Levin is Surge Report Misinformation Minister

When war news is good, it stands to reason that the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee should be pleased. After all, there should be no question that a senator holding such an important and influential position would want America’s military to win any war it enters. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), who currently chairs the Armed Services Committee is embarking on another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, but he is not going there to be supportive of the troops or to witness firsthand the widely-reported successes of the surge strategy led by General David Petraeus. On the contrary, Levin’s latest trip to Iraq serves, as explained in his own words, only one purpose:

I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the military situation to a report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq.

That was a revealing and disturbing statement. Rarely does a politician so bluntly state that he is engaging in an intentional misinformation campaign designed to “shift the attention of the American people” away from a detailed military report that proves we are making significant progress and can win a war we committed troops to fight. Clearly senior Democrats do not want Americans to read the Petraeus report due in September, and Americans should pause for a moment to ponder the motive behind Levin’s Iraq trip as Minister of Misinformation.

Congressional Democrats are in an unenviable political position: having voted almost unanimously to send troops into Iraq; shifting to a virulent anti-war position; demanding a timetable for troop withdrawals; opposing the surge strategy; and now facing the release of a positive analysis of the surge’s effectiveness and optimism for eventual troop withdrawals under more favorable security and political conditions in Iraq.

During his presidency, media figures and congressional Democrats have insulted President Bush with labels such as “inept,” “incompetent,” “mentally unstable,” and of course “stupid.” Yet no such labels are applied by the media to the Democratic Party as a whole for its remarkable blunder of putting itself in position to profit politically only from military failure. Our troops lose, Democrats win. In that respect at least, the grim and incessant media comparisons between the Vietnam and Iraq wars are appropriate. There is an Iraq quagmire. Democrats stepped in it by investing their political futures in defeat in Iraq, but now they cannot seem to scrape the pesky quagmire ooze from their patent-leather shoes.

It is no wonder that on July 30th House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) stated that such a report from the military would be “a real big problem for us.” In other words, good news from the front lines in Iraq would be harmful to the Democrats’ political ambitions. To prevent such a “disaster” from occurring, Minister of Misinformation Levin will be working overtime shifting attention away from Petraeus’ report, which is already being dismissed in the media as merely an instrument for communicating what the Bush administration wants. Liberal bloggers have already attacked the report, which none of them have seen even a portion of, as a “fantasy evaluation” and just another Bush “sandbagging” of the American people.

Considering the recent foreign policy and military counterterrorism strategy gaffes by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, it appeared that no Democratic senator could be equally as naïve as Obama on those issues. Yet Levin’s explanation of why American’s should pay no attention to the upcoming Iraq progress report by General Petraeus demonstrated a fundamental ignorance or intentional obfuscation of what is causing the current level of violence in Iraq. Is there internal strife within the Iraqi Parliament? Of course there is strife there, just as there is bitter partisan strife within our own Congress. In Iraq, Sunni legislative blocs occasionally withdraw from the government in anger over real or perceived slights and injustices. In our Congress there are filibusters, blocked votes on judicial confirmations or cabinet appointments, and leaks of classified information to embarrass or destroy political rivals. In many respects, our Congress is more dysfunctional than the Iraqi parliament, yet our nation is not awash in suicide bombings, IEDs, and foreign-inspired terrorist groups infesting entire cities, which are all too common in Iraq.

As Iraqi parliamentarians are not detonating themselves in protest or killing each other over political disputes, the explanation for the violence in Iraq must go beyond mere politics. Failure by the Iraqi government to achieve rapid political unity and success, as Levin and his colleagues demand, may cause political discord, but to assert that the war in Iraq centers on political issues is far too simplistic. Religious disputes, more than politics, fan the flames of disunity, but without the violent interference of terrorists pouring in from neighboring nations, Iraqis would be in a much better position to engage in political discourse. That is what we are trying to achieve in Iraq: Remove foreign influences and provide sufficient security and public safety to allow Iraqis to resolve their differences and govern themselves unhindered by neighboring nations.

The Iraqi people have already achieved something Americans have not yet accomplished. Iraqis have united in recognizing that their enemy is al Qaeda rather than each other. Sunni and Shiite Iraqis have joined together in driving al Qaeda out of entire provinces. In contrast, nearly thirty percent of Americans believe that the Bush administration rather than al Qaeda brought down the World Trade Center towers with pre-placed demolition charges. If recognizing who our real enemies are is a sign of national survival instinct, America is woefully lacking, while Iraqis appear capable of uniting when self-preservation is at stake.

Leave it to a career politician like Levin to overestimate politics as the solution to all of Iraq’s current ills while ignoring the critical need for public safety and security in what clearly is a military confrontation with terrorist groups funded, trained, and equipped outside of Iraq and inserted into that nation as a destabilizing influence. The Iraqi government will never succeed in its political duties or live up to Levin’s benchmarks for success until al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist insurgents are decisively defeated, disbanded, and their demise displayed to the world as a deterrent from further foreign treachery in Iraq.

That will only happen through victory by our troops there and continued strengthening of the Iraqi military. General Petraeus’s September report will demonstrate that the surge strategy is working, which should be received as welcome news by all Americans. All Americans that is, except for those who, like Harry Reid and his fellow party leaders, have already declared the surge a failure and the war lost. In Reid’s case, he has already determined that he will not believe anything Petraeus reports if it includes good news about the surge . There is an ironic oxymoron in the nation’s highest ranking liberal being so decidedly close-minded. Democratic abandonment of Petraeus and the surge was an abrupt and hypocritical change in Democratic “support” for both considering the fact that earlier this year the senate voted 81-0 to confirm him as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq knowing precisely what his intended plan of action would be.

Over the next several weeks while congress enjoys its summer recess away from Washington, Americans will be bombarded by media reports of Levin’s “findings” from his current trip to Iraq. We will witness a carefully calculated misinformation campaign that Levin himself admits is meant to distract people from the substance of General Petraeus’ pending war report. When politicians work so hard to discredit a military report or minimize the attention given to it, it should peak our interest in what is reported and why one party’s anti-war base considers it “a big problem.”

Americans should respond by rejecting the misinformation ploys and reading every word of the report, making their own decisions as to its veracity and impact on public support for the war effort.

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General Petraeus, Carl Levin, James Clyburn, Surge Strategy, Iraq War, Misinformation, Surge Progress Report, Iraqi Government, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Anti-War Democrats

Times Surge of Truth Refreshing

Stop the presses! The New York Times, far and away the most virulent anti-Bush, anti-war news organization in America, today published an Op/Ed piece that actually debunked that paper’s own daily headlines of doom and gloom news from Iraq.

In a contribution co-authored by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, Brookings Institution fellows and no fans of the Bush administration, the pair presented a region by region analysis of the results so far of General Petraeus’ surge strategy, which finally reached full operational strength in June. Congressional Democrats and defecting (perhaps defective?) Republicans call for troop withdrawals and insist that defeat is inevitable, but O’Hanlon and Pollack, who spent eight days meeting with troops, military leaders, and Iraqi leaders, came to a far different conclusion about progress in Iraq than Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and presidential candidate Barack Obama.

I recommend reading the Op/Ed piece in its entirety, as it contains descriptions of progress that never garner any attention from major media outlets bent on reporting only suicide bombings or IED incidents that add to the death toll. The cynical nature of Iraq War news reporting offered by the traditional networks belies the truth of what is actually occurring in Iraq’s cities and villages: The country is becoming more secure, and the U.S. military has been infused with high morale. The following analysis of conditions in Iraq will surprise the “impeach Bush” crowd, much as it did the authors themselves:

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul…. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside.

The authors rightfully conclude from their observations in Iraq that while Iraq’s government must achieve solidarity and work with more urgency for its own survival, the undeniable fact is that General Petraeus’ surge strategy is working, and working impressively. They further credit Petraeus for ending the “whack-a-mole” security situation in many parts of Iraq that existed previously. The “Whack-a-mole” issue has been a complaint of U.S. soldiers through much of the war, because regions were formerly only temporarily secured by minimum force levels, and once American troops moved on to other more intense fighting, insurgents and al-Qaeda recruits would pop up again in the previously secure areas. This usually meant that our troops would be forced to return and re-secure those areas. Under Petraeus’ leadership, regions are held until they are actually secure before troops move on to clear other regions of insurgents and terrorists.

Bush administration critics should consider that the results observed by these two Brookings fellows have occurred in a relatively short period, and are increasing in momentum now that the surge force has reached full staffing levels. War opponents were looking with eager anticipation for Petraeus’ surge report due in September. They were certain there would be ample evidence in the report to justify their advocacy of troop withdrawals by April 2008, however this early report of surge success, coming as it did from two consistent critics of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, should throw some much needed water on the “impeach Bush” bonfire.

The Times deserves praise for providing its readers with O’Hanlon’s and Pollack’s Op/Ed report of the successes of the surge thus far. Although the pair included a mild disclaimer that “victory” may not be possible, they clearly saw potential for a “sustainable stability.” Such an achievement of stability would indeed constitute victory, as stability would permit the Iraqis to solidify their democratically elected government and develop the resources needed to defend themselves from foreign influences with ulterior motives for Iraq’s future. A “sustained stability” would further alleviate the need for full U.S. troop deployment in Iraq, as our soldiers could eventually assume an advisory/training role rather than performing actual regional security sweeps.

Surge critics will find it increasingly difficult to justify their opposition to Petraeus and the Bush administration when similar reports of success become available in the media. Americans are confident of our armed forces and know that good news is always just around the corner when our soldiers are committed to action. The surge strategy appears to have helped the Iraqis turn some important corners, and they are now more actively engaged in their own security and counterterrorism operations than ever before. That is good news for America, Iraq, and the free world. Hopefully the Times will continue to search for and publish the successes of the surge strategy with fervor equal to its reports of perceived Bush administration failures.

Technorati Tags:
David Petraeus, Surge Strategy, Iraq War, Brookings Institution, Anbar Province, Surge Progress

Reid, Pelosi Lack Al-Maliki's Faith, Spine

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are, in a politically correct euphemism, “diplomatically challenged.” This condition has manifested itself through various symptoms over the past six months, including Pelosi’s unconstitutional and borderline treasonous “diplomatic” visit to Syria, Harry Reid’s declaration to the world and the enemy that “the war is lost” in Iraq, and their newest premature and impatient judgment that the surge strategy currently underway in Iraq is a failure, giving even more encouragement to the enemy attempting to destroy Iraq’s democratically elected government. Despite the pleading of Iraq’s parliamentary leaders and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki for the U.S. to remain steadfast in its defense of the Iraqi democracy, the pleas have fallen on Reid’s and Pelosi’s deaf ears, blind eyes, and cold hearts, resulting in an international cold shoulder that is the antithesis of responsible diplomacy.

Never mind the fact that Reid and Pelosi have judged the surge a failure 3 months in advance of the scheduled progress report to be delivered by General Petraeus in September. Never mind the fact that Petraeus’ current summaries reveal significant reductions in violence and increased rebuilding in the Anbar province. Reid and Pelosi remind me of a line from the George Banks character in Disney’s Mary Poppins. While in a particularly irritable mood, Banks sits down at the piano in his home, plays one note, and promptly judges that the piano is out of tune. He then chastens his incredibly patient wife for allowing the piano to have become out of tune. He states to her, “When I sit down to an instrument, I expect it be in tune.” Mrs. Banks points out, “But dear, you don’t play.” George Banks, in classic Reid/Pelosi mentality, shouts in response, “Madam that is entirely beside the point. Kindly do not cloud the issue with facts!”

What are the facts on progress in Iraq and the effectiveness of the surge strategy? General Petraeus stated that the results thus far have been mixed, with “breathtaking” achievements in some provinces, but increased violence in others. Reid and Pelosi do want their issues clouded with facts, and so they choose to ignore Petraeus’s explanation that the surge strategy itself draws more terrorists and insurgents into confrontation, and this naturally produces statistical increases in casualties on both sides in the short term. They also choose to ignore Petraeus’s reports that the Iraqi Army has increased its enrollment by 20,000 men so far this year and it continues to grow steadily. It now stands at approximately 120,000-150,000 and is becoming better trained, better equipped, and more capable with each passing month. More importantly, residents in some provinces, Sunni and Shia, have risen to take up arms against al Qaeda, recognizing the terrorist group as their common enemy. The result has been a complete retreat of al Qaeda from those provinces. These are the facts of the surge strategy thus far, but Reid and Pelosi want no silver linings found in their clouds. From a letter to the White House written jointly by Reid and Pelosi:

"As many had foreseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results," the two leaders wrote.

"The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.

"It has not enhanced America’s national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased.

The defeatist attitudes displayed by our Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House are in starkly embarrassing contrast with the optimism and faith in democracy displayed by Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. I have recently been reading Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches, particularly those speeches he delivered personally or via radio to the citizens and government of the United States from 1940 until the attack on Pearl Harbor. In every speech he patiently and graciously attempted to convince the American people that their interests were tied to Britain’s and to join directly in the battle to preserve freedom in Europe rather than remain entrenched in isolationism. The tone of those speeches, in trying to convince America to join a war that would surely engulf it eventually, was eerily reminiscent of Prime Minister Al-Maliki’s current pleas for America to stand firmly by its new democratic ally in a war for freedom already in progress.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal contained a column penned by Prime Minister Al-Maliki entitled, “Our Common Struggle,” in which the Iraqi leader offered an eloquent appeal for America’s steadfastness and patience, lacing his arguments with historical precedent and providing an internal audit of the current conditions in Iraq. It should be required reading for all members of Congress, all members of the media, and all Americans who insist that Iraq is a “quagmire,” “failure,” or that “the war is lost.”

Here are some of the highlights from the Prime Minister’s OpinionJournal piece, but I recommend reading it in its entirety:

Under the Baath [Saddam] tyranny, Iraqis were to endure a brutal regime the likes of which they had never known before. Countless people were put to death on the smallest measure of suspicion. Wars were waged by that regime and our national treasure was squandered without the consent of a population that was herded into costly and brutal military campaigns. Today when I hear the continuous American debate about the struggle raging in Iraq, I can only recall with great sorrow the silence which attended the former dictator's wars.

It is perhaps true that only people who are denied the gift of liberty can truly appreciate its full meaning and bounty....

….War being what it is, the images of Iraq that come America's way are of car bombs and daily explosions. Missing from the coverage are the great, subtle changes our country is undergoing, the birth of new national ideas and values which will in the end impose themselves despite the death and destruction that the terrorists have been hell-bent on inflicting on us. Those who endured the brutality of the former regime, those who saw the outside world avert its gaze from their troubles, know the magnitude of the change that has come to Iraq. A fundamental struggle is being fought on Iraqi soil between those who believe that Iraqis, after a long nightmare, can retrieve their dignity and freedom, and others who think that oppression is the order of things and that Iraqis are doomed to a political culture of terror, prisons and mass graves. Some of our neighbors have made this struggle more lethal still, they have placed their bets on the forces of terror in pursuit of their own interests.

When I became prime minister a year and a half ago, my appointment emerged out of a political process unique in our neighborhood: Some 12 million voters took part in our parliamentary elections. They gave voice to their belief in freedom and open politics and their trust imposed heavy burdens on all of us in political life. Our enemies grew determined to drown that political process in indiscriminate violence, to divert attention from the spectacle of old men and women casting their vote, for the first time, to choose those who would govern in their name. You may take this right for granted in America, but for us this was a tantalizing dream during the decades of dictatorship and repression.

….Iraq is well on its way to passing a new oil law that would divide the national treasure among our provinces and cities, based on their share of the population. This was intended to reassure those provinces without oil that they will not be left behind and consigned to poverty. The goal is to repair our oil sector, open the door for new investments and raise the standard of living of Iraqi families. Our national budget this year is the largest in Iraq's history, its bulk dedicated to our most neglected provinces and to improving the service sector in the country as a whole. Our path has been made difficult by the saboteurs and the terrorists who target our infrastructure and our people, but we have persevered, even though our progress has been obscured by the scenes of death and destruction.

Daily we still fight the battle for our security. We lose policemen and soldiers to the violence, as do the multinational forces fighting along our side. We are training and equipping a modern force, a truly national and neutral force, aided by our allies. This is against the stream of history here, where the armed forces have traditionally been drawn into political conflicts and struggles. What gives us sustenance and hope is an increase in the numbers of those who volunteer for our armed forces, which we see as proof of the devotion of our people to the stability and success of our national government.

We have entered into a war, I want it known, against militias that had preyed upon the weakness of the national government….We believe that the best way to defeat these militias is to build and enhance the capabilities of our government as a defender of the rights of our citizens. A stable government cannot coexist with these militias.

Our conflict, it should be emphasized time and again, has been fueled by regional powers that have reached into our affairs....

…We have come to believe, as Americans who founded your country once believed, that freedom is a precious inheritance. It is never cheap but the price is worth paying if we are to rescue our country.

“The war is lost,” “failure,” “little impact,” “has not enhanced.” Reid and Pelosi could use optimism and spine transplants. Iraq’s Prime Minister would be a highly appropriate donor.

Technorati:
Nouri Al-Maliki Harry Reid Nancy Pelosi Iraq War Troop Surge Diplomacy Iraqi Democracy Quagmire David Petraeus Rebuilding Iraq