It's still the f*ing war [Iraq]

[Toedancer]

I'm not sure if your interested in the human part of the story from the soldiers perspective. I've been following the story of the 7 low ranked soldiers who wrote that piece in the NYT in August. Sadly 2 have since died and one was shot in the head and is expected to make it.

Entitled IraqiAsWeSeeIt

In yesterday’s Senate hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) read from the soldiers’ op-ed. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) also referenced the op-ed, challenging Petraeus’s rosy assessments:

    HAGEL: By the way, I assume you read the New York Times piece two weeks ago — seven NCOs in Iraq, today, finishing up 15 month commitments. Are we going to dismiss those seven NCOs? Are they ignorant? They laid out a pretty different scenario, General, Ambassador, from what you’re laying out today.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/12/82nd-soldiers/

And Slate Have Not Had Their E-mails Answered From Them

I didn't go back in the thread to see if this was already covered, sorry if it's a repeat.

[sparqui]

Rahul Mahajan weighs in on Petraeus:

September 10, 2007
Weekly Commentary -- Who is David Petraeus?

All Washington – and some of the surrounding suburbs – breathlessly awaits that rarest of events: a newly canonized saint attesting to his own miracles. The saint has the unlikely name of David Howell Petraeus and he is indeed the rock on which George Bush is building his new church.

By the Washington Post’s count, through the end of July, Bush had mentioned Petraeus by name at least 150 times; his dog, Freedom, and his cat, Liberty, must be getting jealous...

...From the popular press, one can glean three basic points. First, he’s a fanatical fitness buff who regularly trounces his enlisted men in calisthenic feats. Second, that he’s a “very smart man,” with a Ph.D. from Princeton. Third, that he was the main force behind the writing of the new, updated Army field manual on counterinsurgency, FM 3-24.

Tom Ricks’s bestselling book, Fiasco, which is largely “Iraq according to Petraeus,” fills in some more background. In this counterinsurgency morality play, Petraeus, in charge of much of northern Iraq in the initial phase of the occupation, is the good son who enjoins his forces to treat the population respectfully, minimize house raids and indiscriminate artillery fire, and generally presides over peace. Ray Odierno, in charge of western Iraq, is the prodigal son who has his forces indiscriminately round up Iraqis, sometimes taking almost all the military-age men in an area, and channel them into Abu Ghraib with no clear idea about their eventual disposition, favors the “smash the gate in the middle of the night” approach to house raids, and writes approvingly of the utility of 155 mm howitzersand counter-battery fire in counterinsurgency – and contributes seriously to the growth of the insurgency.

At the time, apparently, many in the army, including Odierno, criticized Petraeus for his “kid gloves” approach, which left far too many people intact, people who might then join the insurgency after the destruction of Fallujah brought the insurgency to Mosul. It’s even possible that these criticisms were why he was pulled out of theater for a considerable time.

Over the last couple of years, and especially since the beginning of the “surge,” as one would expect from a good biblical story, the good son and the prodigal son have been reunited, to much rejoicing in the Republican Party, if not in heaven. Odierno is now Petraeus’s second-in-command, and the new strategy is an interesting combination of their two approaches, stressing conventional counterinsurgency tactics but adding in a sixfold increase in air strikes, which, indiscriminate as they necessarily are, are anathema to the good counterinsurgent.

Petraeus was also in charge of “training” the new Iraqi army, at which time he lost track of 190,000 guns and wrote a ridiculous “happy talk” op-ed in the Washington Post, a month before Bush’s reelection, which hailed the “tangible progress” being made with Iraqi security forces and said that “momentum has gathered.” Of course, Iraq in the fall of 2004 was paradise compared to what it is now. Perhaps he should have specified the direction of the momentum....

http://www.empirenotes.org/

[skdadl]

Oh, I'm very interested in the story of the seven soldiers, Toe, and very sad to hear of the two deaths -- vehicle accident, hmmmn. And of course that head wound.

The army are never going to respond officially to that article, although I'm sure there will be more individuals speaking out in months to come.

I've been entertained by reports that Admiral Fallon, who is chief of Central Command, described Petraeus as a sycophant at their first meeting last year -- warning: colourful language.   :wink:

And Fallon seems to be working out his own competing plans -- good article, btw.

[Holly Stick]

Aaron Glantz Huffington Post article on Common Dreams

In their testimony before Congress Monday, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker somehow forgot to mention the tremendous number of American soldiers killed and injured in the war.

We’re not only talking about those killed by “enemy fire.” In addition, to the 3,774 dead, more than 56,000 are listed as wounded, injured, or ill; and another 250,000 have filed for disability. Then there are those, like Sergeant Brian Jason Rand of North Carolina, who took his own life after multiple deployments to the war-zone...

[GDKitty]

The British contractor Aegis Defence Services just won a $475 million security contract in Iraq.

You will remember some of their earlier handiwork  :evil:

[skdadl]

I remember that awful story well. Interesting that the WaPo would be aware of previous controvery about Aegis and Spicer and yet not mention that horrorshow.

But over the past several months, sources said Aegis worked to show the military that it had a strong track record, stressing that none of its U.S. military clients had been killed in three years while traveling more than 3 million miles in Iraq.

*rrrr* Yeah. None of the "military clients" has been killed. Do we note an omission there? Some dead bodies of other kinds not mentioned?    :rant:

[GDKitty]

*rrrr* Yeah. None of the "military clients" has been killed. Do we note an omission there? Some dead bodies of other kinds not mentioned?    :rant:

That made me very angry, too!  I mean, it's not like the Elvis-shooting-spree video didn't make the USian news, in 2005 (it was hard for them to ignore, back then with the Telegraph picking it up and the video freely available).  :rant2:

[skdadl]

This is fun -- if you're, y'know, a masochist. 36(ish) Countries in Iraq

[sparqui]

The coalition of the weasels. We make it a point to never purchase wine or beer from those countries and actually tell store clerks or serving staff why. Last time I gave my spiel to a waiter, he commented that our actions wouldn't make much of an impact on the whole scheme of things. Perhaps that's true, I answered but at least we're talking about the issue and you might think twice about all those Australian wines you serve. The wine manager at our local Liquor Mart always lets us know what new "non-coalition" wines they have in :-)

[skdadl]

sparqui, I have bad news for you: Canada is one of those 36(ish) that Dubya is counting, by virtue of our place (one person) in a UN oversight grouping.   :rant:

Even more absurdly, so is Iceland -- and all Iceland has contributed is one civil servant. Iceland doesn't even have a military.

[sparqui]

But Canada's one soldier (on some exchange) was pulled out, no?

[skdadl]

Yes -- and the civil servant from Iceland is leaving on 1 October.

But at the White House, those two guys count, y'know? They count for two whole countries.

[lagatta]

Whew. So that means I can buy Niagara wines?

Shit, must we boycott Italian and Portuguese wines? Hungary also makes some decent wines. Obviously, so does New Zealand...

Well, we can buy Spanish and French wine (despite shithead Sarko...) or South American...

sparqui, one of the clerks at my local SAQ refuses to recommend any US wines because of the war(s)...

[deBeauxOs]

... one of the clerks at my local SAQ refuses to recommend any US wines because of the war(s)...

Good!

[sparqui]

... one of the clerks at my local SAQ refuses to recommend any US wines because of the war(s)...

Good!

That is so heartening lagatta. I have been giving my spiel for the last 6 or 7 years, and finally some are starting to clue in. I know it is inconsequential but  hearing the above gives me hope. Sometimes, people just need a little reminder.