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Originally Posted by Aladdin Sane
Here's an eyewitness account of the Iraqi Civil War.
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Aladdin Sane, you posted, with just 9 words of your own (To my mind) misleading commentary, an "op-ed" piece by an openly partisan, former U.S. Military officer, turned columnist author:
Some of Ralph Peter's other "op-ed" commentary:
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=14321
The Left’s Crimes of Silence
By Ralph Peters
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 21, 2004
......The silence of the Left in the face of uncomfortable truths is a hallowed tradition, of course, dating back to the earliest crimes of the Soviet Union. When the reality confronting the Left contradicts the theory, the theory must be preserved at any cost.........
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The link (that you left out of your post), to the place where Ralph Peter's "column" can be found:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/op...ists/64677.htm
The above is a link to a "property", as FoxNews also is....of Ruppert Murdoch's "News Corp.". Ralph Peter's op-ed colum title is a "hook" to draw in the folks who disagree viscerally with Michael Moore, author of "Dude, Where's My Country"? Peter's title is hardly a legitimate beginning for a bona fide "eyewitness news report" from a correspondent reporting on war events....
I'll associate signs that I see that you were motivated to post an "op-ed" to back your opinion that there no trending to "civil war" in Iraq (A March 2nd, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186634,00.html">Foxnews Poll</a> reports that 81 percent of Americans polled, disagree with you and with Ralph Peters.) with what I observe as a conclusion that you share with the author of the quotes in the following box....that the MSM press reports are biased against accurate reporting about the integrity and accomplishments of Mr. Bush, and the actual "progress", and purity of motives for invasion and conduct of the U.S. authored, Iraq war. On other TFP Politics threads, my posts this week have been countered by folks who seem to share your lack of faith in traditional press news reporting....
here
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...72#post2019672 and here
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=67
..<b>and they counter my points by posting "op-ed" pieces!</b> Are there no prominent news reporters who camouflage their partisan bias better than Ralph Peters, who you can cite to make your argument?
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http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...44#post1942044
.......99% of the sources everyone provides here are op-eds, and these days that means they are strongly partisan. Truthout.org, The New Republic, dailychaos.com are nothing more than mouthpieces for the Left - these organizations have no interest in espousing moderate, rational views. I have found very few sites that take a reasonable, moderate viewpoint, yet they do exist. In the case of this particular thread, one simply needed to cite the official Senate voting records to answer politicophile's question, not Liberal op-eds of those voting records.....
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Believe it or not, the MSM is capable of filing news reports that omit details that would cast Mr. Bush and his regime in an unflattering light...3 examples of this can be viewed here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...8&postcount=64
The NY Post's sister News Corp. "property" displays the report below at the link displayed. The editors title the AP article with their own "new speak" label, because the term "Civil War" must be too naughty.
The article is a "news report"....and it describes Baghdad as a crodoned off kinda "fish bowl", with 58 new deaths from "sectarian violence in the 24 hours before a new emergency "curfew" was imposed on the metro area of 7 million.
Here is a quote from Ralph Peters:
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In place of the civil war that elements in our media declared, I saw full streets, open shops, traffic jams, donkey carts, Muslim holiday flags - and children everywhere, waving as our Humvees passed. Even the clouds of dust we stirred up didn't deter them. And the presence of children in the streets is the best possible indicator of a low threat level.
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Compared to the AP reporting of the reasons that children were in the street;
a daytime curfew because of tense conditions and a climate of violence and murder, Ralph Peters fairytale would be an amusing read, if it wasn't so disturbingly intended to mislead......
Quote:
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_frien...186695,00.html
Forces Seal off Baghdad to Blunt Sectarian Violence
Friday, March 03, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Children played soccer on usually busy streets and families strolled to mosques for Friday prayers under the watchful eye of Iraqi security forces as a ban on private trucks and cars brought rare calm to the country's troubled capital.
The lull followed a night of violence during which gunmen stormed a power station and killed Shiite brick factory workers while they slept in separate attacks that killed at least 19 people in Baghdad's southeastern suburbs. The attacks raised the toll from Thursday's violence to 58.
The military also said U.S. forces detained 61 suspected insurgents in a series of raids northeast of Fallujah earlier this week.
Among those apprehended Monday were people believed to be funding and providing logistical support to suicide bombers and foreign fighters for Al Qaeda in Iraq, according to a U.S. military statement. A large amount of weapons and ammunition was also recovered and destroyed, it said.
The government imposed the 6 a.m.-4 p.m. vehicle ban Friday in a bid to avert large-scale attacks on the day Muslims congregate for the most important prayer service of the week.
Armed police and soldiers in bulletproof vests manned checkpoints as they sealed off the city of 7 million, preventing most cars and motorcycles from leaving their neighborhoods.
Militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also were out in force in the teeming Shiite slum known as Sadr City, helping police check cars and patrol the area.
The collaboration was likely to raise alarm among Sunni Arabs, who accuse followers of the firebrand cleric of numerous attacks against them in recent days. U.S. officials have also been pressing for the disbanding of private militias.
Shiite and Sunni leaders used their sermons to appeal for calm after the Feb. 22 bombing of a golden-domed Shiite shrine in the mostly Sunni city of Samarra unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and other sectarian violence that killed about 500 people nationwide.
"There is no difference between Sunni and Shiite," Sheik Hadi al-Shawki told Shiite worshippers in Amarah, about 180 miles southeast of Baghdad. "We have to unite and not let the terrorists divide us."
The escalating violence has threatened to complicate the U.S. administration's goal of withdrawing more troops this year.
But the top U.S. military commander in Iraq played down suggestions the country is headed for civil war, saying the crisis appears to have passed after days of bloodshed between religious sects. But he conceded that a major new terrorist attack would threaten stability anew.
"I think it's safe to say that a major attack, particularly on a religious site, would have a significant impact on the situation here coming in the next couple of days," Gen. George Casey said in a briefing from Baghdad with reporters at the Pentagon.
In Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, thousands of Sunnis gathered in the Grand Mosque, spilling out into the streets and courtyard around the devastated Askariya shrine. Cleric Ahmed Hassan al-Taha accused U.S. forces and their allies of stoking the tension between the country's majority Shiites and minority Sunnis in Iraq.
"Iraqis were living in harmony until the occupiers and those who came with them arrived in this country. They are responsible for igniting sectarianism," al-Taha said in his sermon.
Hundreds took to the streets after services in the southern Shiite stronghold of Basra and marched to the Iraqi South Oil Co., threatening to disrupt exports unless the government provides better protection and greater support to local authorities and private militias.
The capital was largely quiet Friday after overnight violence that began as a series of mortar shells slammed into the Nahrawan power station, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majed said. Half an hour later, dozens of gunmen arrived and set fire to the generating facility. Security guards returned fire, and the Iraqi police and army sent in reinforcements, he said.
At least nine people were killed and three injured in the gunbattle, police Lt. Mohammed Kheyoun said. He identified the victims as guards and technicians at the facility but did not know if any attackers were killed or wounded.
In the adjacent Maamil suburb, gunmen killed 10 Shiite southerners employed at a brick factory as they slept in their shacks, said Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an Interior Ministry official. Police believed the gunmen may have been part of the same group that attacked the power station, he said.
A mortar shell slammed into a market Friday in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding another, police Capt. Rasheed al-Samaraie said. Police also found two more handcuffed, blindfolded, bullet-riddled bodies in Iskandariyah, Capt. Muthana Khalid said.
An extraordinary daytime curfew and vehicle restrictions last weekend helped curb the worst of the sectarian killing, but attacks continued this week.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari warned preachers not to incite hatred or violence in their sermons, threatening them with "severe measures."
"Our hope is that Friday sermons be sermons of unity," al-Jaafari said in a statement late Thursday. "The street is angry and they should know how to calm the people and reassure them that the government will do all it can to pass through this period."
Downtown Baghdad was largely deserted. Most shops and gas stations were closed, though small neighborhood groceries stayed open. Dozens of young boys turned parts of Baghdad's usually busy Saadoun Street into improvised soccer fields, looking clearly unhappy when the odd car disrupted their games.
The recent surge of violence has complicated negotiations for a new, broad-based government after December parliamentary elections. U.S. officials consider an inclusive government essential if they are to start withdrawing troops before the end of the year.
Sunni Arabs walked out of the talks last week, accusing the Shiite-led government and security forces of standing by as Sunni mosques were attacked. On Thursday, the main Sunni bloc joined Kurdish and secular parties in demanding that the dominant Shiite alliance withdraw its nomination of al-Jaafari for another term as prime minister, threatening the country with new political turmoil.
Al-Jaafari won the nomination by a single vote during an election Feb. 12 among Shiite lawmakers who won seats in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. He defeated Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi in large part because of al-Sadr's support.
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Now....with all the "op-eds" thrown at us by folks who object to seeing them, but who post them anyway....here's one that offered a question that impressed me....
Quote:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968350060724
Only Iraqis can answer the Big Question
Thomas L. Friedman says Americans willing to stay the course despite Bush team's failures — but not if it means baby-sitting a civil war
Mar. 5, 2006. 12:00 AM
Since the start of the Iraq war, it's been clear that "victory" rested on the answer to one Big Question: <b>Was Iraq the way Iraq was because Saddam was the way Saddam was, or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq was the way Iraq was — a country congenitally divided among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds that can be held together only by an iron fist?............</b>
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