The Media and Iraq

Are you disappointed with media coverage of Operation Iraqi Freedom? You're not alone.

U.S. media coverage of Iraq was so gloomy that during a recent visit to the U.S. the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan wondered whether the situation had deteriorated to such a degree during his absence that he should stay away.

"CNN International and [Arabic television network] al-Jazeera are equally bad in their coverage of the situation in Iraq," Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani was quoted as telling a visiting group of Americans on Monday.

"When I was in the United States recently and read the negative news in the Washington Post, New York Times and in the network TV broadcasts, I even wondered if things had gotten so bad since I had left that I shouldn't return," he said.

Barzani was speaking during a meeting with a group of Americans who have lost sons during the conflict in Iraq. The group is in the country, according to the trip organizers, to learn for themselves what their loved ones died for.

Polling Skews

The Plank asks the question

Why is it that the polls released today (WaPo, Pew, USA Today) show a smaller margin for Dems, while the polls released yesterday (Time and Newsweek) show a larger margin?

All the polls begin either Wednesday or Thursday and extend at least through Friday evening. Which is to say, they would all appear to coincide with the prime Kerry-fallout days. But both Time and Newsweek stop polling on Friday, while WaPo and Pew poll through Saturday, and USAT polls through Sunday. That suggests part of the discrepancy has to do with polling on Saturday.

Dishonoring the Boston Globe

James Carroll writes a deeply offensive column in the Boston Globe.

Comparing our efforts in Iraq explicitly to Vietnam, Carroll asks, “This time, can we accept defeat?”

An easy for any fool in Boston to ask, since the lives of many brave men and women In Iraq would be the objects of his answer.

Did that get you angry enough? How about this (emphasis mine):

It is one thing to feel uneasy about your nation's war, or even to move to a position of outright opposition. It is another to face the harsh fact that the only way out of the war is to accept defeat. The goal of "peace with honor" assumes that the nation's honor has not already been squandered. During Vietnam, for all the widespread opposition to the war, the American public was never ready to face the full truth of what had been done in its name, and so the martial band played on. And on. The war ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, with the United States whining that somehow it had been the victim. Not incidental to the present disaster is the fact that the men dragging out that shameful last moment of Vietnam, when our nation's abject defeat was made plain for all the world to see, were Ford administration honchos Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Rumsfeld and Cheney are prepared to do it to their nation again. The question now is whether America will let them? The general uneasiness with the war in Iraq is mostly tied to how badly it has gone. Tactical and strategic planning have been bungled at every level, and the elusive enemy is yet to be understood in Washington. If the Democrats take power with the elections tomorrow, congressional hearings will have a lot of such questions to consider. But what about the moral question? For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

But I can say something about how much more flawed Carroll is about our efforts in Iraq.

We did not lose our honor by acting on behalf of the United Nations Security Council and their 17 resolutions against Saddam Hussein, and acting to remove a brutal tyrant who actively supported and sponsored terrorism, and sought weapons of mass destruction.

We did not lose our honor in helping the Iraqi people conduct three successful elections with majority participation that greatly exceeded participation rates in any US elections.

We certainly have not lost our honor in the face of dishonest, manipulated, propaganda media campaigns launched by our sworn enemies and willingly, knowingly, and enthusiastically supported by “journalists” such as you.

You speak of Honor? You never knew what the word meant.

(Cross-posted at Dadmanly)

Trailer Trash Steals Nuke Secrets

And just in case you think I'm being harsh in calling the guilty party trailer trash, the stolen material was found during a drug raid on....well, a trailer.

Nuclear Lab Breach Could be "Devastating"

The recent security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory was very serious, with sensitive materials being taken out of the facility -- possibly including information on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons, officials tell CBS News.

Luckily the security on our nuclear arsenal is double and triple redundant. Still, if this info was exchanged with a third party, it would peel away a level of protection on our bombs.

The woman believed to have taken the information -- the owner of the trailer -- worked in three classified vault rooms across Los Alamos:

• Safeguards and Security (relating to strategic nuclear material control and accountability)
• X-Division (top secret)
• Physics P-Division.

The woman had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S. underground nuclear test data. Additionally, she had "Sigma 15" clearance, which allows her access to info on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons.

For example, if a terrorist steals an American nuclear weapon, he could not detonate it due to the special access controls. This woman is authorized to read the reports that tell how to get around those safety controls.

I don't know what the hell a "Q-clearance" is, but it sounds important.

Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results

I think I might have heard this somewhere before... just maybe not in the Washington Post...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SYKES, Iraq, Nov. 5 -- For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.

"Take us out of that vacuum -- and it's on the edge now -- and boom, it would become a free-for-all," said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, who commands the 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment just south of Baghdad. "It would be a raw contention for power. That would be the bloodiest piece of this war."

The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration's approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.

and this ...

"Pulling out now would be as bad or worse than going forward with no changes," Modlin said. "Sectarian violence would be rampant, democracy would cease to exist, and the rule of law would be decimated. It's not 'stay the course,' and it's not 'cut and run' or other political catchphrases. There are people's lives here. There are so many different dynamics that go on here that a simple solution just isn't possible."

Read the whole WaPO article here

Blackfive also covered this story line, but he has more soldier responses straight from his email... HERE

Re: How I voted and why

Seems a lot of folks are interested in our elections.

Everybody has an opinion about next Tuesday's midterm congressional election in the U.S. – including senior terrorist leaders interviewed by WND who say they hope Americans sweep the Democrats into power because of the party's position on withdrawing from Iraq, a move, as they see it, that ensures victory for the worldwide Islamic resistance.

I find this quote particularly enlightening:

They rejected statements from some prominent Democrats in the U.S. that a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency, explaining an evacuation would prove resistance works and would compel jihadists to continue fighting until America is destroyed.

More than being a political statement, I think these comments illustrate the persistence of our enemies. "Cut and Run" is a recipe for disaster. But if you want a political statement, "a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades" made one when he said, "Of course Americans should vote Democrat."

We report, you decide (slogan added to guarantee that trolls will be thrown into a frenzy).

More Stolen Valor?

Could be another example here.

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