Things in Iraq are going so great

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For those that do not know - I believe jfern posted this in response to a quote McCain made about General Petraeus being able to ride in an unarmored Hummer and sections of Baghdad outside the green zone being fit for Americans to wander around in. His statements were - of course - bull crap, and he made them in a very arrogant and matter of fact manner. The fact that some are tossing that back in his face now should come as no surprise - that's what happens when a Senator just makes stuff up on national TV.

transcript at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0703/27/sitroom.03.html

BLITZER: Here's what you told Bill Bennett on his radio show on Monday. "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today. The U.S. is beginning to succeed in Iraq."

Everything we hear, that if you leave the so-called Green Zone, the international zone, and you go outside of that secure area, relatively speaking, you're in trouble if you're an American.

MCCAIN: You know, that's where you ought to catch up on things, Wolf. General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in a non-armed Humvee. I think you ought to catch up. You see, you are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. You certainly don't get it through the filter of some of the media.

But I know for a fact that much of the success we're experiencing, including the ability of Americans in many parts. Not all. We have got a long, long way to go. We have only got two of the five brigades there to go into some neighbors in Baghdad in a secure fashion.

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He is a high profile target.  The President of the United States travels with that kind of security when he goes to Detriot.

Last time Bush was in Detriot I don't recall him wearing body armor and being shoulder to shoulder with a hundred armed soldiers brandishing their weapons - did I miss something?

But more interesting than that little piece of non-sense is the fact that no Americans stroll outside the green zone in Baghdad - high value target or not.

That should shock nobody - except for McCain it would appear.

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So Mike Pence has joined McCain in lalaland - that's a shame.

McCain Wrong on Iraq Security, Merchants Say

BAGHDAD, April 2 — A day after members of an American Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain pointed to their brief visit to Baghdad’s central market as evidence that the new security plan for the city was working, the merchants there were incredulous about the Americans’ conclusions.

Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, said the Shorja market was “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana.”
“What are they talking about?” Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. “The security procedures were abnormal!”

The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.

“They paralyzed the market when they came,” Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. “This was only for the media.”

He added, “This will not change anything.”

At a news conference shortly after their outing, Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and his three Congressional colleagues described Shorja as a safe, bustling place full of hopeful and warmly welcoming Iraqis — “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,” offered Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who was a member of the delegation.

But the market that the congressmen said they saw is fundamentally different from the market Iraqis know.

Merchants and customers say that a campaign by insurgents to attack Baghdad’s markets has put many shop owners out of business and forced radical changes in the way people shop. Shorja, the city’s oldest and largest market, set in a sprawling labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways, has been bombed at least a half-dozen times since last summer.

At least 61 people were killed and many more wounded in a three-pronged attack there on Feb. 12 involving two vehicle bombs and a roadside bomb.

more at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/middleeast/03mccain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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article

Well yeah, I'd think that it's kind of a given that if you bring in 100 soldiers, a bunch of attack helicopters, and some rooftop sharpshooters, redirect traffic away from the area, and restrict it so that only you can go to a location, then the place would probably be rather peaceful.

And after all that, they still needed to wear bulletproof vests?

So that doesn't strike you as a (to quote Mike Pence) "normal outdoor market in Indiana"? I haven't been to Indiana in a bit, but I'm think it doesn't.

After listening to McCain and Pence, the only question I have is - how dumb do they think Americans are? I get that they think the effort in Iraq is critical, but do they think they are doing that cause any good by treating the voting public like idiots? If anything, they are undermining their own cause by destroying their ability to discuss this issue with the public.

It's this sort of dishonest expression from those pushing for the cause of our continued involvement in Iraq (mission accomplished, we will be greeted as liberators, the war will pay for itself, we have reached a turning point, we have reached a turning point, we have reached a turning point, etc) that has eroded support for their own effort. The American public may not be a bunch of PHD's, but they are not as dumb as these folks give them credit for.

The really funny thing here is that they don't get the whole concept of the boy who cried wolf. They make up good happenings and then when actual good happenings occur and are ignored they can not figure out why. It's like they are pointing a loaded AK47 at their own foot with trigger depressed and can not figure out why they keep getting shot in the foot.

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OK, McCain is being misleading about the situation in Iraq. But so is everybody else of major significance in mainstream politics- on all sides. Iraq is a lot more complex than all sides are making out.

It's one thing to be misleading (yeah - most politicans specialize at being misleading), but it's another thing to go out out like McCain and Pence did with cameras rolling and news crews talking to the same folks that McCain and Pence were talking to and come out and say what they said in defiance of all evidence. It isn't just misleading - its insulting to the American people, it clearly demonstrates a lack of honesty, and it undermines what good that could be done in Iraq. I have no idea what the heck those two clowns thought would happen. McCain making dellusional statements doesn't really surprise me at this point - but I was sad to see Pence join him in it.

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The market McCain visited yesterday was a whole 3 minutes drive from the Green Zone. Things are going so great there, that only 21 workers at that market were killed today.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1604931.ece

Also, only 4 US soldiers were killed in Baghdad while McCain was out for a stroll.  The surge truly is working.

This is from the end of the NYT piece I posted yesterday. I wonder if Abu Samer predicted his own death for the cause of a bogus photo op for McCain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/middleeast/03mccain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Several merchants said Monday that the Americans’ visit might have only made the market a more inviting target for insurgents.

“Every time the government announces anything — that the electricity is good or the water supply is good — the insurgents come to attack it immediately,” said Abu Samer, 49, who would give only his nickname out of concern for his safety.

But even though he was fearful of a revenge attack, he said, he could not afford to stay away from the market. This was his livelihood. “We can never anticipate when they will attack,” he said, his voice heavy with gloomy resignation. “This is not a new worry.”