On its editorial page todayThe New York Times is blatantly twisting the truth:
As Americans argue about how to bring the troops home from Iraq, British forces are already partway out the door. Four years ago, there were some 30,000 British ground troops in southern Iraq. By the end of this summer, there will be 5,000. None will be based in urban areas. Those who remain will instead be quartered at an airbase outside Basra. Rather than trying to calm Iraq’s civil war, their main mission will be training Iraqis to take over security responsibilities, while doing limited counterinsurgency operations.So... Why exactly did the Brits reduce forces in Iraq?
That closely follows the script some Americans now advocate for American forces in Iraq: reduce the numbers — and urban exposure — but still maintain a significant presence for the next several years...
Was it a cut and run in defeat as The New York Times suggests? After all, that is what the NYT and democrats have wanted to do all along, isn't it?
Or, were there other reasons for the British troop reductions in southern Iraq?
Iraqi security forces celebrate during a handover ceremony in the Shiite city of Najaf. Iraqi soldiers and police took charge of security in Najaf and its province, at a colourful and optimistic jamboree on December 20, 2006. (Qassem Zein/AFP)
The truth is that progress in the Iraqi security forces made it possible for the UK to scale down troop levels in southern Iraq.
The fact that the Brits reduced their forces from 30,000 to 5,000 is not because they were defeated in a civil war as the NYT would like you to believe.
The Brits were planning on reducing forces all along based on progress of the Iraqi troops and stabilization of the region.
That is the reason why troops were reduced.
And, the British troop reduction is no secret. Great Britain announced their plans several times since 2003.
For The New York Times to suggest that this withdrawal is the same as a cut and run is just dishonest reporting.
HotAir and News Busters have more on this crappy NYT piece.
Jules Crittenden calls this new approach "a more responsible rush to abandonment."
Oh dear! I'm shocked that the paper of record would be caught out in a misinformation campaign again...
ReplyDeleteSweetness & Light notes that the paper of record is now whinning about the closing of a bakery in Oakland, Ca that Jim has posted something about...
Juandos, I was going to get snarky but then I realized that the NYT generates their own humor based journalism. That is humor beyond anything that I could come up with.
ReplyDeleteThe Times did not state a reason for the Brits' drawdown. Nor did it imply one. It simply stated the facts, something you are trying to obfuscate in drumming up this fake "catch" of the Times. The truth is Basra is a disaster, a power vacuum with heavy Iranian influence, heavily armed militias and factions, and extremely violent. Whether the Brits planned to leave or figured they couldn't contain the civil war, the fact exists that they are leaving a failed city in a failed state.
ReplyDeleteShawn you need a refresher course in reading.
ReplyDelete"Nor did it imply one. It simply stated the facts, something you are trying to obfuscate in drumming up this fake "catch" of the Times." Shawn
"In Basra — after four years of British tutelage — police forces are infiltrated by sectarian militias. The British departure will cede huge areas to criminal gangs and rival Shiite militias. Without Iraqis capable of taking over, the phased drawdown of British troops has turned ugly." NYT
The implication is that they're leaving because of failure to achieve *anything* Shawn.
"The truth is Basra is a disaster, a power vacuum with heavy Iranian influence, heavily armed militias and factions, and extremely violent." Shawn
You amplify their implied reasons.
"Iraqi security forces celebrate during a handover ceremony in the Shiite city of Najaf. Iraqi soldiers and police took charge of security in Najaf and its province, at a colourful and optimistic jamboree on December 20, 2006. (Qassem Zein/AFP)"
The AFP calls both you and the NYT a liar.
Shawn you're desperate for there to be a failure. You can't even see that the Brits had been broadcasting their desire to leave. Does it hurt that badly to see a measure of success it Iraq? You need to pray to whatever you call a god for more positive signs of failure.
I think it is time to redo that old line of Mark Twain's....
ReplyDeleteThe original quote-"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
The revised version-"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and New York Times articles."
We could also paraphrase a quote from a London newspaper editor (can't remember his name off hand) about The Sun tabloid.
"They should have a headline that says 'Find a fact in The New York Times and win a million dollars!'"
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ReplyDeletetaking a short cut.. ;)
Why Not Another 9/11?
excerpts:
[Liberally oriented newspaper editors increasingly wonder why subscription and circulation numbers continue to plummet among the old guard of news media: the printed page.
What are they, the dumbest people on earth?
Why would any population of any nation that has the slightest modicum of freedom choose to subject itself to the onset of treasonous and vapid judgment with which these editors seem so well endowed?]
[Whatever the case editors at the New York Times, The Philadelphia Daily News, and The Washington Post deserve not merely ridicule but complete isolation from American civilization for the treachery they promoted this week.
Playing fast and loose with the idea of terror visiting our shores, ripping American lives and bodies apart, polling the bottom feeding trolls to suggest how attacks should be planned, and pure mockery of what real American heroism looks like in the face of such danger - should earn not just the scorn of the American public, but the economic ruin that comes from readers and subscribers walking away.]
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ReplyDeletepardon if a repeat..
additional perpective..
excerpt:
[The number of American troops will drop once this process is completed, Whitman said. With 20 combat brigades or regimental combat teams and the attendant combat service and combat service support units, the number of Americans in Iraq will be between 155,000 and 157,000, officials said. The next rotation will cause another artificial spike in the numbers, officials said.
Whitman said Pentagon officials will continue to watch developments in Basra, where violence has increased as British troops turn more of Iraq’s third-largest city over to Iraqi control. “Any time we see a spike in violence in any particular area, the coalition has concerns,” Whitman said. “Commanders have flexibility to address the security situation.”
Basra is part of the British-commanded Multinational Division Southeast. “Commanders will assess the situation in Basra, and if changes need to be made, they will make them,” Whitman said. In addition to British troops, the division has forces from Italy, Romania, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Lithuania under its command.
Fighting in Basra is between rival Shiia groups, officials in Baghdad said, and they cautioned against drawing conclusions based on one part of the diverse country.
Whitman said enemy fighters sometimes try to exploit transitions of the security mission from coalition to Iraqi forces. “There’s always the risk as you turn over responsibilities, that the enemy could see that as a seam and try to take advantage of that,” he said.
When coalition and Iraqi officials believe they have achieved a fair degree of stability and security in any given area, responsibility is transferred to Iraqi security forces. In some cases, the Iraqis were not prepared, and the town reverted to lawlessness, officials said, while in other areas, the changeover has occurred without a hitch.]
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ReplyDeleteoh yeah, pardon typo's too..
ie: perspective..
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Haven't got the time Jean. You're a kind of worthless POS.
ReplyDeleteYour blurb is pitiful, do you not think anyone will take the time to look for themselves? Apparently the Post has the same thing to say, "As British Leave Basra Deteriorates"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601401_pf.html
From the article;
A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.
"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.
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ReplyDeleteafter that last post by gsmoove..
i'm beginning to believe that some people
consider the NYT & WaPo to be their Bible..
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ReplyDeleteBlair announces Iraq troops cut (Feb, 2007)
Iraq PM wants security of Basra in 3 months
Once welcomed, British troops are
now the wrong tools for the job
excerpts:
[British officers say that the rockets fired by Iranian-backed militias are intended to create But Rear Admiral Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman, dismissed the claims. He told the Today programme yesterday: "That is a totally inconsistent characterisation with how we view our coalition partners, the Brits.
"They are professional, they are competent, they are very capable." Basra is due to be returned to local control by the end of the year. Three surrounding provinces have already been handed back to the Iraqis.
British troops have now withdrawn to Basra airport and to one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in the city. the false impression that British forces are being chased out of Iraq. "The levels of indirect fire . . . have caused some surprise, but it isn't going to work because we are working to our own timeline," said Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Sanders, commanding officer of the 4th Battalion, The Rifles.]
[British officers are quick to emphasise that the Shia-dominated south lacks the internecine tensions found in central Iraq. About 90 per cent of the violence is directed against British forces, they say, while the rest is a mixture of mafia-style gangsterism and "ordinary decent crime". Their belief is that once Britain is removed from the equation, rival Shia militias, tribes and political parties are expected to settle down together after a brief power struggle. Commanders reject the fears of some local people that their city will descend into anarchy without a British presence.
"British troops aren't working down here. Not because of mass, not because of courage, not because of equipment but because we are the wrong tool for the job," a senior British officer said. "The problems down here are political. They are social. Basra has got to sort itself out." ]
["I have one goal, to bring security to Basra province," General Mohan al-Fraiji, the security tsar, said. "The decision has already been made from high up that by middle to late September Basra will be in our hands." Mr al-Maliki also ordered Mohammed al-Waili, Basra's struggling Governor, to adhere to a vote of no confidence passed by the provincial council and step down. Mr al-Waili is stubbornly staying on for now, though British officials insist that this squabble will not affect their handover plans.]
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ReplyDeletere: bg @ 9:13 PM
sorry, got two seperate article's excerpts mixed in together.. should read:
[British officers say that the rockets fired by Iranian-backed militias are intended to create the false impression that British forces are being chased out of Iraq. “The levels of indirect fire . . . have caused some surprise, but it isn’t going to work because we are working to our own timeline,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Sanders, commanding officer of the 4th Battalion, The Rifles.]
[British officers are quick to emphasise that the Shia-dominated south lacks the internecine tensions found in central Iraq. About 90 per cent of the violence is directed against British forces, they say, while the rest is a mixture of mafia-style gangsterism and "ordinary decent crime". Their belief is that once Britain is removed from the equation, rival Shia militias, tribes and political parties are expected to settle down together after a brief power struggle. Commanders reject the fears of some local people that their city will descend into anarchy without a British presence.
"British troops aren't working down here. Not because of mass, not because of courage, not because of equipment but because we are the wrong tool for the job," a senior British officer said. "The problems down here are political. They are social. Basra has got to sort itself out."]
["I have one goal, to bring security to Basra province," General Mohan al-Fraiji, the security tsar, said. "The decision has already been made from high up that by middle to late September Basra will be in our hands." Mr al-Maliki also ordered Mohammed al-Waili, Basra's struggling Governor, to adhere to a vote of no confidence passed by the provincial council and step down. Mr al-Waili is stubbornly staying on for now, though British officials insist that this squabble will not affect their handover plans.]
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