Inventing a Quagmire

[sfc_darrel]

Inventing a Quagmire
We missed this last week, but it's so stunning that it's worth highlighting even a few days late. The corrections column of Thursday's New York Times carried the following "editor's note":

An article on Sunday about attacks on the American military in Iraq over the previous two days, attributed to military officials, included an erroneous account that quoted Pfc. Jose Belen of the First Armored Division. Private Belen, who is not a spokesman for the division, said that a homemade bomb exploded under a convoy on Saturday morning on the outskirts of Baghdad and killed two American soldiers and their interpreter. The American military's central command, which releases information on all American casualties in Iraq, said before the article was published that it could not confirm Private Belen's account. Later it said that no such attack had taken place and that no American soldiers were killed on Saturday.

Repeated efforts by The Times to reach Private Belen this week have been unsuccessful. The Times should not have attributed the account to "military officials," and should have reported that the command had not verified the attack.

Consider that: The New York Times is acknowledging that it published a fabricated account of American casualties in Iraq. There's no reason to doubt the Times' contention that its source, as opposed to its reporter, was behind the original fabrication, but it seems fair, based on the paper's account, to say that the Times "sexed up" its reporting by promoting a single private to "military officials" (plural) and by failing to note Centcom's doubts, much less wait for confirmation before running with the story. (The original article is no longer available free on the Times Web site, but here's a later version that appeared in the Tri-Valley Herald of Pleasanton, Calif.)

The Times, of course, used its news pages as well as its editorials to crusade against the liberation of Iraq, and it's hard not to interpret this latest foul-up as reflecting an unhealthy eagerness to believe Iraq is a quagmire producing large numbers of casualties. Anyway, remember this the next time some Times editorial or op-ed columnist raises troubling questions about the Bush administration's credibility.

[BLUEHAWK]

Quagmire is merely the "cause du jour", that's all.

I gotta say, somebody (if not the Bush administration itself) played right into their hands though, or so it would thusfar appear... by not simply stating that it is the purpose of this military action to liberate the people of Iraq, period. Liberation is a cause most americans would get behind instantly. Piddling around with ghosties is not, nor is kicking a man when he's down.

Dancing around the tulips about wmd this and that and all the rest of it was just garbage in and garbage out, until proven differently.

If they KNEW there was wmd well enough to base a freakin' pre-emptive (no less) invasion on it as a premise, then a) they should have been able to send the U.N. inspectors to exactly where the stuff was, and b) should have found it by now... pesky little detail that it is.

I am prepared to eat my words at any time, but it's lookin' like the government "inferred" the existence of wmd, and used that as an excuse to do the real work of just plain getting rid of a criminally destructive dynasty.

I hate war. But if it's to be war, then they do not get to send me or my kids some god-forsaken place to shed and cause blood shedding on the strength of some damned computer model. If they had the hard evidence, then they did not show it to anybody because no tangible evidence of it as yet exists. We have 150,000 troops in country, plus hundreds of civilians and hundreds of allied troops. We're spending $4,000,000,000 a month on Iraq while our vets at home are begging for help. That sucks. It isn't a quagmire, it just sucks.

I have not and will not forget the Gulf of Tonkin, ever. They did that to us, and they did it to themselves. They need to suck it up...

[BLUEHAWK]

Quagmire is merely the "cause du jour", that's all.

I gotta say, somebody (if not the Bush administration itself) played right into their hands though, or so it would thusfar appear... by not simply stating that it is the purpose of this military action to liberate the people of Iraq, period. Liberation is a cause most americans would get behind instantly. Piddling around with ghosties is not, nor is kicking a man when he's down.

Dancing around the tulips about wmd this and that and all the rest of it was just garbage in and garbage out, until proven differently.

If they KNEW there was wmd well enough to base a freakin' pre-emptive (no less) invasion on it as a premise, then a) they should have been able to send the U.N. inspectors to exactly where the stuff was, and b) should have found it by now... pesky little detail that it is.

I am prepared to eat my words at any time, but it's lookin' like the government "inferred" the existence of wmd, and used that as an excuse to do the real work of just plain getting rid of a criminally destructive dynasty.

I hate war. But if it's to be war, then they do not get to send me or my kids some god-forsaken place to shed and cause blood shedding on the strength of some damned computer model. If they had the hard evidence, then they did not show it to anybody because no tangible evidence of it as yet exists. We have 150,000 troops in country, plus hundreds of civilians and hundreds of allied troops. We're spending $4,000,000,000 a month on Iraq while our vets at home are begging for help. That sucks. It isn't a quagmire, it just sucks.

I have not and will not forget the Gulf of Tonkin, ever. They did that to us, and they did it to themselves. They need to suck it up...

[Gimpy]

BLUEHAWK. Well said!

[the humper]

to locate HARD evidence is for someone to visit some of the mass graves, or better still have seen the ones lying in the streets, cause they were ACCIDENTALLY killed with gas, and this is to the citizens of Iraq???. Or some might want to interview some of the one's who participated in the Olympics and ask them, first hand, how they were treated when they went back to Iraq after the Olympics. Seems there have been many despots in our times who have done what is described above and much much worse. Stalin, Hitler etc., and not much of a hue and cry from the great unwashed!!!!!!!
SF
NC

[BLUEHAWK]

Atomic Vets
Agent Orange
Incursion
"I am not a crook."
"It depends on what the meaning of the word IS is."
MK ULTRA
Wounded Knee
Sand Creek
Gulf of Tonkin
Remember the Maine!
Taft-Hartley Act
Enron
Military-Industrial Complex
McCarthyism
Area 51

vs.

Declaration of Independence

[blues clues]

Humper you know as well as I do if dubby and his boy's had stood up in front of the nation and said I'm going to put our troops into a war because of the mass graves ,the killing of his own people ect,ect. He wouldn't have got the congress to go along with him! The only way he could and did get the nation to go along with this was to do what he did. Saddam had been doing these things for 12 years andf to tell you the truth when they get a new leader he will do the same thing the only thing that will be different he'll be someone we put in to place. like blue said this is just another QUAGMIRE,the only thing is theirs no trees just sand and a lot of dead troops.

razz

[MORTARDUDE]

duh....

what about Bosnia...mass graves...genocide.....??????

I believe we are still there....quagmire....??


Larry

[the humper]

Who do you think backed SH -- none other than the CIA and it wasn't on this watch, but guess that's another story for another set of crooks, that were responsible for the above. As far as anyone going along (in Congress), you're correct, one side or the other wouldn't want to take the responsibility for doing same. Maybe they should have voted on Sept. 10 or 12th as to what PROPER action should have been taken at THOSE times.!!!!!!
SF
NC

[BLUEHAWK]

I know Humper...

One thing leads to another, most of which are unintended consequences that become way way way out of anybody's control. I do believe that such is the nature of war and violence, greed and selfishness... it ain't as if there aren't alternatives.

If you aren't too pissed off at me already, I don't yet understand what you meant by the last sentence of your post, and would like to.

Also, maybe someday, what is the history of the Big "D"?