Old Media Lies About Basra

We've all heard about the recent uprising in Iraq by forces under Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. All seemed to be doom and gloom for the Iraqi government if you believed the reports coming from Old Media. But, if you are anything like me, you don't have alot of faith in Old Media and therefore took the reports with at least a few grains of salt.

I was right to salt down those reports. The truth eventually comes out and since Old Media refuses to report it, it is up to those of us on the Internet to bring the truth to the masses. The truth about the recent in-fighting in Iraq has come out and we can fianlly see what really happened. Despite reports that the Iraqi security forces were heading for complete failure and the Maliki government was suffering a major embarrassment, the Iraqi government has actually won the battle.

From Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Bill Roggio writing for The Weekly Standard:

Virtually every media outlet declared the Basra operations a military failure before a week had passed. A New York Times headline blared that the "Iraqi Army's Assault on Militias in Basra Stalls" on March 27, two days after the launch of operations. Two days later--just four days after operations began--Britain's Independent noted that "the Iraqi army and police have failed to oust the Mahdi Army from any of its strongholds in the capital and in southern Iraq." And six days after the onset of operations, the Guardian was reporting that "the Iraqi army had made little headway in Basra and large swaths of the city remain under the Mahdi Army's control." To be sure, the Iraqi security forces' performance in Basra is best described as mixed. However, they did not run into a wall. The Iraqi military was able to clear one Mahdi Army-controlled neighborhood in Basra and was in the process of clearing another when Sadr issued his ceasefire. The ceasefire came on March 30, after six days of fighting, and was seemingly unilateral in the sense that the Iraqi government made no apparent concessions in return. By that time, 571 Mahdi Army fighters had been killed, 881 wounded, 490 captured, and 30 had surrendered countrywide, according to numbers tabulated by The Long War Journal. Thus, an estimated 95 Mahdi Army fighters were killed per day during the six days of fighting.

Don't you find it interesting that Old Media outlets like AP, Reuters and The New York Times completely missed these little facts about the operation? Why would they paint such a skewed picture rather than report the truth?

More:

The Iraqi security forces were at their best in the smaller cities in Iraq's south. The Mahdi Army suffered major setbacks in Hillah, Najaf, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Amarah, Kut, and Nasiriyah. The security forces drove the Mahdi Army off the streets in those cities within days. The casualties taken by the Mahdi Army in Baghdad, Basra, and the wider south surely played a role in Sadr's tactical decision to call a ceasefire.

That's another thing that didn't get reported. Sadr called for the cease-fire. The Iraqi government did not offer it.

The press was equally insistent that Maliki's move to secure Basra was a political embarrassment for him, with Sadr emerging the victor. The day after Sadr issued his ceasefire, Time claimed that "the very fact of the cease-fire flies in the face of Maliki's proclamation that there would be no negotiations. It is Maliki, and not Sadr, who now appears militarily weak and unable to control elements of his own political coalition." The Associated Press portrayed Maliki as "humbled within his own Shi'ite power base." And a second Associated Press report stated that "a strict curfew is ending in Baghdad, U.S. diplomats are holed up in their green zone offices, al-Maliki is resented and the private army of Muqtada al-Sadr is intact." But the fact is that the Maliki government did not agree to the nine-point terms for a truce that Sadr issued, nor did it sue for peace or promise that operations would cease. Instead the Iraqi government called Sadr's order for his fighters to pull off the streets a "positive step," and insisted that operations would continue. "The armed groups who refuse al Sadr's announcement and the pardon we offered will be targets, especially those in possession of heavy weapons," Maliki said, referring to the ten-day amnesty period for militias to turn in heavy and medium weapons. "Security operations in Basra will continue to stop all the terrorist and criminal activities along with the organized gangs targeting people." Subsequent to the ceasefire, the Iraqi military announced it was moving reinforcements to Basra, and the next day pushed forces into the ports of Khour al Zubair and Umm Qasr. Iraqi special operations forces and special police units have conducted several raids inside Basra since then, while an Iraqi brigade marched into the heart of a Mahdi-controlled Basra neighborhood on April 2. And two days after Sadr called for a ceasefire, the government maintained a curfew in Sadr City and other Shia neighborhoods in Baghdad. None of this would be happening had Maliki simply caved to Sadr.

Old Media seriously screwed the pooch on this story. Is it any wonder why we don't trust them?

And to answer our question from above:

It isn't entirely clear why the media leapt to the conclusions that it did about the Basra operations. Perhaps impatience coupled with a lack of knowledge about military affairs was the biggest factor. Perhaps, tired of six months of generally positive reporting about the surge, journalists were gleeful to announce that the situation on the ground was deteriorating. Or perhaps a negative angle was irresistible in light of General David Petraeus's upcoming congressional testimony. Whatever the reason, the press has done a major disservice to readers by misreporting the events in Basra.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

The Press Botches Basra
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Bill Roggio
The Weekly Standard
April 4, 2008

Democrats Dug In For Retreat

Remember when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) yelled: "The war is lost!" into a microphone? I do. I remember thinking how disrespectful it was to the troops who were serving over in Iraq and Afghanistan and how it was no surprise that a Dem would so publically show such disrespect.

Well, the Dems seem to have invested themselves into Reid's position because they cannot seem to get a grip on reality nor do they seem the least bit able to communicate that reality to their followers. Over at Real Clear Politics, Charles Krauthammer shows us a quote that came from a man who was an outspoken war critic:

"No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. ... If the U.S. provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state." -- Anthony Cordesman, "The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing from the Battlefield," Feb. 13, 2008

But the Dems just go meekly running back to Harry Reid and his disrespectful and pessimistic attitude.

Charles goes on:

We get news of the Anbar Awakening, which has now spread to other Sunni areas and Baghdad. The sectarian civil strife that the Democrats insisted was the reason for us to leave dwindles to the point of near disappearance. Much of Baghdad is returning to normal. There are 90,000 neighborhood volunteers -- ordinary citizens who act as auxiliary police and vital informants on terror activity -- starkly symbolizing the insurgency's loss of popular support. Captured letters of al-Qaeda leaders reveal despair as they are driven -- mostly by Iraqi Sunnis, their own Arab co-religionists -- to flight and into hiding. After agonizing years of searching for the right strategy and the right general, we are winning. How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation. "National" is a way to ignore what is taking place at the local and provincial level, such as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, scion of the family that dominates the largest Shiite party in Iraq, traveling last October to Anbar in an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation with the Sunni sheiks. Doesn't count, you see. Democrats demand nothing less than federal-level reconciliation, and it has to be expressed in actual legislation.

And the fledgling Iraqi Parliament has passed more meaningful legislation in the past year than our own Dem controlled Congress has gotten out. In fact, the Iraqis passed a provincial powers law, a partial prisoner amnesty and an Iraqi Federal budget. What would the Dems say about this?

They will complain that there is still no oil distribution law. True. But oil revenues are being distributed to the provinces in the national budget. The fact that parliament could not agree on a permanent formula for the future simply means that it will be allocating oil revenues year-by-year as part of the budget process. Is that a reason to abandon Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran? Despite all the progress military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our "very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state." Why? Imagine the transformative effects in the region and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda. Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now achievable victory?

And that's what it really comes down to, Bush Derangement Syndrome. The Dems are so blinded by hate for the current sitting President that they are willing to cause damage to the entire United States in order to hand President Bush an embarrassment.

Way to go Pelosi and Reid!

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Democrats Dug In For Retreat
Charles Krauthammer
RealClearPolitics.com
February 22, 2008

Global Warming Causes ... Snow? A Look At Grass Roots Republicans

Noel Sheppard over at NewsBusters made an interesting observation. He noticed that Al Gore and his followers are using the term "Global Warming" less and less and the term "Climate Change" more and more. Why would that be?

Perhaps because Global Warming Theory has failed in just about every prediction it made. Hurricanes weren't as bad as predicted and the planet has not heated up as predicted. The Global Warming crowd was starting to look like a bunch of hysterical fools. So, they came up with a new term to try and scare the living bejeezus out of everyone: "Climate Change."

Here is what Noel has to say:

Add another item to the growing list of things caused by the liberal bogeyman known as global warming: SNOW!!! I kid you not.

What brought this about? Snow fell in Baghdad, Iraq for the first time in 100 years. Even though anamolous weather has occurred since the beginning of time, modern day charlatans are trying to blame it on something else:

You see, what the alarmists - led of course by Nobel Laureate Al Gore - have brilliantly done is renamed the bogeyman "climate change" such that anything that occurs on this planet dealing with weather exemplifies the threat they avow will destroy us all if we don't stop burning fossil fuels: The director of the meteorology department, Dawood Shakir, told AFP that climate change was possibly to blame for the unusual event. "It's very rare," he said. "Baghdad has never seen snow falling in living memory. "These snowfalls are linked to the climate change that is happening everywhere. We are finding some places in the world which are warm and are supposed to be cold."

Or it could be the result of the sun going through a change in energy output and the combined dynamics of several newly discovered solar cycles which in turn cause anamolous weather patterns here on the earth as the amount of energy our atmosphere absorbs from the sun varies from year to year. (Anyone ever wonder where wind comes from?)

Of course, Al Gore and Old Media have been ignoring all of this every chance they get.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Climate Change Blamed For First Baghdad Snows In 100 Years
Noel Sheppard
NewsBusters.org
January 11, 2008

---

Michael Reagan looks at what a grass-roots Republican effort can do and what it has done. His latest column is about how his father, Ronald Reagan, accomplished so much back in the late 70's/early 80's.

He writes:

Nobody has focused on building the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan took on the job. My dad won the presidency because he worked to build the party from the ground up from 1976 to 1980. He went out there and he supported local congressional and senatorial candidates, and many other Republicans at the local and state level. Electing them required an army of workers at the grass roots, and through his efforts in many states where the Republican Party had been all but absent at the local level the party now had a grassroots organization capable of spreading the GOP gospel and getting out the vote on Election Day. As a result, when he decided to make a second try at winning the White House in 1980, he had a huge core group of supporters in place at the grass roots ready to help him. The point is my dad went out and did the hard work required to build a winning organization, which became such a key part of the Reagan revolution because it was at the level where the majority of Americans live.

Yes, President Reagan certainly did. It is yet another reason why he was known as the "Great Communicator."

Michael goes on:

Today -- especially after the debacle of 2006 when the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress -- the GOP is in shambles. The great coalition my dad built is history, and in vast areas of the country the GOP exists at the local level in name only. Ask yourself just how many of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates have spent the last four, six or eight years working out there in the states helping to elect Republican congressional candidates and local and state officials and in the process helping to rebuild the grass roots? How many have followed the example Richard Nixon set after his defeat in the 1960 presidential election and in his later campaign to win the California governorship? Instead of retiring to California and licking his wounds, he spent the next six years tirelessly crisscrossing the country working to elect Republican congressional and state and local candidates and as a result, by 1968 he had a vast network of GOP grass-roots organizations that helped elect him and other GOP candidates. That's the kind of work you have to do to create a national political party, but it has been sadly lacking in recent years. It needs to go on not just in election years, but in between elections. It's a full-time job.

Yes, it is. Right now, our hope is that those of us working in New Media (bloggers, talk radio, website forums, etc.) have been quietly doing the grass-roots work necessary to build the GOP back up, but none of our candidates seem to realize this.

President Reagan's philosophy for the GOP was a good one, a winning one. It doesn't matter if it is old. As one of Murphy's Laws reminds us: "If it's stupid but it works, it ain't stupid!" A good corollary to that is: "If it's old but still works, it ain't stupid!"

You can access the complete column on-line here:

A Party Turned Upside-Down
Michael Reagan
GOPUSA.com
January 11, 2008