Muqtada al Sadr has a problem with foreign, private security forces openly carrying arms in Iraq.
I, too, have a problem with private security forces being allowed to operate in Iraq with automatic weapons and little-to-no oversight from the US or Coalition forces... but I certainly am not going to listen to complaints voiced by the man who "commands" the neo-terrorist Mahdi Army, at whose slightest whim can instigate a prolonged and excessively bloody attack on any civilian population within the borders of Iraq, without reproach or reprimand from any US, Coalition or Iraqi authority. No frigging way!
This man may very well be responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Sunni civilians that once lived in the mainly Shi'a areas of northeastern Iraq, in what could be considered one of the grossest examples of ethnic cleansing since the removal of Saddam. He has been implicated in the deaths and attempted assassinations of numerous IPC members and officials, and has made open statements calling for the murder and attack of US troops in the region, as well as calling for suicide bombings of Americans outside of Iraq.
How sad is it when a media outlet of the size and prestige of the New York Times is seen as supporting the views of a man such as this when reporting the Blackwater incidents of a few days past? It seems that even the pretense of objective journalism has been tossed aside for the far more profitable (and inflammatory) editorialism of the liberal media giants.
THIS is why I am truly beginning to feel that the international press and independent "blogs" are the last source for objective journalism. I am honestly getting worried that I can find better and more honest "reporting" of the news in places like PRAVDA, the SDA (Swiss), Kyodo News (Japan), and the Canadian Broadcasting Company than I can in the Times, the Washington Post even CNN Headline News!
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8 comments:
I couldn't agree more. I heard of this incident and immediakltely knew what the left editorializing would do with it. When one looks at the reportinf during WWII versus the "journalism" of today, the difference is startling. It reminds of some years ago when (it was either CBS or CNN i.e. Dan Rather or Bernard Shaw) would not use certain derogatory adjectives when describing America's enemies (real, hot war enemies like Saddam et al), because that wouldn't be objective. Objective! Do you see what they mean by that? America is nothing more than one side of the story to them, and they are being "careful" not to choose sides! To which the public response was - "hey buddy, are you an American first or a journalist?" In their eyes (NY Times etc) their is no limit to how bad they are willing to portray America and its institutions (the military, church etc), as long as the net result includes hurting Bush. The ends justify the means with them.
Once again here we go! Someone is missing the point again. Sadr isn't the issue here when it comes to Private military...IT'S THE GOVERNMENT. Welcome to the world of force reductions and the wussifying of the American people by the great Democratic party. (whining democrat) "We don't want to pay for a military, we would rather support the unemployed and support Illegal Aliens." If you don't want a large military to protect you then what would you have us do. So we go hire some folks to do it for us. OOHHHH some civilians got caught in the crossfire...SO WHAT.
The liberal pacifist is what is going to kill this country. I am not a warmonger but when the shit hits the fan someone has to do it. If you want a proffessional military you have to pay. If you don't want to pay for one then the government has to hire one and when the collateral damages get too high...OH WELL.
OH ya and Mr. Sadr can go !@#$ himself.
Baddboy writes:
“…but when the shit hits the fan someone has to do it.”
I couldn’t agree more, my friend. The US of A is the nation it is today because of the sacrifice of the more than 1.3 million servicemen that gave their lives to preserve it. They go were they are told, and do what they are ordered… regardless of risk or cost. No more powerful arm of government has ever existed, in any nation, in all of history. What is even more impressive is that they do it with honor and pride… just another feather in their caps.
However, if we are going to point fingers at the failings of the US and her government to provide for that military, then let’s at least be honest and fair.
The topic of the post was the elitist attitude of a questionable leader in Iraq, who is only a household name in any but his own house because of the US invasion of Iraq. Keeping that timescale in mind, who do we suppose would be the most recent “hack and slash” budget cutter to effect the US military up to the present (and the topic’s) time?
Was it MacNamara? Hmmm, nope. Hal Brown? No, not him. Les Aspin? No again.
All three of these guys hacked the US military to the bone, and all three used “budgetary constraints” as their excuse, and all three worked under “Democrat” Presidents… but not ONE of these guys can compare to the shambles that Donald H. Rumsfeld managed to produce under President George W. Bush from 2001 until his retirement in 2006. In fact, 2 out of 3 of the above mentioned SECDEFs spent an average budget that was LARGER than Bush has spent yet, and he is a WAR TIME PRESIDENT! In fact, according the GAO (gao.gov) data, Bush’s defense budgets are STILL 5% or more UNDER the 45 year average… taking us all the way back to 1962! Now that means that either A) Johnson and Reagan REALLY spent a lot, or B) Bush is still trying to fix what got cut immediately after 9-11. If it is B and not A, then he’s had 6+ years to get a REALLY solid defense budget passed, and most of it with a supportive GOP-majority in Congress.
Sorry, friend… I am so tired of people (in general, not you specifically) slamming Democrats for budget cuts in defense, as if no GOP President has ever done the same. No President (repeat NONE) has ever spent even 10% of that FDR-Truman spent to win WWII. Johnson was a spending fool, as was Kennedy. Ike slashed defense spending like it was weeds on his golf tee, and George H W Bush was also a cutter (but not even close to Carter or Clinton)… still, he cut Reagan’s spending by 17% BEFORE his budgets went to Congress. That’s a lot of tax dollars… and you can make the argument that he was a war-time President too.
So, it may very well be that you are correct and a pacifistic liberal WILL kill this country… but if you are going to bitch (and I am) about the state of the military today… in the midst of the War on Terror… I am going to point my finger at Bush-Rumsfeld till I’m blue in the face.
I just had this discussion tonight at work with one of my self proclaimed liberal democrat buddy and beleive it or not we came to an agreement about the defense budget.
1. Defense spending is down, but where? Its in personnel not gear. We keep slashing people...WTF over. That is a Rumsfeld thing and I'm not sure there are too many people who dislike that bastard more than me but there is one person I despise more than him for the way he treated the military, I'll get to him in a minute.
2. I know I just said not gear but that is a false statement to some degree on my part. Percentage wise I'm sure but don't know the exact figures spending on STUFF is up from the past and percentage wise it is down in personnel. Equipment is without a doubt necessary and new and better gear costs money and I love my new airplanes (lord knows we need them) but and as I said I would get to HIM...Bill Clinton was an absolute disaster. His philosophy was "Here have a pay raise and be quiet" in the mean time we were having to send maintenance crews to the boneyard to try and find parts for airplanes that were broken and needed to be on the schedule. That is just one example of many, that POS left us hanging without any support and god forbid we try and buy something that we needed.
There has to be a happy medium somewhere but as long as airplanes have to be built with parts that have to be manufactured from parts built in all 50 states or you can't have it and the pork keeps flowing we will continue to pay too much for shit we need and the private sector will continue to get rich off the backs of the everyday soldier and his hardships.
Once again, as long as the US government is not willing to pay for a larger proffessional military we will continue to use mercenaries but then again the US has been using mercs since the Revolutionary War. Business as usual just more overt.
Two parts to this response…
First off, Ryan:
The 45 year average I quoted was from the GAO (that’s Government Accountability Office, for you) and it, as well as the “5% less” figures stem from the percentage of defense spending relative to the GDP for that same year… NOT the percentage of budgetary spending overall.
That fact means that both Clinton and Johnson spent more on defense (as relates to GDP) that Bush did prior to the ‘03 invasion. The site also goes on to say that it wasn’t until the release of the ‘06 budget that Bush surpassed Reagan in raw, unadjusted numbers of dollars spent! That tells me that we had been at war, as a nation, for over 5 years before Bush decided it was time to spend the money to get shit done. That is scary, because the last time I checked, the closest Reagan got to a shooting war was invading Grenada…
And that segues nicely into what Baddboy wrote…
Okay, I don’t deny that Clinton was not strong on defense. Nor do I defend his choice of military commanders, which were terrible in the extreme. I cannot refute the statement that he did not spend enough on new technology or on expanding existing capabilities. One can even make a damn fine argument that he cut as much as Carter did, if only by looking at the projects he killed on the blocks (how long was the floating of both the Truman and the Reagan delayed by his budget cuts? How many BRAC actions were taken while he was President?).
If we want to start a new thread dedicated to bashing Clinton as a defense spender, or a womanizer, or a perjurer, then we can do that… no problem. The jist of this thread was the failings of the Bush administration, though… and I have yet to hear a defense, or even an explanation, for the absolute want of direction this administration had in planning and executing the invasion of Iraq. That means budgets and spending, that means manpower and logistics, that means propaganda and public relations… I want to hear someone talk this one through from beginning to end.
HAHA, we are finally getting somewhere. There are times I wish these conversations were face to face. I'm much better at verbal debate than I am at the written form but hey, I'll give it my best shot.
Lets get the whole Iraq thing straightened out. I'm am of the firm opinion that we didn't go into Iraq for the purpose of oil of WMD, we did go into Iraq for Strategic geograpy. Iraq is in everyones back door and thats where we want to be when the big one touches off. Iraq and Afghanistan is the tip of the iceberg and if you think we have been at war well you are sadly mistaken. The war will occur in the middle east but only after Iran, Russia and China choose their sides and go overt with their support. Just a prediction but the war has only just started in my opinion.
once again this will be a miltisided answer so bear with me.
In defense of the Bush/Rummy plan the initial weeks of the war went as planned or better and we moved through and took more land faster than logistics could keep up which is both good and bad but proves that we have the capability to overwhelm our enemies with surperior firepower and speed which proves the lighter faster more powerful/force multiplier concept. That being said on to the absolute failure of the plan.
Once we move fast, overwhelm our enemy and impress the world with our capability we have to be able to hold that same ground and be able to supress insurgency and counter attack!!! That can only be done with superior numbers and heavy units. Manpower intensive and for that matter equiptment intensive operations. That was the failure and that will continure to be the failure until someone gets off their ass and make the dicision to either move another 500k worth of troops into the AOR to support an occupation or we get the hell out and let the indiginous peoples have their civil war.
The concept of a lighter, faster military fighting force is not a bad concept and was proven in the beginning of the Iraqi conflict but without the heavier more manpower intensive followon it will always be doomed to fail. The expeditionary type forces should have been a seperate force all together from the main body and as soon as the larger force was in place the lighter faster force should have been removed from the AOR or at least moved to their next theatre of operation...I'm thinking the mountains of Afghanistan on the pakistan border but as we all know due to the force reductions our expeditionary forces are our military not a function of our military and that is its downfall at this point.
Once again I am no fan of donald Rumsfeld and for that matter I think he should be the one questioned by congress about the current situation in Iraq since he is the one that put us in this position, not the theatre commander. Because of him we are in the position of having to hire folks like Blackwater and Dyncorps for more military type support.
If you want to take that a step further because of the force reductions companies like kellog, Brown and Root are putting thousands of civilians in the AOR to do logistics support when that mission should be the job of the armed members of the US military.
I can blame Clinton for alot of things and if we want to get into a Clinton bashing contest I will be more that willing to oblige but if we remember the movie "Glory" this situation stinks and noone is clean...Not the Democrats or Republicans.
Titus, you wrote ...
..the “5% less” figures stem from the percentage of defense spending relative to the GDP for that same year… NOT the percentage of budgetary spending overall."
Fine. The GDP of that same year then. Your asertion that Bush spent less is still innacurate. I'm not challenging the GAO's numbers (and by the way, I know what GAO stands for dufus), I have no doubt they are correct. I am simply pointing out that using percentages based on a comparison to the Gross Domestic Product from 40 years ago does not mean Bush is actually spending in real dollars 5% less then those administrations did. Which is what you said, and I quote ...
"In fact, 2 out of 3 of the above mentioned SECDEFs (MacNamera, Brown, Aspin) spent an average budget that was LARGER than Bush has spent yet, and he is a WAR TIME PRESIDENT!"
Bush may have spent less in proportion to the GDP, but he DID NOT SPEND LESS! Not in real dollars, as your statement obviously intends for the reader to believe.
Look, I have criticized this administration as much as I have defended it, and I am not arguing they spent adequately. But lets not get nuts and say that "Bush spent less" than they did 40 years ago. It's just flat out innacurate. You may think I'm nit picking, but these types of distinctions are important if wre are going to have a mature conversation. His percentages as it relates to the GDP are less, yes. But his dollars are more - and that's not what you wrote.
Not to mention, Clinton spent 8 years (along with that bumbling numb skull for a SecDef, Cohen)tearing down the military, and Bush was only president 8 months when he had the need to go to war. Now it may be your opinion that he responded to the need for a military build about as effectively as FEMA responded to the coast after the storm, but to further the analogy, Clinton was Katrina herself.
FR
I agree with Baddboy completely, and will limit my comments this morning to that. If Ryan only wants to measure the budgetary efforts by actual numbers of dollars spent, then I guess I am forced to admit that, at least from 2006, Bush HAS indeed spent more than Johnson and Clinton… even Regan. I still fail to see where the lack of spending prior to ‘06 is justified, either by results or reasoning… but I’ll let it go.
Suffice to say that I am more than willing to admit that the blame is easily passed evenly between both Democrat and Republican, and I feel the sentiment is supported by the GOP candidates speaking yesterday in Michigan… especially Mitt Romney. Joe Lieberman has also voiced similar sentiments, so I guess there is still a faint voice of reason coming from both sides on this issue.
My only additional observation to the discussion would be that when Baddboy referred to the concept of a “lighter and faster military” and suggested it was a good idea, but still not realized… I say this:
The US military, since the institution of the American Expeditionary Force in 1917, has maintained some of the best and most efficient fighting units in the world for the express purpose of moving rapidly and efficiently across the globe to answer duty’s call. These units have included such storied and decorated corps as the 1st Infantry Div., the 1st Marine Div., the 101st Airborne Div., the 82nd, the 2nd Ranger Bat., the 1st MEF, Delta Force, et al. These units, from their inception, have served the US as a rapid response force or a rapid deployment force and have served honorably and successfully in every corner of the globe.
To suggest that the US military needed to be restructured around the models of these units at the whim of a single administration shows shockingly bad fore-sight, in my mind. As explained by Baddboy, once the previously mentioned units have taken that land and moved on to the next objective, only the most obtuse planner would fail to see that traditional infantry forces with very little specialized equipment and only moderate specialized training (focused more at the officer corps than the troops in general) are needed to occupy and pacify and police the ground taken, until such time as civilian law and order can be maintained.
At no point in our past has the need for a strong (VERY strong) conventional military force been more needed, and that is just as applicable to a surface and submarine navy, as well. No greater tool is located in our arsenal than the naval ability to project sure and certain destruction globally with as little as 12 hours notice… sometime much less.
One more small observation…
While I know that the naval forces of this country haven’t been tested to the degree that the land and air forces have been in the last 15 years (I’m counting back from the fall of the USSR as a naval contender to US supremacy at sea), their need and necessity are more important now than ever… and I fear that the only reason we haven’t seen the failings of the Administration in their make up as much as we have in the Army and Marines is exactly that… they haven’t been tested.
Surface vessel after surface vessel has fallen to the “retirement” yard (meaning scrap heap) since 2001, and the only notable improvements or additions to the naval forces are the new Nimitz-Class carriers like the G H W Bush, and the even newer super-carrier Ford-Class. My concern is that the future may have the need for smaller, faster, and larger numbers of such vessels as frigates and destroyers and cruisers to patrol, interdict and support operations at bases and facilities against “unconventional” naval attacks. How effective and efficient can a carrier like the Reagan be in patrolling and interdicting a foreign harbor from selected vessels and shipping? As effective or efficient as a squadron of three to five corvettes touting 5-inch guns, 65 Tomahawk missiles and enough AA capacity to keep it safe from civilian aircraft attack? Not likely.
Just my thoughts…
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