In two posts that set a new standard for inanity, lack of moral seriousness, triviality, bad faith and out-and-out stupidity, Ol Lady Owen Robinson at Boots and Sabers holds up a potentially botched photo caption by a French news service as an example of media bias against our occupation of Iraq.
(If you don't want to slog through Owenprose: A caption says a woman is holding up two coalition "bullets" she says hit her house. When actually she's holding up unspent ROUNDS! Yes, it's that stupid.)
The Brawler was particularly amused that Brian Fraley, a deeply unethical man with no apparent knowledge of the Middle East or the occupation, weighs in.
But the Brawler was even more amused that while Ol Lady Owen Robinson fulminates about an infamous caption, he misses these words that appeared in a New York Times op ed:
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.
A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.
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Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.
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At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.
Sweet Jesus, who authored that? Was that a Katrina van den Heuvel/Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky/John Pilger/Robert Fisk/Edward Said/Avi Shlaim byline?
Of course not -- Edward Said's dead.
No, it was actually penned by seven grunts in the 82d Airborne -- including 4 sergeants and 2 staff sergeants. One of whom has been shot in the head by insurgents.
What will Owen say about this perfidy! The Brawler deeply hopes Owen will challenge the sergeants to meet him in a dark alley so they can talk about the mean things they said about George Bush's war.
Or would it be better for Owen -- who after all has said he regrets he has not shed blood for this country even though, you know, there's a war going on in Iraq -- to enlist and join these guys on the front line?
Separately, the Brawler credits Michael Mathias and others for wading into the turgid miasma of dunderheadedness that is Boots and Sabers comment section to make the case for reality. It's an effort that calls to mind the great hero of Cervantes.
In any event, the Brawler suspects these members of the 82nd, regardless of their political convictions, would be less than impressed by "milblogger" Owen Robinson's joviality.
(Lightly edited.)
It's not a war, but an occupation. We won the war on 1 May 2003, when our "mission" was accomplished.
Posted by: Vigilante | August 20, 2007 at 09:27 AM