Iraq Today

As an aside, if you haven't had a chance, take a moment and listen to Digby's speech in the post below. It's great, and as usual, within 13 minutes Digby manages to succinctly summarize the entire history and soul of the liberal blogosphere. Rick Perlstein:

I get the question a lot from people who share my ideological sympathies. Maybe you do, too. My wife and I, with but a tincture of mockery, summarize the question thus: "What is this thing called 'blog'?" It's intimidating for people who aren't familiar with the blogosphere but think they should be: a welter of new names, new concepts, new ways of evaluating quality. (Who to trust? Who to dismiss?)

Anyway, long story short, the blogger digby's speech at the Take Back America conference last night is where I'll be sending people asking that question from now on: everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask. Why it matters, who are the players, what it means, how to read it - and, most fascinatingly, how to understand its often adversarial relationship to the "mainstream media."

Back to Iraq, unfortunately.

This is one of the stories on Iraq from yesterday:

The NYT suggests that the fact that the mosque in Baghdad was bombed as American forces carried out their massive offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq should not be seen as a coincidence. "The timing seemed intended to demonstrate that the insurgents could still strike with near impunity," says the NYT. The Post notes that a preliminary investigation seems to show that the truck used for the bombing was outfitted with TNT "less than a mile from where it exploded." If true, it would mean that al-Qaida in Iraq, which was always believed to prepare the bombs outside Baghdad, "has shifted strategies once again" to circumvent the numerous security checkpoints that aim to control access to the capital.

My first reaction was a big duh. Looking a little deeper, it's interesting how the reports continue to focus on al Qaeda. I haven't even done any real research on it yet, but I'd be willing to bet that the attack was a sectarian attack as part of the tit-for-tat mosque bombings of late.

Then there's this:

In an insightful Page One piece, the NYT notes that operations to attack al-Qaida forces in Iraq have frequently ended up merely displacing them to another region. Now, the U.S. military is determined not just to kick out the insurgents, but to actually capture or kill them. Problem is that thousands of civilians remain in the area, and they don't appear to be listening to the U.S. military's pleas that they stay inside their homes. Besides the risk of a high number of civilian casualties, things could get more complicated if insurgents decide to try to blend in with the city's residents.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Frontline did another in a series of stories on Iraq ... how we got there, how we f*@ked it up, and what we're doing now. The final conclusions were that now we're surging so we'll just have to see how that works. Frankly, I'm not sure we could have ever "won" Iraq with the genesis of today being back before WWII. And I continue to be totally astounding to hear some of the most respected, brightest and most successful leaders in our governmental structure make statements like, "we never could have anticipated an insurgency".

*Sigh*

What was really interesting was a very very brief moment in an interview with Gen. Jack Keane. Keane made a number of critical comments about the early handling of the war, but was (with Frederick Kagan) one of the architects of the escalation surge. When discussing the history of the war to date, he was quite animated, maintaining a confident and commanding presence. When discussing the future success (or failure) of the escalation and the fact that he was a key in persuading Bush to go with an escalation, there was this brief moment where he appeared, as my wife said, as if he had eaten a lemon. There was just this deer-in-the-headlights moment where the full measure of responsibility showed on his face. You can see the entire Frontline episode on the PBS site linked above. It's worth it.

Of course since the filming of the Frontline, the escalation has not gone well. The continuing belief that you can subdue a popular insurgency with military force from an occupying power continues to be the trip wire for any tactical attempts to "win Iraq". Now the CW is pushing back the September dropdead date and it looks like an indefinite committment. Meanwhile, people continue to die because of the naivete of our so-called "best and brightest".

Update: I know it's not a sound bite like we're fed by the administration and the media. It may take you five minutes to read and comprehend the complexity of the situation. But take a look at Juan Cole's explanation of the shrine bombings. These are very important events that go well beyond the simplistic "al Qaeda is stirring trouble" administration/media spin.