“One of the most cynical things General Petraeus did was celebrate the fact that there’s a decline in sectarian violence,” Susskind said. “But that drop reflects the success of ethnic cleansing rather than anything the U.S. military has done. The reality is that there are places where killing is down because there’s nobody left to kill.” (see article below from Common Dreams.org )
Iraq War:General Petraeus presented his report on the progress or lack thereof in bringing more security & stability & democracy to Iraq. His views & that of the Bush administration & their Media Propagandists is that the so called surge has been a success but the facts on the ground show this not to be the case.So as I discussed in my last post beliefs & opinions are seen as more important & relevant than the facts on the ground .Those fighting against the American occupation are not just a bunch of " Dead Enders " or merely a faction of Al Qeada or all in the pay of Iran - the majority are Iraqi civilians who have taken up arms against the American occupation combined with sectarian violence - one of the more deadly groups are the Death Squads which are mainly made up of Iraqi Police & the official Iraqi Military - everyday hundreds of bodies are found on the streets of Baghdad & other cities & towns showing evidence of torture , mutilation & gunshots to the back of the head - meanwhile tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed & are being killed by American forces by accident we are told to use the American term for civilian deaths as " Collateral Damage " - Truth as they say is the first victim of war -
But Americans in general either do not care about the deaths of Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqi civilians or they still believe everything the Bush Regime chooses to tell them since otherwise the alternative is to accept that the American occupation of Iraq is not just a big mistake or wrong but that it is immoral & criminal & constitutes a " WAR CRIME " - but as I have argued before & as many others also have that Americans view their nation as God's Chosen Nation & therefore by definition America as God's chosen nation can do no wrong whatever it does is a fulfillment of God's will whether it is the God of the Bible or the God of Free-Enterprise & unfettered capitalism -
Olbermann reports on Gen. Petraeus 9/10/07 Iraq War Report
Petraeus Report: Crisis in Confidence
from National Security Network
135,000 Troops is not Less
from The National Security Network
Much Ado About Nothing: Bush Speech on Iraq Surge
at Youtube from Afterdowning street.org
And hereis an article from Common Dreams .org
September 14, 2007 by OneWorld.net Facts Belie Petraeus’ Case, Say Humanitarian Groups by Aaron Glantz
PROVIDENCE - Observers of the situation in Iraq lashed out at the Bush administration Thursday ahead of the president’s prime time address to the nation.
They contend that General David Petraeus gave a misleading report to Congress this week when he said “significant progress” was being made in Iraq, including a sharp drop in the number of attacks on American forces and a lessening of sectarian violence.
“What people came away with from the report is that the situation is better for people living in Iraq and that’s just not true,” said Yifat Susskind of the women’s rights organization MADRE. “That’s refuted both by the fact that statistics don’t bear it out and in the experiences of the regular Iraqis we speak to on a daily basis.”
A joint ABC/BBC poll released this week shows 70 percent of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated since the Bush administration increased the number of troops in Iraq this Spring. Some 60 percent believe attacks on U.S. forces are justified, a number that includes 93 percent of Sunnis.
According to the poll, only 29 percent of Iraqis now think the situation will get better, compared to 64 percent who shared that optimism before the so-called “surge” of troops began.
“One of the most cynical things General Petraeus did was celebrate the fact that there’s a decline in sectarian violence,” Susskind said. “But that drop reflects the success of ethnic cleansing rather than anything the U.S. military has done. The reality is that there are places where killing is down because there’s nobody left to kill.”
According to the group Refugees International, nearly 5 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes since the fall of Saddam Hussein. More than 2 million people are now displaced inside the country, the group says, and an additional 2.5 million have fled to neighboring countries.
The numbers continue to grow with as many as 100,000 per month newly displaced within the country and another 40,000 to 60,000 fleeing to Syria.
The Bush administration has allowed only a few thousand Iraqis to enter the United States.
In addition, two retired Generals — Lt. General Robert Gard (U.S. Army, Retired), who now works at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, and Brigadier General John Johns (U.S. Army, Retired), a board member at the non-profit Council for a Livable World — released a statement arguing the continued American occupation of Iraq is destroying the U.S. military.
“Continued engagement in Iraq’s civil war distracts the United States from our more urgent missions in Afghanistan and enhanced homeland security, stretches the U.S. military to the breaking point, inflicts psychological scars on returning veterans and breaks up their families, causes mounting American casualties, increases the drain on the U.S. treasury, and erodes our stature in the world,” the Generals wrote in a statement.
Gard, who served in combat during both the Korean and Vietnam wars, said Petraeus’ report and Bush’s speech tonight remind him of 1967, when then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told President Lyndon Johnson that he thought the Vietnam war was lost.
“Lyndon Johnson privately agreed, but no president wants to lose a war,” Gard told OneWorld. “So we surged. In 1968, we had lost 24,000 young men. Five years later we had lost 58,000 and nothing was accomplished.”
“Now we’re going down the same path,” he said. “We didn’t alter the outcome by that surge and now you’ve got Bush in office and he isn’t going to be changed unless he’s forced to do so.”
take care,
GORD.
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