Iraqi Occupation

This weekend I spent an afternoon at the library comparing newspaper headlines from the Vietnam War era with contemporary reporting from Iraq.

While there are lots of people making comparisons between the two conflicts, I was curious to see if there were any similarities in the way they were explained and reported in the press.

The answer: Sadly, yes.

In fact, several times while doing this project, I had to check the dates to confirm I wasn't looking at the same war.

Below are four examples of news from Vietnam that are spookily similar to the news coming out of Iraq today. There were many others I could have posted; such as stories about soldiers being arrested for refusing to fight, or complaints from the puppet-governments that the US was meddling in their affairs. But I decided to stick to these because they seemed the most apropo.

Exhibit A: Military experts assure Americans that we're only going to be in that country for 18 months - then we'll start withdrawing. Honest.

Then: (1967)

Now: (2003)

Exhibit B: The US is very careful to not kill civilians.

Then: (1967)

Now: (2006)

U.S. Raid Kills Family North of Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Jan. 3, 2006 -- U.S. pilots targeting a house where they believed insurgents had taken shelter killed a family of 12, Iraqi officials said Tuesday. The dead included women and children whose bodies were recovered in the nightclothes and blankets in which they had apparently been sleeping.

A Washington Post special correspondent watched as the corpses of three women and three boys who appeared to be younger than 10 were removed Tuesday from the house outside the town of Baiji, 150 miles north of Baghdad.

A U.S. military spokesman said that American forces take every precaution to prevent civilian casualties and that they were working with Iraqi authorities to determine what happened at the farmhouse in Baiji. "We continue to see terrorists and insurgents using civilians in an attempt to shield themselves," Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman, said in an e-mail.

Exhibit C: Senators warn that if we retreat, the bad guys will spread all over the region and then attack us on our own soil! Better to take the battle to them, then fight in the streets of the US.

Then: (1965)

Now: (2005)

Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire

"Well, the best place to get intelligence, quite honestly, is the breeding ground of these terrorists: Iraq, Afghanistan. And so that war in Iraq and Afghanistan is, as the President has pointed out a number of times, taking the war to them to find them before they can find us."

Exhibit D: The occupation isn't working and we're losing control of the situation - so the President decides to throw more troops at the problem. The press will call it an escalation a surge.

Then: (1968)

Now: (2006)

Bush's Speech committing to a surge in troops

This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help. So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq. The vast majority of them -- five brigades -- will be deployed to Baghdad. These troops will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations. Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Iraq - Vietnam - Newspaper clippings - Pointing out the obvious - Historical research

Disclaimer: All the above newspaper clips needed some changes in layout with Photoshop to fit on this page. In some cases I removed paragraphs.

Bookmark/Search this post with:
| | | | | | |

Iraq is not in a state of Civil War.

I don't really believe the first sentence or the title of this post, but I wanted to be the last sane person on the blogoshere to say such a thing.

If the CNN video above doesn't convince you, here are a few paragraphs from Shatha Al-Awsy, an Iraqi reporter who just fled from her neighborhood:

First-hand report from Iraq

I stuffed my passport, cell phone, cash and ID into a small pouch that I kept on my body or under my pillow. By the third day of the curfew, we'd run out of fresh bread, so my aunt, my baby daughter and I walked to a nearby bakery. A strange car circled the area at least three times, defying the curfew. My aunt whispered for us to go.

We walked away quickly, my legs heavy with fear.

"Here they come again," my aunt said, and we started to run.

I looked back and saw the blue car again, a few feet away. Gunfire rang out, and the people in line at the bakery scattered. I pushed my daughter's stroller as fast as I could through a garbage-strewn lot to get home faster. I decided that we wouldn't leave home again until the curfew ended.

All I have to observe now is that the shit and the fan are now close friends in Iraq.

I won't have a counterpoint for this post because, as far as I can tell, it's official. Iraq has now decended into civil war. The only people who say otherwise are either delusional or on the Bush Administration's payroll.

Tags: Iraqi Civil War

Bookmark/Search this post with:
| | | | | | |

I have some quick questions about the timing and necesity of the Baker Commission.

The Baker Commission (aka The Iraq Study Group, also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission) is a ten-person panel appointed on March 15, 2006, by the United States Congress when it was still dominated by conservative war-supporters, that is charged with delivering an independent assessment of the situation of the Iraq occupation. The panel has no direct authority to change Iraq policy, but will make policy recommendations.

The recommendations are due out soon, and all I'm wondering is: Don't we already have people on the government payroll who are supposed to give independent assessments on foreign policy?

What the hell is the CIA for? How about the Department of State? What about the UNITED STATES CONGRESS!!!???

Besides, didn't Bush already have a "Plan for Victory" back in November 30th, 2005?

If so, why form the Baker Commission less than four months later when Republicans were still enjoying the afterglow of this photo-op:

And while we are on the subject of timing and strategies for dealing with Iraq - here's a rough time-line for the quagmire thus far:

1. Mislead Congress about the danger Iraq poses. (pre-March 2003)
2. Invade (March 2003)
3. Declare Mission Accomplished (May 2003)
4. Change the reasons why we needed to go into Iraq. (September 2005)
5. Come out with a "Strategy for Victory" (October 2005)
6. Come out with a "Plan for Victory" (November 2005)
7. Baker Commission report to asses the strategy post-facto. (TBA)

This is the most ass-backwards order for a military engagement I've ever seen.

Tags: Baker Commission - The Iraq Study Group - Baker-Hamilton Commission - Redundancy

Read counterpoint here.

Bookmark/Search this post with:
| | | | | | |