Seems to me that I heard just the opposit of this dark assesment yesterday. It seems what goes on in Iraq depends on who you lesten to.
John Hearn | 09.30.04 - 2:48 pm | #

I do know what I read from people on the ground in Iraq. And it ain't a pretty picture

A lot depends on who you are reading. I also know some folks on the ground (in the military) and they seem to paint a much different picture. Truth is probably somewhere in the middle. That's what makes it so hard to gauge.
c matt | 09.30.04 - 2:51 pm | #

I am sure I don't know what's going on, either, but the CSMonitor piece is not one to point to for supporting the notion that "things are going very, very poorly over there." The reporter points to ineffectual attacks, an increase in security ahead of Ramadan, and...wait for it...a decline in cafeteria food quality to support his "insecurity" thesis.

C'mon, Mark. You lived through the Tet Offensive, didn't you? Don't be a "useful idiot." If you don't know what's going on, don't post!
Cranky Lawyer | 09.30.04 - 2:54 pm | #

It could be like having an Iraqi reporting from the ghettoes of NYC or East LA and then extrapolating that to the condition of the rest of the country.
c matt | 09.30.04 - 2:54 pm | #

I'm not posting with claims to know what's going on.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 09.30.04 - 3:05 pm | #

M--

I'm not saying you are claiming to know what's going on; you have been clear that you don't know. But it seems to me you are amp'ing the pessimistic view by linking preferentially and uncritically to anti-Bush and anti-war articles.
Cranky Lawyer | 09.30.04 - 3:09 pm | #

1. Wars are messy. Just how they are.

2. Maybe we'd prefer Saddam and Sons Torturers Inc. to remain in business. Good for long boring NPR reports and feeling sad but not much in the way of action.

3. Democracy is not like a Law And Order episode with the credits in the left side of the screen, while Local Anchorette previews the upcoming late ActionEye News to the right. See explanation 1.

4. All bad? Or just a few wackjobs that are bad? As in those who behead Yankee or Brit infidels. Seem like a lot of the native folks dig us for putting Saddam And Sons Torturers Inc. out of business.

5. So, Sen. Kerry, what would you do any different? Or at least today's theory? Uh....uh......

6. I like P.J. O'Roarke's suggestion. To paraphrase- we go into a Middle East country, whack the bad guy. Tell the natives to find somebody better. Wait for the process of finding a new guy who becomes a new bad guy, then whack him. Saves time/money/person power. Makes as much sense as any other idea.
Gerard E. | 09.30.04 - 3:22 pm | #

I am part of a few military mom web sites...we only get one side from the liberal news. The solidiers over there give a completely different view. Is it hard, of course, all war is hard and terrible but
Good things are happening too. To leave now would be a disaster!
Theresa | 09.30.04 - 3:23 pm | #

Mark Steyn's piece from a week ago offers some perspective. Two-thirds of Iraq's territory remains stable and at peace, which he likened to the current state of things in Ireland (all of it, not just Northern Ireland.)
Rich Leonardi | 09.30.04 - 3:29 pm | #

I find the readers comments to be largely unsubstantiated and alarmist. Of course things are not going exactly as planned. How exactly does one "plan" to invade another country, topple its evil dictator and install a democracy while beating back the hordes of terrorists (not insurgents) looking for a party ground? And how would we know if the "plan" was going well or not?

What are President Bush's "Rosy Assessments"? I've not heard him be "Rosy" by any stretch of the imagination. "Hopeful", maybe, but not "Rosy".

And then this gem:
"Fourth, let's grant that it is very, very easy for us to pontificate and play arm-chair general or arm chair Secretary of Defense or armchair president."

Well, the reader does prove it's easy without being at all useful.
Chris-2-4 | 09.30.04 - 4:02 pm | #

To echo Mr. Leonardi's point: perhaps we should stop talking about the situtation in Iraq as if that country is one undifferentiated lump and talk about the situation in it's provinces or ethnic regions, e.g. with the Kurds, Shia, and Sunnis.
RadTrad | 09.30.04 - 4:39 pm | #

When I read Iraq the Model I get a different picture than when I read Western journalists. I wonder who knows better.
S.F. | 09.30.04 - 4:42 pm | #

Geez, it's not like it's impossible to find reasons to keep up the good fight and to believe there are successes as well as failure. But it does require searching outside the usual media circuits, which are as distorted about success in the war as they are about Catholicism.

The phenomenom that I notice about Iraq reporting is that even when the good stuff is happening, it's rarely conveyed in the media front-and-center. That is, frankly, well reflected on this blog. War consists of a long series of successes, defeats, and reversals of both. But the antiwar left, and mainstream media, and third-party distributors including blogs that don't work very hard at it, convey almost uniformly only the defeats. The result is that whenever a new defeat arises, it confirms the all-is-lost storyline rather than being viewed as a negative to be weighed against the positives.

Instapundit:

The woman who helped swing the vote at the Labour conference over pulling troops out of Iraq today accused party members of naivety about the situation in the country.

Shanaz Rashid – whose husband is a minister in the interim Iraqi government – was earlier given a standing ovation when she made an emotional appeal not to pull troops out.

Close to tears, she told party activists that many friends had perished under Saddam Hussein and she had kissed the ground with joy on arriving back at Baghdad after the war....

“Yes, there have been difficulties. Yes, there have been mistakes perhaps many mistakes. No, you did not find weapons of mass destruction.

“But for the great majority of Iraqis WMD was never the issue. We don’t understand the criticism of your Prime Minister. All we wanted was to be free.”

She added: “I appeal to you all ... to help us build a new democratic federal Iraq that would respect the lives of human beings.”

Asked later if she considered Labour members naive about the situation for Iraqis, she said: “Yes I do think so. They don’t know the reality of their lives. . . . If they are concerned about the Iraqi children they should not be asking the British Government to leave them alone at the mercy of others.”
Christopher Rake | 09.30.04 - 4:44 pm | #

You may have already read the ongoing "Good News from Iraq" series but for those who haven't here is the latest.

http://windsofchange.net/archive...ives/ 005587.php

and earlier issues available here
http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/

As to the level of Chaos in Iraq I am inclined to believe (hopefully) that it is exaggerated
http://www.rantburg.com/popartic...8/2004& ID=43531
Brian Keffer | 09.30.04 - 4:45 pm | #

I happen to be that reader. Perhaps I was being a bit pessimistic in my assessment. But what do we make of the WSJ reporter on the ground there? We get the assessment of some who paint a rosey picture and others who paint a horribly chaotic picture. As someone noted, it probably is somewhere in between. And you can plan for probabilities or possibilities. There were those in the intelligentsia who clearly predicted a protracted and brutal fight in Iraq and who said that we needed to plan for that potential outcome. Did this occur?

I am not suggesting that we pack it up and leave. I am suggesting we do everything in our power to win and establish a stable Iraq where people aren't getting blown up all the time. Perhaps if we'd sealed the borders we wouldn't be in this situation right now.
Cheeky Lawyer | 09.30.04 - 4:51 pm | #

From the Belmont Club:

A New York Times article quoting a private security group's data shows that 41% of all terror attacks in Iraq take place in 0.17% of the country -- a thousand attacks concentrated in 734 square kilometers of Baghdad -- attacks which have almost no military value -- only a propaganda one.

The full post above has material that will be satisfying to both sides of the debate. But I wish Westerners were more aware of how they are being used in the propaganda war.

The post is from today (Thursday, Sept. 30). I can't get the permalink to work.
Christopher Rake | 09.30.04 - 5:01 pm | #

Glad to see the Winds of Change and Chrenkoff links above. Just noting the latter, it amounts to 21 pages of 12-point type when pasted into my word processsor.

This is the problem

None of this stuff is reported on a regular basis. Mark could easily tap into a resource like this, not even as a partisan but as someone truly interested in reporting both sides of the issue.

Every single day something good is happening in addition to the bad. I think Mark should use sources like this, every single day, to help his readers understand what's going on. I think mainstream media, should too, but in the Age of Rather why bother trying.

After noting recent Newsweek coverage, Chrenkoff notes:

...The editorial board of a less worldly "Kansas City Star" met up with a group of five Iraqi journalists visiting the United States on a tour organized by the State Department. During the discussion with his Iraqi colleagues E. Thomas McClanahan of the "Star" asked them what they thought about the media coverage of Iraq:

"The response was amusing in a way. Perhaps out of tact, our visitors (they asked that we not use their names) said they hadn't seen much U.S. coverage. Most couldn't speak English. But coverage by the Arab media, they said through translators, presented a distorted picture.

"One member of the group, the only woman, said the pessimistic tone of Arab coverage was making things worse by encouraging terrorists and demoralizing those who supported democracy. Another journalist, a man in a dark suit, said the insurgents 'don't represent the Iraqi people.'

"Arab reporters, said a third, 'try to give the impression that it's hopeless. If you watch the satellite channels from Arab countries you would imagine there's no rebuilding going on'."
Christopher Rake | 09.30.04 - 5:22 pm | #

I mean, everyone should be listening to people like these Iraqi women, quoted in a piece via Chrenkoff at BBC online, which includes both dark and bright reports.

It paints a different picture...

..."I think the negative aspects that have come to the surface were not caused by the war as such or by the American occupation alone. Rather, these things happened because of the change of the governing regime. A fall of a regime is not a small matter. " Fawzia, a 36-year old teacher says: "On the positive side, we saw an increase in our incomes. Teachers, too, have enjoyed a rise in their salaries, with the result that the practice of private tutoring is on the decline. Teachers now do want to teach and look after their pupils. Among other positive developments have been the refurbishment of school buildings, the printing of new school textbooks and the provision of free stationary to pupils. The cost of food is lower now too and we are now free to say what we want to criticise without fear."...

And in the same feature you will find plenty of statements of concern about security and bombs going off and all that horrible stuff. It is horrible.

But it is not the only thing that is happening--it's just virtually the only thing that's getting reported.

I wonder why that is...
Christopher Rake | 09.30.04 - 5:39 pm | #

Important question:

Before Saddam's fall, there were refugee camps full of Iraqis. They emptied out after.

Are they filling up again? Are the Iraqis voting with their feet?
Mary | 09.30.04 - 6:27 pm | #

This kind of talk is REALLY starting to bore me. I'm tired of refuting it. For some GOOD news on Iraq, visit my brother's blog:

http://blog.simmins.org
John J. Simmins | 09.30.04 - 9:15 pm | #

What message do you want to send the killers?

The same message that they got in places like Beirut and Mogadishu: The United States rewards killers who get their murders on videotape?

Show us enough blood and we retreat.
Patrick Sweeney | Homepage | 10.01.04 - 1:00 am | #

The Americans and British actually occupy Iraq, so they can, if they want, eventually kill all their opponents and stabilize the country. So there is no question of them not being able to eventually succeed in imposing their will. The question is what the costs and outcome of this process are likely to be.
John Lamont | 10.01.04 - 7:05 am | #

I am wondering if all the bad news of Iraq, which feeds our opinions of Iraq, is like reading nothing but the police blotters of major American cities. Who would want to go anywhere near New York City if all one knew of it was how much crime was committed within the city limits & its neighboring burroughs?

For example, here's some of the NYC Police Blotter , as reported in the New York Post:
"[Some men clashed] on Hull Street near Mother Gaston Boulevard at 6 a.m. on July 10, police said. Some time after the dispute, [one of the men] was found dead with head injuries at that location."
"A Fort Greene pet owner has been arrested for lashing another woman with a metal dog leash, authorities said yesterday."
"A teenaged suspect is under arrest for murdering a 20-year-old Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbor during a Memorial Day robbery, police said yesterday."
"A hoodlum spewed anti-gay slurs at two men and smashed a window at their Brooklyn apartment, police sources said yesterday."
"A school crossing guard was arrested for beating and stabbing her ex-boyfriend during a domestic dispute in Mott Haven, authorities said yesterday."
"A Chinatown man was killed yesterday when a car plowed into him in Greenwich Village, police said."
"A man was critically injured when two assailants stabbed him during an argument on a Sugar Hill street, police said yesterday."
"A teen arrested on drug charges Tuesday in Queens has been linked to an April armed robbery, authorities said yesterday."

Well, that's the news from New York. You can now go on with your lives.

Of course, all this ignores the fact that thousands of people enjoyed a ball game in New York City where the home team clinched a playoff spot.
Daniel Crandall | 10.01.04 - 3:52 pm | #

IN regard to the WSJ reporter. Baghdad has many bad places right now. It is one of the areas - heck mostly the only area - where this stuff takes place. The reporter is more than likely in the secure zone - he does not wander out to see what is going on - not that I really blame him mind you - and makes the mistake of taking one chance encounter as reality. That is the danger of trusting what reporters write - they are often wrong, foolishly thinking they know more than what they really do.

WE have work to do yet, but we are slowly consolidating the killers and thugs and eliminating them - Fallujah today we eliminated many of them. Najaf or Najar (I can't remember its name - where Sadr was holed up) has become much quieter. WE are winning and now it sounds like Iran is trying desperately to keep the lid on their ever-increasingly angry population. I'd say it is moving pretty well for our interests.
JEM | 10.01.04 - 5:15 pm | #

Two quick points
1. Successful anti-guerilla wars since WWII, i.e. Maylasia, Greece, Phillipines, take about ten years.
2. The recent increasing violence seems to me to be aimed at influencing our elections, and theirs, (with a little help from the media?) The bad guys may also be burning up a lot of their strength in the process. As suggested above, their ability to rebuild is limited.
Dave Juncer | 10.04.04 - 1:12 am | #

The Truth about Iraq, http://www.thetruthaboutiraq.org/

"After working in Iraq for nine months doing focus groups and polling and advising Ambassador Bremer on Iraqi public opinion, Steven Moore returned to the United States in May 2003. Upon returning, he was astounded to find how sharply his experience in Iraq differed from that being communicated on television. Even more staggering, were some of the questions being asked by average Americans who genuinely consider themselves, well-informed:

Aren't we just shoving democracy down the throats of the Iraqis? Are all the Iraqis rallying around the "freedom fighters" fighting the US forces? Wouldn't things be going much better if we had gotten United Nations support? Don't the Iraqis just want to be ruled by clerics?

These were questions asked by well-read, intelligent, middle of the road people. Having spent nine months living among Iraqis, working every single day to understand the Iraqi mindset, Moore believed he had unique insight into the Iraqi people."
mark | 10.04.04 - 10:58 am | #