Silenced Majority Portal

Woodruff, Iraq and the State of the Union

By now everyone has heard that Bob Woodruff, a major network anchor from ABC,  and Doug Vogt, his cameraman, were wounded by an IED in Iraq.  What you may not have known is that they were in Iraq to coincide with the President’s State of the Union Address address.  Woodruff wanted to see for himself what was happening up close and in person.  This tragic accident did indeed provide us with incite into the current conditions in Iraq, and the picture isn’t a pretty one. 

We are only getting spotty news from Iraq because many parts of the country are too dangerous for reporters to investigate.  In this diary, I will provide evidence that reporters are not able to do their jobs, and I will cite some articles that show us that the state of the Iraq, despite recent elections and the training of Iraqi soldiers, is deteriorating. It will be curious to hear what King George will have to say about his experiment in democracy in his SOTU address.

You might be wondering why Bob Woodruff was riding with Iraqi soldiers when he was injured by the IED.  The only explanation that I can think of is that he hoped to demonstrate to his television audience that Iraqi troops are being trained and that the US is making progress in Iraq.  US troops were nearby, and with such a high profile celebrity, I am certain that the best security possible was provided.  After all, how bad would it look if a major network anchor attempting to demonstrate the competence of Iraqi troops was killed or seriously injured during this media opportunity?

It’s unusual nowadays for western reporters to venture outside of the Green Zone, the armed  fortress in central Baghdad that is the base for US military and some US government civilians in Iraq. CNN TV reported today that

Those of us (reporters) here in the early days would certainly take precautions, but would think little about walking the streets in Baghdad and elsewhere speaking with locals, getting a first-hand look at the story we are covering.

In this sitting on Saddam’s famous statue before it was removed.

But things have really changed now.  Reporting is done from within a studio (in the Green Zone?). The journalist stands in front of a white screen (shown below). 

Through some trick of television, the city skyline, with an obligatory mosque, is inserted to make it look like he or she is reporting live from the scene (see the picture below).

I have seen such reporting on the Daily Show; sadly, it’s how the real reporting in Iraq is done most of the time now as well.  This means we are forced to rely on the military as our main source for news. 
What nuggets can we get from the military about the state of Iraq?  We know through ABC sources of military news that (next 3 block quotes)

Today's attack that injured "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt was part of a surge of roadside bombings in Iraq. There were nearly 10,600 roadside bombings in 2005, nearly double the number of attacks that occurred in 2004.

We know too that the failure of the US military to secure post-Saddam Iraq made lot’s of ammunition available.

The explosives for the IEDs are easy to find because Iraq stockpiled 650,000 tons of ammunition before the war.

And that the problem isn’t getting any better.

Across Iraq, more than 200 IED attacks were reported last week alone. On average, that's more than 30 a day.

The recent war in Iraq has killed more than 100,000 Iraqis , 2,443 coalition soldiers , and seriously wounded thousands more. 

I’m sure George W Bush will say in his state of the union address that we have a lot to be proud of in Iraq and that we should ignore all that bad news. After all, we’ve had free elections and we are slowly but surely training the Iraqi army to handle their own security. 

What Bush won’t tell you is that the unemployment rate in Iraq is 40% or higher.  He also won’t tell you that Iraqi oil , the economic engine for Iraq, is at its lowest level of production since the war began.  He also won’t mention the US government audit that showed that

Huge sums of money intended for IRAQ’s reconstruction were stashed in filing cabinets, paid without receipts, and gambled away between 2003 and 2004...

Yes, conditions in Iraq are horrible and 60% of Americans, according to a new poll by Time magazine, disagree with Bush’s handling of the Iraq war.  The all-voluntary Army is stretched thin, and  50,000 of its troops are being forced to remain in the military after their contracts have ended. 

Bob Woodruff didn’t have to suffer a serious injury to show us that Iraq is a disaster, but this tragic accident did remind us that the State of the Union isn’t what it should be. 

To date, we have trained more than 200,000 Iraqi security forces.

Waiting for the Nazis..Or Someone Like Them

Notices went out over the internet that Oregon-based neoNazis were holding a "White Power Rally" at the foot of the Space Needle today, to spearhead their Seattle and Pacific Northwest recruitment effort. They were supposed to rally first in Olympia at the Capitol Building.

Several groups opposed to racism and hate showed up to meet them, as did a cameraman from KIRO-7.
And guess what - they no showed!!

Wake Up Zombies

Paul Bremer releases Republican playbook

Paul Bremer  III was interviewed on Meet The Press today about his new book titled "My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope."  Tim Russert questioned him about several discrepancies between behind-the-scene concerns and Bremer's public statements.  One was Bremer's private request to Rumsfeld for additional troops and Bremer's op-ed piece in the NY Times where he stated that troop levels were sufficient.  This op-ed piece refuted presidential candidate Kerry's position, based on quotes  from an earlier speech by Bremer, that more troops were necessary. 

The big surprise and most shocking statement of the interview was in response to a question about the Iraqi insurgency.  Privately, Bremer was concerned that the insurgency posed a dangerous challenge for the US.  His public statements at the same time on this matter, though, described the insurgency as a small group of "dead enders."  When asked about this by Russert, Bremer said that government officials need to be honest when dealing with the president.  He implied that officials need to resign before they can be honest with the public.

We have assumed for years that this represents the Republican playbook - never admit a problem and present a united public front, one that presents a rosy picture even in the face of bad news. The constitution describes a government for the people - the republicans present us with a government for themselves.   

Don't worry folks, Iraqi troop training is harder than we thought, but it's coming along just fine. 

[Update] I listened to a Podcast of Meet the Press to obtain the relevant quotes from the show to support my diary.

Tim Russert quotes from Bremer’s new book:

I shared (General) John  Abizaid’s frustration. For weeks I had sensed that the Pentagon did not grasp the need to crush a mounting Bathist, Jihadi insurgency and to crush it early on. 

This was followed by Russert’s question:

Russert: Now that is July 14th and again you came back to the United States a week later ---- one week from then, and here  is the exchange you had.  Let me put it up there.

Here is the text that Russert posted and read:

Bremer: We have a limited problem with some bitter enders, some small, remnants of the old regime.
Press: So you don’t think this is a coordinated campaign?
Bremer: No.
Press: You don’t believe  this a guerilla war?
Bremer: No. They present no strategic threat to the coalition.

Now back to Meet the Press:

Russert: In private you seem to very fearful of the insurgency but you put a public face on that this is no big deal. 

Bremer: Well, Tim, first of all, look, I have been in government for 40 years and my approach to government is that you owe it to the president to be very direct with him in what you recommend and what you say, which I tried to do throughout the time that I was there. You don’t expect a government person to come out and say everything is wrong, unless he’s resigned.  If you have real concerns and you can’t support a presidents policy, at least that has always been my view, then you resign.

In other words, a government servant's responsibility is to be honest to the king but not to the people he or she serves.

Katrina: Windfall to Developers from the Intelligent Designer

Check this link - you'll see a segregated page - be sure you read on the correct side for your race, and prepare to be confused if you don't fit into a column.

http://www.remembersegregation.org

A British man made an inquiry to a list that many Americans belong to, after reading a story the Observer:
New Orleans post Katrina
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1686412,00.html
True, or not true?
Derek

It's a long, sad (British) story about Katrina & New Orleans, and how the music died (in the neighborhoods).
He was told that some of us had heard alot of this kind of stuff, resulting in the ever widening seperation of classes. Poor neighborhoods are left to decline, and education, and a huge wall to escaping poverty is built. If the politicians won't listen, where do we begin? Do we now finally make a huge push for publicly financed elections, with the Abramoff scandal?

Further in the article, it's likely business as usual in New Orleans. "The uptown streets are immaculate. Where houses were damaged, crews are busy painting and restoring. Power and phone service have been restored long since, the zoo is up and running, Tulane University is about to reopen. In designer coffee houses, upscale whites and blacks swap Katrina war stories with the wry humour of the fully insured."

The article seemed to the Americans Derek asked brutally honest, though probably not what many in the U.S. want to hear.

Another was more direct in his answer:
What you expect? Tis' a Darwinian free-for-all over here (except in the science classrooms). Money talks; compassion walks. NO is a developer's dream and a racist opportunity sent by the Intelligent Designer.

Slugbug

Big Shoes to Fill

Just thinking how Eugene McCarthy was my inspiration and about how we do need to continue to be inspired by something.

This is the next thing I came across:

Former President Clinton eulogized the late Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy on Saturday for helping to shift momentum against the Vietnam War with his 1968 presidential campaign.

``It all started when Gene McCarthy was willing to stand alone and turn the tide of history,'' Clinton said at a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral.

McCarthy, who died last month at 89, mounted an anti-war challenge to President Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination, leading to Johnson's withdrawal from the race after the New Hampshire presidential primary.

About 800 people, some wearing McCarthy campaign buttons, attended the memorial. A bagpipe procession started the service, and Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary sang ``This Land Is Your Land'' and other songs.

The audience was filled with friends, family members and lawmakers, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy's brother, the late New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, rankled McCarthy by jumping in the '68 race after McCarthy's strong showing in New Hampshire. Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the nomination that year and then lost to Republican Richard Nixon.

Clinton recalled meeting McCarthy as a young man in the early 1970s. The future president was having trouble locating a pair of large shoes to wear to a black-tie Washington dinner, and a friend said he knew someone with even bigger shoes.

A couple of days later, Clinton said, McCarthy came by with a pair of shoes to lend.

``That night, I stood in Gene McCarthy's shoes,'' Clinton said to laughter. At the dinner, he decided to pass up a receiving line for President Nixon.

``It just didn't seem the right thing to do wearing McCarthy's shoes,'' Clinton said to more laughter and applause.

Clinton Eulogizes Eugene McCarthy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5546377,00.html

Arlington West Returns

It doesn't seem like so long ago that I saw Arlington West the first time. Already, over 1000 soldiers had been killed. Now today, there were so many that it took a long time to walk through them all. Many of those killed were younger than my son. Many of the grave markers had been lettered by school children with clumsy handwriting. Children passing the exhibit were asking difficult questions and parents were answering with tenderness and concern. Teens were photographing the markers with their cell phone cameras. Elderly WW II vets came, their hats displaying their military service and their antiwar buttons. One of them told a woman, "I know more about war than he (Bush) will ever know."

Toward the front of the exhibit I noticed pieces of paper tapes to grave markers, about a dozen names to a marker. I realized that those were soldiers who had died in the past few days, and there had been no time to make real markers for them. The mood at Green Lake was contemplative, not the mood of a military parade or homecoming, but of general realization of needless death.

For more information, see Vets for Peace, a humanitarian and educational organization devoted to the abolishment of war. http://www.vetsforpeace.org

Bush's Contract on America

Eleven years ago Newt Gingrich led a successful takeover of Congress by the Republicans.  Gingrich's "Contract with America" proposed a smaller, more efficient government.  Well, Bush had some trouble implementing the plan.  He appears to have mixed-up the goals. Bush's government is larger and less efficient.  It's "Bush's contract on America."

Seattle Gets a Spine

I was late to the event (houseguests) but I did arrive in time to see the "Backbone" exiting the Seattle Labor Temple.  I joined the procession (complete with percussion) to KIRO (Fox outlet) and KOMO, and we taped our Letter to the Editor for each paper, with demands for media transparency and balance.

Slugbug

Hugh Thompson: RIP

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/heroes/thompson.htm

Hugh Thompson was a 24 year old helocopter pilot in Vietnam in 1968 when he became a hero.  He was flying low in order to attract enemy fire when he saw piles of dead persons and dead water buffalo.  He dropped in for a closer look and found US soldiers killing civilians.  It was My Lai, a massacre of more than 500 civilians.  He could have flown away, but instead he placed himself between  the firing soldiers and the civilians, and carried some civilians to safety.

Lt Thompson reported the incident to his superiors, but they didn't pay much attention to him and no one was prosecuted until investigative reporting by Seymour M Hersh finally exposed the massacre.  Thompson testified at the trial and, afterwards, was ostricized by his peers.  In one officers' canteen, he was left to drink alone at the bar. Everyone around him got up and moved to a different part of the room. 

It wasn't until 1998 when Thompson was recognized by his country for his actions that day in Vietnam.  He was awarded a medal for his bravery.  Hugh Thompson is a true hero.  Many medal winners say they were just doing their job, and they are probably right.  Lt Thompson's actions were unpopular and were not part of his job, but they were clearly the right thing to do.  He is a hero in the true sense.

Hugh Thompson died today at age 64 of cancer.