The IraqPundit posts a very interesting read about the current reporting by AP and Washington Post on Moktada al Sadr’s situation. The lead paragraph starts with a focus on the AP report.
IraqPundit: Sadr in Splinters?
How is Moktada’s excellent Iranian adventure going? “Al Sadr has been in Iran since early February,” wrote the AP on March 21, “apparently laying low during the U.S.-Iraqi offensive, according to the U.S. military.” Yet poor Moktada’s been homesick. “Al Sadr tried to return to Iraq last month,” says the wire story, “but turned back before he reached the Iraqi border upon learning of U.S. checkpoints on the road to Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad where he lives.
Then, he mixes in the Washington Post’s reporting on the Shi’ite militia leader-in-exile:
Now, let’s cut to the front page of the Washington Post on March 15. That’s six whole days earlier. Sitting above the fold that day was a headline that proclaimed, “For U.S. and Sadr, Wary Cooperation,” and a subhead that explained, “Radical Shiite Cleric Seen as Crucial To Success of Baghdad Security Plan.”
In that story, we learned that “Sadr and the Americans are cooperating uneasily,” and that “[t]he collaboration represents a remarkable shift for two adversaries who control the largest armies in Iraq and who fought some of the fiercest battles since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.”…
Add a touch of sarcasm at the gullibility of the western reporters:
I guess we’ll soon be reading that Moktada has evolved into one of the Eight Immortals, but never mind that for now. If the AP account is accurate, then even as the WaPo reporter was keyboarding the words, p-o-w-e-r- b-r-o-k-e-r, Moktada had already scurried away from the Iraqi border at the prospect of encountering a U.S. checkpoint. That’s some impressive power brokering, no? The Post actually writes that U.S. officials now “view [Al Sadr] as a political catalyst who can help keep Iraq together — or implode it.” Would that be the same frightened Moktada last seen speeding deeper into Iran?
…and you get an eminently readable analysis of the current reporting on the situation in Iraq. The US military comes out looking fairly competent, the AP and Washington Post come out looking like gullible fools, swallowing whatever “spin” (21st century term for propaganda) they can find.
Why is this important? I just read an article in Comentary Online. It is “How to Win in Iraq - and How to Lose” by Arthur Herman. He compares the current situation in Iraq and the US with 1954 Algeria and France, as well as 1974 Vietnam and the US.
Speaking about the remarkable success of a Tunisian-born French officer, Galula, who developed an effective counterinsurgency strategy, Herman describes the three lessons Galula had learned about an effective counterinsurgency. Number three is projecting a sense of inevitable victory against the terrorists:
Toward this end, Galula’s third lesson was that the counterinsurgency must project a sense of inevitable victory. The local populace had to see the military and civilian authority as the ultimate winner. For that, native troops were essential. In counterinsurgency terms, they were more than just auxiliaries in the fight; they were also signposts of the future, of a secure post-insurgency order around which the local populace could rally.
There are two other points of interest to me in the Commentary piece regarding reporting on Iraq:
1. It isn’t the military (should I add the obligatory “stupid!” here?) that will win the war. and
2. The war isn’t going on “over there” only.
Quoting Herman again:
Will it work? That is not the crucial question. It has been done before, and it can be done again; at least, it can be done on the ground. The crucial question is whether the political will exists to see it through to the end. Here, too, the French experience in Algeria is instructive—in a wholly negative way. (emphasis mine)
That last sentence is meant to sound ominous:
What happened was this: while the French military had been concentrating on fighting the insurgency in the streets and mountains in Algeria, an intellectual and cultural insurgency at home, led by the French Left and the media, had been scoring its own succession of victories. (emphasis mine)
The point these two articles raise in my mind is that those of us who want this war to succeed against the Islamo-fascists and terrorist thugs had better figure out that the “intellectual and cultural insurgency at home” is our business to fight. I don’t see many people who want the US to succeed taking the time and energy to call or write their Congressional representatives, or to let the public news and opinion sources know that they want victory. We are ceding the battleground to the intellectual enemy. We cannot expect our troops to make the time, effort, blood, and life sacrifice around the world, without taking on our responsibilities here.
Source: IraqPundit: Sadr in Splinters?
