Article

2006-05-22 Iraq

Ramadi remains Iraq's most dangerous city

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Posted by Dan Darling 2006-05-22 01:05|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Since Broadhead6 knows al Anbar, really knows, I'd rather hear what he has to say than rely on Time. I'll agree with one thing in this piece - the Law Enforcement approach does not work, anywhere, and is a dead end - for good people.

Posted by random styling 2006-05-22 01:43|| 2006-05-22 01:43|| Front Page Top

#2 Time is doing a bit of agitprop here. It's telling the truth but it's also twisting and embelishing it to promote it's own agenda. An agenda that is happy each time a US Soilders is killed and pushing the story to make sure that George Bush and "his war" look bad no matter what.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2006-05-22 04:18|| 2006-05-22 04:18|| Front Page Top

#3 In another war, in another time and place, a city like Ramadi would have been handled much differently - but although Berlin or Dresden treatment would quickly end the Ramadi battle it would seriously set back the efforts to stabilize and unify Iraq, and to modernize and integrate the 'moderate' Muslim world.

Posted by glenmore">glenmore 2006-05-22 07:53|| 2006-05-22 07:53|| Front Page Top

#4 Yup, and that approach had to be tried. If it fails over the next few years, now that there is an elected Iraqi government (no matter what their struggles about filling the defense and interior minister slots), the clock is ticking on our willingness to support the slow, painful way to change.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-22 07:56|| 2006-05-22 07:56|| Front Page Top

#5 This post shows why there is reason to believe we've done it properly in Ramadi.

These aren't modern Germans or Japanese we're dealing with, either. So it should come as no surprise that it is taking a while to clean things up and make them modern.

The payoff will come down the road when we change the middle east. And if not, we'll be justified in whatever we then have to do. We're trying to change the whole middle east, not conquer it. Drogheda didn't solve England's problems in Ireland. It's unlikely a repetition would work now in the ME.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-05-22 08:09|| 2006-05-22 08:09|| Front Page Top

#6 Agreed, NS.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-22 08:17|| 2006-05-22 08:17|| Front Page Top

#7 Good story however a few areas seemed painfully propopanga-ish in the beginning

no reason to believe,
Bush Administration is eager to show that sufficient progress,
even though it includes some widely mistrusted figures,
the shortcomings of the U.S. strategy

Posted by Jesing Ebbease3087 2006-05-22 09:01|| 2006-05-22 09:01|| Front Page Top

#8 "widely mistrusted figures" that would be anything the MSM reports.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2006-05-22 09:46|| 2006-05-22 09:46|| Front Page Top

#9 It takes until about 99.5% of the article is done until you get this section,

"To be fair, gains are being made in Ramadi with the Iraqi army, the police and the young provincial government. A brigade intelligence officer says that "we are not getting excited because this is a long process--though we are winning. The tide is turning."

It must have cause Time Warner much pain to write these words.

Posted by mhw 2006-05-22 10:02|| 2006-05-22 10:02|| Front Page Top

#10 When the newspapers edit for length, they lop off the bottom part, (usualy just filler in the bottom third) it was put there deliberately knowing that many papers/media would exise it without reading it.
The propoganda is always in the top of the articles so it will remain behind, the truth is put at the bottom deliberately.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2006-05-22 10:39|| 2006-05-22 10:39|| Front Page Top

#11 So why doesn't the new Iraqi gov
1) empty the town
2) burn it
3) salt the ground.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2006-05-22 11:19|| 2006-05-22 11:19|| Front Page Top

#12 This thing is so packed with spin that you could use it to generate a tornado.

Never reports on success, none on the improvments, none of the battlefield kills of the bad guys, etc.

Just a contonuous and relentless negative spin on things right out of the liberal Vietnam press playbook.

Repeatedly portrays the Marines as passive, waiting on the enemy to do things to them, then helpless and ineffective in the response.

Just word choice alone betrays the HUGE amount of author's bias in this article.

"Rocket!" screams a grunt.

Screams? Wounded scream. Victims scream. Soldiers and Marines YELL.

There's no reason to believe that the Americans' battle against Iraqi insurgents is going to get better.

Oh really? Seems a LOT of better informed people think so, including the people fighting the battle, as long as you dont spin the story and selectively quote them. In other words: PROVE there is NO reason... The highlighted above sentence is pure unsupported OPINION -- its editorializing, not reporting at all. It had no place in the article without some independently verifieable facts to support it.

As an addendum - this article was written at the HEIGHT of an attempt by Al Qaeda to disrupt the formation of the first freeley elected constitutional government of Iraq - as of now (May), the attacks have tapered off dramatically, as has the casualty rate - showing that the author of this article was flat out LYING. Anyone want to bet Time never prints a retraction or correction?

At least 18 U.S. troops died last week, raising the total killed since the invasion in March 2003 to 2,456.

Again the numbers game. One thing - not all 18 casualties were from Ramadi like the biased wuthor implies. Nor were all incurred while on combat patrol and abushes. It is IEDs that do a lot of that. And the other error is that number is not the total "killed" - its total fatalities - including heart attacks, suicides, car accidents, and even the Marines who drown when they flipped their tank off a bridge into a canal (which has happpened several times). So another disingenuous statement and an attempt to spin.

The goal is to lure al-Qaeda into attacks, which Kilo Company has been doing successfully: in a single week, five men were wounded, three foot patrols were ambushed, and there were unrelenting attacks from small-arms fire and mortars.

Notice that the ONLY thing reported were US casualties? Nothign at all about how many enemy were killed captured and wounded in these actions, nothing about the effects on the neighborhoods (as seen elsewhere in Iraq, when engaged, the Jihadi's tend to die a LOT and the neghborhoods turn and support the US and ISF). So there you go - more spin - only US casualties mentioned, none at all for the enemy, and no reported effects of the combat other than casualties. Goes with the reporter's mem of "we are marching our troops into ambush and gettign them killed for nothing - its Vietnam" - severe bias well illustrated.

Others claim that superiors are overlooking their reports about conditions on the ground.

Followed by ...

Sitting sentry in the center of town, the Marines are a ripe target for insurgent assaults. On April 24, mortars begin crashing down on the compound, and the shuddering impacts force the grunts to take cover in their rooftop bunkers

Yep - Officers that arent listening, brass that is oblivious, and our guys are just sitting ducks.

The following was particularly bad - not the use of "cries" - I've NEVER heard a marine CRY for the Doc.

"Corpsman up, corpsman up," he cries--asking for a medic to head to the roof. He runs downstairs and collapses into the arms of a sergeant.

Ah yes -the poor Marine as a victim, swooning like Scarlett O'Hara into his Sgt's arms, after crying. Christ on a crutch - the reporter should report it as it is, not some damned pussified report. Marines *yell* "CORPSMAN UP". They don't *cry* it. And "collapsing in the arms of" is bogus as well, he probably went into a shoulder carry by the SGT to get him to the Doc.

This reported is a biased asshole - and a disgrace to the men he is reporting about.

Get the f___ out of here, man," Tasayco shouts. All his men can do is run.

And there we go with another obviously one-sided portrayal. If you read that, our marines cannot fight this uber enemy, they can do nothing but RUN AWAY.

. Intelligence officials increasingly refer to them as a "legitimate local resistance,"

The Marines are based in the battle-scarred Government Center in the middle of Ramadi, a magnet for al-Qaeda attacks--one of the few ways the Marines can find their enemy.

OK, now the build up the enemy, by obliquely referencing some unnamed anonymous source, and then stating that we CANNOT find the enemy except by waiting for them to come out and hit us.

BULLSHIT.

But straight out of the Press playbook in vietnam, and more spin from Time.

"It's what I call the Big Lie," a high-ranking U.S. commander told TIME.

OK now he's finally got the last of the old Vietnam horseshit out: the command is lying to the troops and the middle commanders are lying to the Command - the "Big Lie" has now come into play.

Its pretty obvious that if this guy cant find a Vietnam+Tet he will use his words to MAKE one - and fool the American people into giving up so the reporter's side will win - that's the Democrats and cut-n-run Kos kids, and unfortunatley, the terrorists win too. Thats a cost the reporter and his ilk are willing to accept - to them, their politics are more important than national survival and freedom. He slants his article, words and draws such a desolate one-sided picture that you'd think that all was lost over there.

Good thing one-sided spinning half-truth biased assholes like the moron who wrote that for time no longer have a monopoly on the news - and that the troops in contact can tell their won stories without such slant, spin and bullshit as this guy adds with his omission and his choice of words to load and shade the meaning of EVERYTHING in this article.

This wants a news piece - this was pure propaganda aimed at derailing the will to fight by drinaing the support and mis-representing the actinos of our troops in Iraq.

Ho Chi Minh would be proud of that author, and of Time Magazine for serviing as a propaganda organ for Al Qaeda and the Islamofascists.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-05-22 12:09|| 2006-05-22 12:09|| Front Page Top

#13 Awesome knockout series of uppercuts and haymakers, OS.

*standing ovation*

Posted by random styling 2006-05-22 12:15|| 2006-05-22 12:15|| Front Page Top

#14 I just checked the author.

Micheal Ware.

Figures that rat bastard would be the turd that would churn out a 4 page spin-o-rama piece of shit like this. And that Time would buy it.

Remember folks, this is they guy who reported favorably on the AlQaueda terrorists - by teaming up with them and going on ops with them for MONTHS. He has repeatedly taken up the bad guys side in this, and now this article is just aotner continuation of the same.

Not to mention his personal politics flavor everything he does - he is a lefty, and hates the US and Bush.

He is a mouthpiece for murderers.

Ware is a grade A asshole - the Marines should have done the world a favor and shoved him out the friken window into the middle of the ambush.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-05-22 12:19|| 2006-05-22 12:19|| Front Page Top

#15 I do love a good fisking; well written, Oldspook.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-05-22 12:20|| 2006-05-22 12:20|| Front Page Top

#16 theres some spin here (nothing showing things will get better, contrasted with the final paragraph) but the reporter is definitely not hiding in the Green Zone, and seems to be hearing what the Marines are telling him, both the frustration with not enough troops, AND with the constraining ROE.

Sounds to me like Centcom has made the strategic decision that the Baghdad must be made better at all costs, and that all they can do in Anbar, given the resources available, is hold, and keept things from getting much worse. Things will get better in Anbar when A. The new govt peels part of the insurgency away B. There are more trained IRaqi troops and police available and C. The situation in Baghdad quiets down enough to release more US forces for Anbar. Given that the insurgency in Ramadi is heavily AQish, i think the hope is more on B and C than on A.

Good luck to these Marines. Whether they "cry" corpsman, or "yell" corpsman, these guys are brave, and doing a very hard job with not enough resources to do it. I salute them.

Posted by liberalhawk 2006-05-22 12:43|| 2006-05-22 12:43|| Front Page Top

#17 In a way this is a 'set-up' piece for the one to come on Haditha as soon as the investigation report is released (assuming that report is even remotely similar to what Murtha has been saying.)

Posted by glenmore">glenmore 2006-05-22 12:45|| 2006-05-22 12:45|| Front Page Top

#18 I stopped reading as soon as I got to paragraph 3. It started "There's no reason to believe that the Americans' battle against Iraqi insurgents is going to get better." Then I checked the link and it made sense. Another anti-American opinion piece from Time. Trying to pass this propoganda as news again. Their game is up tho. They only have a small circle of kooks that believe anything they write.

Posted by Intrinsicpilot 2006-05-22 15:08|| 2006-05-22 15:08|| Front Page Top

#19 We're killing them at a rate of 10:1 or 20:1, and things aren't getting better? BS!

Posted by Chuck Simmins">Chuck Simmins 2006-05-22 15:23|| http://blog.simmins.org]">[http://blog.simmins.org] 2006-05-22 15:23|| Front Page Top

#20 I must be getting old. I did the same thing as IntrinsicPilot! Graph 3!

Mmmm. I hate the smell of b277sh5t in the morning.

Posted by OregonGuy">OregonGuy 2006-05-22 16:16|| 2006-05-22 16:16|| Front Page Top

#21 Oldspook nailed it.

As I said this before is agitprop. Some facts are there if you dig rally hard. So this is the "reality" someone less discriminating gets while they read this in their Dr Office waiting room. Crap with little basis in reality. "Blame Bush." "the war is going badly."

These people ought to be held to account for their sedition and treason.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2006-05-22 16:26|| 2006-05-22 16:26|| Front Page Top

#22 You notice somehting about Ware?

He NEVER goes back out with a unit after he has written about them, other than the Fedayeen Saddam and Al Qaeda.

I guess Ware is a smart guy after all. He knows he'd get zero breaks in the field with a unit he just portrayed as incompetent, screaming crybabies who were losing the battle for Iraq. They are anything BUT that. And he is anything BUT a reporter.

This editorial content passed off as reporting has got to stop. Somone needs to hold Time and Ware accountable for the lies of omission and comission in that article.

Tell you one thing, I ever meet him, I'm going to smash him dead in the mouth with my walking stick. It'll be worth it to take a charlatain like him to task in the only way he can apparently understand things.

Posted by Oldspook 2006-05-22 16:49|| 2006-05-22 16:49|| Front Page Top

#23 One of my pet peeves is foreigners providing US "news". Their loyalties do not lie with America. Their press, where they cut their teeth, are much more to the left of the US press. Nor do they even give lip service to the credo of a "disinterested press", but explicitly act as a propagandist for "their" side.

Posted by ed 2006-05-22 19:09|| 2006-05-22 19:09|| Front Page Top

00:09 CrazyFool
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23:58 DanNY
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