DID THE GENERAL BETRAY US?

Definitely not! That dishonor belongs to his
lying boss! Mr. Bush misled us into war, and
continues to misrepresent what is happening
there, and why. True, the Gen. has misled us
as well. But he gets his mangled numbers
from the Pentagon, and faithfully passes them
on as gospel. BBC, the U. N., and other agencies
that accurately count civilian casualties in Iraq
tell us their has been no change in those sad
figures in the past year. Our own government,
you will recall, does not keep track of civilain
casualties in Iraq, and never has. So how can
it know? The pres. was asked once about them,
and admitted he didn't know, but guessed
"about ten thousand." Try 500,000, George!
And that's just the dead. Total casualties are
at least double that!

As for the good general, his service to the
country and devotion to duty merit respect as
well as gratitude. As I have written before
(July 24 blog), his statements are not always
accurate. In September, 2004 when the
upcoming election was about the war, Gen.
Petraeus wrote an op-ed in the Washington
Post brimming with optimism and good things
happening. At the time, he was in charge of
training and equipping the Iraqi army. He
reported: "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward,
leading their country and their security forces
courageously." And those security forces were
coming along well. Their leaders "are showing
courage . . . and momentum has gathered in
recent months." It was a very rosy picture that
he presented to the American public, and
carried a lot of weight with voters. Krugman,
of the NYT wrote of this: "After all, it puts to
rest any idea that the general stands above
politics: I don't think it's standard practice for
serving military officers to publish pieces that
are strikingly helpful to an incumbent, six weeks
before a national eclection."

I will not express disrespect for the general.
But what he said was not true. And what he is
saying now is not the whole truth. It's not
accurate. It's highly selective. And it serves
the purposes of his masters, not the best
interests of his troops or his country. If he gets
down and rolls in the political pig pen, he
should not be surprised if he gets barnyard
dirt on his uniform. That's sad, and it's a fact.
The U. S. Senate is just stupid and silly for
supporting this nonsense. As Mark Twain said,
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you
were a member of Congress. But I repeat
myself."

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

PERPETUAL WAR?

"Candidates who avoid saying what they believe out
of fear of offending lobbyists and activists who have
been proven wrong over and over again are not doing
Israel any favors. And they should not be rewarded
for it by being granted the label of "pro-Israel." There
is nothing pro-Israel about supporting policies that
only promise that Israeli mothers will continue to dread
the sons' 18th birthdays for another generation. For
that we are supposed to be grateful?" So writes M. J.
Rosenberg in the Israeli paper, Haaretz. Rosenberg
is director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy
Center. His article is an important one which, among
other things, agrees with much of the controversial
new book on the Israel lobby by Profs. Mearsheimer
and Walt. I urge you to read the full article at
www.haaretz.com/.

Below is a letter of mine that appeared in the local
paper (Albany Democrat-Herald): "In a recent
editorial you asked concerning Iraq, 'How does it end?'
You went on to write: 'But it is a mistake to ask the
question about the end only about Iraq. It ought to
be asked about the continuing conflict between
America and the West on the one side and radical
Islam on the other.'"

"That, of course, is the crucial question! And the
answer has been given by none other than Osama
bin Laden: 'The West will know no peace until the
Palestinians have peace.' He was not speaking idly.
King Abdullah of Jordan, a staunch friend of the U. S.
and an enemy of terrorism (and bin Laden) has said
many times 'that the root cause of Muslim terrorism
is the Palestine-Israel situation. It is the core issue
underlying everything else.'" Why do we in the West
disbelieve or ignore what Muslims keep telling us?
It might have something to do with the way our
media discount and reject the opinions of Muslims.

"Jimmy Carter explains -- in a must-read if you want
to understand that situation -- just how and why
this issue is so central to Muslims in all their dealings
with the West. His epochal book is: Palestine Peace
Not Apartheid." (And by the way, Bishop Tutu, who
knows apartheid, visited Palestine and said, "this is
apartheid.")

"Also, Stephen Walt, a Harvard prof., and John
Mearsheimer of the Univ. of Chicago have a new
book just out that explains why we keep on backing
Israel's brutal, illegal forty-year occupation of the
West Bank to the tune of giving them $3 billion a
year, and vetoing any efforts by the U. N. to make
them live up to their many agreements. That book
is called: The Israel Lobby, and no, it's not anti-
Semitic in any way, nor am I." (Is M. J. Rosenberg
anti-Semitic, or Haaretz?)

"That book also documents the role Israel had in
getting us to remove Saddam. He was way more
of a problem for them than he ever was for us. The
same is now true of Iran. Sen. Lieberman wants to
attack them, and the Israel lobby, along with the
senator, was successful in preventing a 'no war with
Iran without our say so' clause in recent legislation.
And so it goes."

"We will begin to establish friendly relations with the
Muslim world when, and only when, we force Israel
to live up to its many past agreements to get out of
the West Bank and let the Palestinians live in peace
in their own land. Palestinian resistance, when it
takes the form of terrorist attacks on civilians is to
be condemned absolutely and unconditionally. It
cannot be justified in any way, shape or form. Hamas
is a wrong, in fact, criminal response to a criminal
occupation." (End of letter to the editor.)

Back to M. J. Rosenberg, (in the article in Haaretz
that I referred to in the opening, above):
"I spent almost 20 years as a Congressional aide and can
testify from personal experience that senators and House
members are under constant pressure to support status-
quo policies on Israel. It is no accident that members of
Congress compete over who can place more conditions on
aid to the Palestinians, who will be first to denounce the
Saudi peace plan, and who will win the right to be the
primary sponsor of the next pointless Palestinian-bashing
resolution. Nor is it an accident that there is never a
serious Congressional debate about policy toward Israel
and the Palestinians. Moreover, every president knows
that any serious effort to push for an Israeli-Palestinian
agreement based on compromise by both sides will produce
loud (sometimes hysterical) oppositions from the Hill.

Walt and Mearsheimer mostly limit themselves to
exploring whether all this is good for the United States
(and to a lesser extent, Israel). The question I ask today,
and not for the first time, is whether this type of behavior
is good for Israel. Forty years after the Six-Day War, the
occupation continues, the resistance to it intensifies, and
Israelis in increasing numbers question whether they have
a future in the Jewish state.

Has 'pro-Israel' advocacy consistently produced 'pro-
Israel' ends? At several critical moments, it most certainly
has not."

Where can we find leaders with the guts and brains
and integrity to fight for justice for the Palestinians and
peace with our Muslim neighbors? There are none on
the national scene at the moment, and our country has
no greater need than that! We are on the verge of
attacking another Muslim country without reason or
justification, and thus alienating the rest of the Muslim
world permanently. That means perpetual war.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

WHAT'S GOING ON?

"It's clear by now that playing for time is the real
White House strategy for Iraq," writes Eugene
Robinson (ER) in today's Washington Post. Notice,
that is not a strategy for winning in Iraq, as has
always been the claim, the impossible dream!
"Gen. David Petraeus probably won the respite Bush
wanted," ER continues, "when he said that U. S.
military objectives 'are in a large measure being met.'"

They aren't, of course: Shia on Shia violence has
increased markedly, particularly in southern Iraq,
where the militias are fighting among themselves
and with each other. But we don't count those
intramural casualties in our reports. They don't
make it into our database. Also, we don't count
crime figures, which remain high. If someone is shot
in the front of the head, that's criminal activity, and
not counted in our stats. If they are shot in the back
of the head, that's sectarian violence, and those are
down in Baghdad, because the ethnic cleansing there
is pretty much a finished job. Baghdad used to be 65%
Sunni. It is now 75% Shia. The refugees driven out are
almost all Sunni, and like the Terminator, "they'll be
back." Attributing reduced sectarian violence in
Baghdad to the surge commits the fallacy of post hoc,
ergo propter hoc.

The only real, verifiable reduction in violence in Iraq
is taking place in Anbar, where the natives themselves
have taken the initiative and turned against al Qaeda.
They did this on their own, well before the surge got
under way, and not on account of it. It's a most
welcome development, of course, and our forces are
giving substantial and important support. Bush and
his supporters are claiming success in Anbar as proof
the surge is working. Hillary Clinton and Katie Couric
are among the many falling for this bogus connection.

But back to the good general's claim that our military
objectives are "in large measure" being met. ER
comments: "Never mind whether those objectives
make sense." And of course, they've never been
clearly defined. They keep changing. We can't blame
the general for that. Nor can we blame him for using
contradictory and misleading numbers. He gets those
from the Pentagon, and passes them on to us. I see
Gen. Petraeus as a brave, honorable, highly motivated
and talented man. I admire him greatly, and am
grateful for his service to the country.

Our media, by and large, continue to publish govern-
ment figures without question or verification, as they
have from the beginning of this war. An important
exception is the Mc Clatchy Newspapers, who have
consistently dug for and published the facts. Here is
what they say about Iraq: "Civilian deaths haven't
decreased in any significant way across the country,
according to statistics from the Iraqi Ministry of the
Interior." Numbers gathered by Mc Clatchy show
no consistent downward trend even in Baghdad,
despite assertions to the contrary. They report:
"Overall, civilian casualties in Iraq appear to have
remained steady throughout the surge, though
numbers are difficult to come by. . . . According
to the Interior Ministry, 984 people were killed
across Iraq in February (before the surge), and
1,011 died in violence in August (of this year)."
Services have also continued to deteriorate: 30%
of Iraqis have clean water. It was 50% in 2003.
30% of Iraqi children are malnourished, vs. 19%
before the U. S. invasion.

A funny thing about the security improvements
that Gen. Petraeus points to: it's news to the Iraqis!
In a poll of Iraqis commissioned by ABC News, the
BBC and the Japanese network NHK -- released
yesterday before the Petraeus testimony -- 31%
of Iraqis said security in their local areas had
worsened over the past six months, as opposed to
just 24% who said it had improved. A full 61% said
security had worsened in the country overall, vs.
only 11% who said it had gotten better.

Only 22% said things in general were going well in
Iraq (down from 44% in November 2005), and just
23% thought things would get better over the coming
year (as opposed to 69% in 2005). Some 63% of Iraqis
polled said the U. S. invasion was wrong, 47% said that
coalition forces "should leave now" and 57% said
attacks on U. S. forces were "acceptable." But "never
mind what Iraqis think," says ER: "On with the new
new strategy, which is to bypass the national govern-
ment and work from the bottom up, making deals
with local power brokers. That should be good for,
what, another six months?"

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

THE GENERAL'S DOG AND PONY SHOW

Have you wondered about the model market in
Baghdad where visiting politicians feel as safe as
home in Indiana? It's a little island of tranquility
deliberately set up and walled off from the real
world of violence out there to impress the gullible.

And impress it does. Hardly a day goes by without
us being treated to some talking head newly back
from Iraq who shopped without a care in peaceful
Dora market. Gen. Petraeus (GP) frequently cites
the market as a sign of progess. "This is GP's baby,"
said a Staff Sgt. showing visitors around. "Personally,"
added the Sgt., "I think it's a false representation."

No doubt when large numbers of troops are funneled
into an area, security improves. When an area is
heavily fortified behind high blast wall, cars are
prohibited and access is severely limited and the
cutomers are searched, an area can be made fairly
safe. "Still, the Dora market is a Potemkin village
of sorts," reports Sudarsan Raghavan (SR) in The
Wash. Post (9/4/07) "The U. S. military hands out
$2,500 in grants to shop owners to open or improve
their businesses."

And not everyone there feels safe at all times: "Two
days earlier (SR again), a squad of Iraqi police
entered the market. Shoppers left, and shopkeepers
scurried to shutter their stores. The police are widely
said to be infiltrated by Shiite militia. 'We were
scared of them. Everybody ran away,' said Hussein
Ali, a shop owner."

All of Iraq is Fantasy Island for Mr. Bush. Dora
market is just the good GP's latest contribution to the
make believe. Don't be surprised if he talks about it
to Congress in a week or so. It's such a bright spot!

"When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress
next week to report on the progress of the surge, he
may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad
as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason
behind the decline is how far the Shiite militia's
cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've
essentially won." (That from Newsweek (9/10/07)
Western Baghdad, once dominated by Sunnis, is
almost bare of them. The ones remaining are in
walled enclaves, living under death threats, and
unable to go out. There are fewer left to be killed.
"The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was
slightly higher than in February, when the surge
began." (Newsweek again) If you want to know
how GP gets his much different numbers on
casualties, see my previous blog on how the
military selectively keeps count (or doesn't).

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net

HOW CASUALTY NUMBERS ARE JUGGLED

I have written previously about Hillary's willingness
to stretch the truth at a convention of the pro-war
VFW, by referring to the surge as "working." For
proof she cited Anbar province where Sunni tribal
leaders have turned a majority of the people there
against al Qaeda. That is certainly a welcome turn
of events, but it had nothing to do with the surge.
It started well before the surge, and was caused by
things al Qaeda did, not anything we did. Al Qaeda
brought that reaction on themselves by their
brutality and repression in areas where they had
control. The people rebelled. And good for them!

Sen. Clinton is echoing and thus supporting Mr. B.'s
same erroneous use of progress in Anbar (where
he was today) to prove his claims of success for the
surge. She is not helping get us out of Iraq, as she
claims she wants. She is helping Bush stay in Iraq,
at a most critical and decisive time in the debate.
She must know better. Or maybe not! Either way,
she shows extremely poor judgement.

Paul Krugman in a must-read op-ed ("Snow Job in
the Desert") in the NYT (9/3/07) wrote about Iraq:
"Many news organizations have come out with
misleading reports suggesting a sharp drop in U. S.
casualties." In doing so, they are ignoring seasonal
variations due to the slowing of military activity in
the brutal heat there. There were only 43 KIA in
July last year, vs. 84 this year. That's progress?

P. K. adds: "every month of 2007 has seen more
U. S. fatalities than the same month in 2006."
"What about civilian casualties," asks P. K. "The
Pentagon says they're down, but it has neither
released its numbers nor explained how they are
calculated. According to a draft report from the
Government Accountability Office. . . U. S. gov't
agencies 'differ' on whether sectarian violence has
been reduced. And independent attempts by news
agencies to estimate civilian deaths from news
reports, hospital records, morgs and burials have
not found any significant decline."

There are parts of Baghdad where civilian deaths
are probably down, admits Krugman. But he says
that may just may that ethnic cleansing is complete
in those areas, and there's no one left to kill. Most
of Baghdad's Sunnis are gone. It's pretty much a
Shia city now. There has been no hint of sectarian
reconciliation," he says. (And that was the whole
purpose of the surge.) "And the Iraqi government,
according to another leaked U. S. government report,
is completely riddled with corruption."

As for Gen. Petraeus' rosy reports, Krugman says
of the general, (he). . .is now identified with the surge;
if it fails, he fails. He has every incentive to find a way
to keep it going, in the hope that somehow he can pull
off something he can call success. . . And General
Petraeus's history also suggests that he is much more
of a political, and indeed partisan, animal than his
press would have you believe. In particular, six weeks
before the 2004 presidential election, General
Petraeus published an op-ed in the Washington Post
in which he claimed -- wrongly, of course -- that
there had been 'tangible progess' in Iraq, and that
'momentum has gathered in recent months.' Is it
normal for serving military officers to publish articles
just before an election that clearly help an incumbent's
campaign? I don't think so." P. S. The general later
got his fourth star!

When anyone in the government, including the Gen.
or the Prez refers to numbers that are reported, we
should always be extremely careful to note who is
doing the reporting, and what their criteria are.
This is tricky, according to the Iraq Study Group's
published report on this subject: "There is significant
underreporting (all emphases mine) of the
violence in Iraq. The standard for recording
attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of
reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi
is not necessarily counted as an attack, that assault
does not make it into the database. (Remember,
this is the I. S. G. report speaking here!) A roadside
bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt
U. S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one
day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant
acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the
reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts
of violence. Good policy is difficult to make
when information is systematically collected
in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with
policy goals." So says the Iraq Study Group (on
pp. 94,95). We must listen and pay attention when
evaluating reports from the military!


jgoodwin004@centurytel.net