of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
In other words, after years of intensive training by American advisors and an investment of $22 billion dollars, US military spokesmen are once again left trying to put the best face on a strategic disaster (from which they were rescued thanks to negotiations between Muqtada al-Sadr . . . “
More at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/81572/
Don’t allow them to fool us any longer. We deserve the truth . . . even when it hurts.
Your Uncle Rave
Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
What Extended/Multiple Tours Can Do To “Our Boys”
Published May 21, 2008 Commentary , Iraq Leave a CommentTags: Commentary, Iraq
The following video (see link below) is extremely disturbing, no matter how you look at it. I’m sure we all hope and pray that these bad apples are the exception, and not the rule. Even if they are the rare exception, I think it illustrates the short-sightedness of our foray into, and continued occupation of, Iraq. The actions alone are deplorable, but when you couple them together with the (near psychotic) laughter . . . it suggests that these kids – our kids – have just gone over the edge.
We all know that bad actions get far more attention than the good in this world. (Maybe NOT in our media when it comes to this war, but that’s another issue.) Even if/when our troops do good by hundreds (even thousands) of Iraqis, it’s these other kinds of incidents that will register in their memories. One of our stated goals is to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. This does not strike me as a good way to go about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq5_vG3cYGM
Where is the leadership?!?!
Your Uncle Rave