Pulitzer Prize Winning NY Times Writer: Pelosi, Reid are Wrong The Petraeus Surge is Working

[seemslikeadream]

oh those NYTs reporters :shrug:



http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/challenges.php?id=1229183



John Burns, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recently commented about fears of a Tet-like offensive by al Qaeda’s fighters and possible attacks by radical Shiia militias prior to the Petraeus report. Radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Burns if there have been warnings about such threats.

Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt recently conducted an extensive interview with Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist John Burns, who is currently reporting from Baghdad where he sees marked progress in the military surge designed months ago by General David Petraeus and which is only now bearing fruit.



Mr. Burns told Hewitt that the most positive change that stands out immediately is the effect of the 30,000 additional troops who have been carrying out sweeps throughout areas which hithertofore had become Al Qaeda strongholds. News reports from the past few days confirm John Burns’ observations, as the success of Operation Arrowhead Ripper has now returned a new security environment in the formerly terror-controlled important town of Baqubah.



"They’re definitely making a difference in Baghdad, too," Burns told Hewitt. "Some of the crucial indicators of the war, metrics as the American command calls them, have moved in a positive direction from the American, and dare I say the Iraqi point of view, fewer car bombs, fewer bombs in general, lower levels of civilian casualties, quite remarkably lower levels of civilian casualties. And add in what they call the Baghdad belts, that’s to say the approaches to Baghdad, particularly in Diyala Province to the northeast, to in the area south of Baghdad in Babil Province, and to the west of Baghdad in Anbar Province, there’s no doubt that al Qaeda has taken something of a beating."



Hewitt broached the subject of candor, wondering if some of the earlier claims made by previous high command officers on the ground had been overly optimistic. "Speaking more broadly now, in the American higher command, is there optimism that the surge, given enough time, will bring the kind of stability to Iraq that we all hope it achieves?"



John Burns stated that he feels certain that General Petraeus, together with Ambassador Ryan Crocker will be forthright in their presentation before Congress of the true state of affairs in Iraq, when they deliver their report next month. While speaking to Hewitt from Baghdad, Burns brought up the comparison with Vietnam, when he replied:



"I can only speak for my own personal experience, and there definitely was in the - in the Vietnam War - there was a failure of senior generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to speak frankly about the Vietnam war early enough. There has definitely been some Pollyannaish character to the reporting of some of the generals here over the past three or four years, although in my own view, knowing virtually all of those generals, I don’t think that that was out of fealty to the White House or Mr. Rumsfeld.

[SoCalDem]

1. Whack-a-mole..

Troops here---insurgents there
troops there----insurgents here

Insurgents are not STUPID.. they are playing a waiting game until al Maliki's government crash-lands..
They know we cannot maintaiun a large force indefinitely.. they have been nationbuilding for over 5,000 years..they can and WILL wait us out..

[Peace Patriot]

2. Yes, an army can bring quietude. But it cannot bring peace. It can dominate

with guns and bombs. It can kick in doors, and kill ten innocents for every "insurgent," it can incarcerate without charge, it can torture, it can march around with guns and tanks, it can terrorize, but it cannot create legitimacy, especially after egregiously DESTROYING THE PEACE, and breaking one international law after another, and slaughtering half of a million people, to force them to sign over their oil rights to U.S. corporations.

No legitimacy, there or here. Much trouble ahead. There and here.

This army does not have the consent of the American people, 56% of whom opposed this invasion, war and occupation from the beginning (Feb. '03), and a whopping 70% of whom oppose it now. The fascist party had to rig the voting system to shove this down our throats. And there is going to be hell to pay here--in loss of the rule of law, in crippled and brutalized soldiers, in a $10 trillion deficit (federal bankruptcy) and a thousand other impacts. What do you suppose Bush's "martial law" executive orders are FOR? What do you suppose Congress' endorsement of Bush/Cheney domestic spying, and all their other crimes, is FOR? The "pacification" of Baghdad is going to require the "pacification" of the United States. That is the kicker.

As for the Middle East, the U.S. is playing a losing game. There is simply no way that the U.S. can continue to prop up the sheiks of araby, and can continue to occupy the Middle East on their behalf (--with Israel as the excuse, to keep the Democrats on board; I'm convinced of this--Saudi Arabia and the UAE are calling the shots, not Israel; the Bushites will betray Israel in a cold minute, when it suits them; it's about the oil, not about Israel). To the millions and millions of Islamic peoples in the Middle East and Asia, Islamic fundamentalism IS freedom. It is freedom from the sheiks! And they simply will not put up with this new tyrannical, occupying power--the U.S. army--standing in the way of THEIR FREEDOM. It may not look like freedom to us, but it does to THEM--and, in the lo-o-ong view of history, they may be right. Islamic communalism is anti-king and anti-sheik, and it may well, one day, LEAD TO liberation of the common people, in the way that real Christianity--Jesus' communal idea--persisted through the Ages, beneath the surface, and eventually resulted in democracy--equal opportunity, dignity and rights of the common people, human rights, labor rights, civil rights, universal education, socialism, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for everybody, not just the nobility!

Against this tide of history--the REAL REASON for the success of Islamic fundamentalism (that it represents FREEDOM to the common people)--Bush, Cheney and their Democratic colluders have set the VIOLENCE of invasion and occupation. Guns, bombs, armored vehicles, high tech fighter jets, helicopters, tanks and transplanted, essentially conscripted "Roman legions"--which will NEVER be seen as "liberating," no matter how much they try to enforce that notion with the Big Boot. Using an army to steal resources is furthermore so corrupt and corrupting that it will cause--and is causing--an inner collapse, much like that of the Roman Empire. The "rule of law" is lost AT HOME. The filthy rich ruling class--the war profiteering class--get too fat, too lazy, too selfish and too callous, with the spoils of war, to give a goddamn about the basics of governing, OR about the people they use for slave labor and cannon fodder. The signs and portents are everywhere. This corrupt Empire--once the ikon of democracy--is failing, is falling. We are in so much debt that the mere flicker of a eyebrow in China can send us into a spiral of economic collapse.

Meanwhile, the Saudis command our army.

[krispos42]

3. "lower levels of civilian causalties"

Um..... didn't EVERYBODY there stop issuing casualty counts? With no official numbers, how can we know everything?

Except that the power grid there is on the verge of collapsing, which will drive people insaner.

[moondust]

4. deleted

[billyoc]

5. The Paper of Broken Record. n/t