THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

News bias.

CBS Fired Antiwar Batiste -- But CBS Consultant O'Hanlon Advocated For Surge
May 11, 2007 -- 12:28 PM EST // View Comments (52) // Post a Comment
As MSNBC reported late yesterday, retired General John Batiste has been fired as an analyst for CBS News because he appeared in a VoteVets ad slamming President Bush and advocating for withdrawal from Iraq.

I just checked in with CBS for an explanation, and the network gave me this statement:

General Batiste inadvertently violated our standards by appearing in the advertisement. Therefore, we and the General mutually agreed to end his consultant's arrangement with CBS News.
When I asked CBS spokesperson Sandy Genelius to clarify which standards she was talking about, Genelius told me that CBS had "internal" standards that dictated against this sort of advocacy, which she defined as "expressing a public opinion that is coming from an advocacy point of view." She added: "You are not allowed to take a public position on an issue." Think Progress got a similar explanation from Genelius today.

But I've dug up something pretty interesting. On December 31, 2006 (via Nexis), the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon appeared on CBS as a "CBS News Consultant" -- the same type of arrangement Batiste had. O'Hanlon, however, has repeatedly "advocated" in favor of the "surge."

ci: The US does not have the manpower or treasure to spend in Iraq for the next ten years. In case you haven't noticed, the world economy is now in a tizzy. We can't continue to spend money on bullets and bombs while our own infrastructure breaks down.

ican: We've got the manpower and treasure to pay for both the required ordnance and the required maintenance of infrastructure. It's better that some of our infrastructure occassionally falls down while we are in Iraq, than frequently blows up after we leave Iraq before winning.

And how do you suppose they are going to accomplish this? Details, please.

ican, If you know how to read and understand the English language, and understand the underlying nuance, please read the following article. I really don't give you too much hope, because you fail to understand what a failure Bush's war is.


Shiite militia expands grip in Baghdad

By SALLY BUZBEE, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago



The street market bustles in the early mornings and late afternoons as shoppers come out to buy fruit, bread, clothes and toys. Late into the hot summer nights, whole families gather to eat grilled kebabs at tiny stalls, their small children shrieking as they play tag.

The Hurriyah neighborhood of northwest Baghdad, gripped by a spasm of deadly ethnic violence a year ago, has grown markedly calmer over the past eight months. It is now the kind of area that both U.S. and Iraqi officials point to when they cite progress at stabilizing Baghdad.

But only Shiites are welcome ?- or safe ?- in Hurriyah these days. And neither Iraq's government nor U.S. or Iraqi security forces are truly in control.

Instead, the Mahdi Army militia runs this area as it does others across Baghdad ?- manning checkpoints, collecting rental fees for apartments, licensing bus drivers, mediating family fights and even handing out gas for cooking.

The U.S. Army still runs regular patrols, sometimes on foot, sometimes by Humvee. And Iraqi police, on the streets, are nominally in charge.

But underneath the calm, an armed group hostile to the United States holds a firm grip on power. Some fear the Mahdi Army is simply biding its time ?- eager to grab outward control and run things its way whenever U.S. forces pull back.

"They control people's lives," said one resident of Hurriyah, a Shiite government employee who would give his name only as Abu Mahdi, 36, because he feared Mahdi militia reprisals. Scornfully calling them uneducated, bullying teenagers, he said: "They are worse than the Baathists" ?- the party that held total authority under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Others are more supportive of the militia.

"Our area is safe because of the presence of the Mahdi Army," said Abu Hussein, a 50-year-old taxi driver, who also refused to give his full name. "Most people feel that way. Very few are anti-Mahdi Army."

Yet even Abu Hussein can find the militia oppressive. The rent payments they collect from fellow Shiites displaced from other parts of the city, who now live in apartments in Hurriyah that once belonged to Sunnis, are little more than protection money, he complained.

At a store last week to buy ice, Abu Hussein said he came across the storekeeper and a customer arguing over a payment. When the customer threatened to take his complaint to the Mahdi Army, the storekeeper began stammering in fear. "His face got red," Abu Hussein said.

The Mahdi Army's control here has its roots in the ferocious wave of ethnic hatred that rippled across an arc of formerly mixed Baghdad neighborhoods last summer and fall.

Until late 2005, Hurriyah was a relatively safe, working-class community of Sunnis and Shiites. The first signs of trouble began that year, when gunmen from a Sunni extremist group began abducting and killing Shiites. In early 2006, Mahdi Army militiamen from their base in nearby Sadr City ?- about seven miles to the east ?- set up an office in Hurriyah main outdoor market, promising Shiites protection.

Last fall, fliers went up, warning that 10 Sunnis would die for every Shiite killed. As a wave of Sunni car bomb attacks on Shiites killed hundreds across Baghdad, reprisal attacks on Sunnis steadily escalated.

Throughout the fall, dozens of bodies turned up each day in Hurriyah and other neighborhoods. By late November, Sunni mosques in Hurriyah were being attacked, never yet to reopen. U.S. troops came under frequent sniper fire. Schools closed.

By early December, almost all Sunnis had fled Hurriyah, except for a handful of elderly Sunnis, and the Mahdi Army was running several checkpoints. By March, Shiites who had been displaced elsewhere were moving into Hurriyah, taking the shops and apartments of Sunnis who had fled.

By May, the murder rate in Hurriyah fell from more than 200 a week in December to about 10 a week, according to U.S. military forces then.

When the surge of American troops gathered steam in late spring, the Mahdi Army generally stood down from confrontation, on the orders of its leader, the firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Yet behind the scenes, the group stepped even more strongly into the "government's authority vacuum," said Abu Mustafa, 37, a government employee and father of three. "People began to rely on the Mahdi Army and Sadr's office in everything ?- even in family affairs."

A few weeks ago, a dispute among brothers living in a house in his alley caused one brother to go to a Mahdi Army office and bring back armed men, Abu Mustafa said. Panicked neighbors prodded the brothers to make up before the militiamen could intervene.

Residents say only a handful of elderly Sunnis now remain. One Shiite woman ?- divorced from a Sunni man ?- fled recently with her 12-year-old son after Shiite militias broke into her parents' house and threatened to kill the boy because he was Sunni.

The neighborhood's three main streets are blocked by checkpoints run by teenagers, none wearing uniforms, but with pistols sometimes tucked in their belts and walkie talkies in hand. They stop and question each driver.

U.S. forces ?- and even locals ?- are hard pressed to know who is a militiamen and who just a resident. But U.S. officers on the ground say they believe the neighborhood is firmly under the militia's control, infiltrating and influencing the Iraqi police who patrol the area.

The Mahdi Army, or JAM in Arabic, is like "a neighborhood watch group on steroids," said Lt. Col. Steve Miska, 39, from Greenport, N.Y., head of the U.S. Army's Task Force Justice, part of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.

The local area council in Hurriyah also is controlled by the group. The council is supposed to control the distribution of fuel and cooking gas cylinders to people. But the Mahdi Army usually takes this task, giving preference to loyalists and relatives, said Abu Hussein, the group's supporter.

Because he is not an insider, he is forced to buy his gas on the black market, he said.

Almost all women now wear the full Islamic hijab veil, even girls in elementary school. During school holidays, boys and girls are encouraged to attend religious courses held in Shiite mosques, and are given CDs of songs of the Mahdi Army.

"Hurriyah is a very beautiful place," said Abu Mustafa, the government employee who said he helped in Iraq's first elections and once held high hopes for his country. "But unfortunately, it fell in the hands of gangs."

More New U.S. Troops Have Criminal Records
About one in 10 U.S. Army recruits has needed a "moral waiver" because of a criminal record this year -- a figure that's 2 1/2 times the percentage of recruits who needed one four years ago, The Boston Globe reports.
According to figures from the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, "11.6 percent of new active-duty and Army Reserve troops in 2007 have received a so-called 'moral waiver,' up from 7.9 percent in fiscal year 2006." In fiscal 2003 and 2004, 4.6 percent of new recruits got waivers.

One expert says this change can lead to increased discipline problems.

"Somebody who has demonstrated themselves to be guilty of misbehavior in civilian life has a good chance of behaving in the same way in the military," said John Hutson, judge advocate general of the Navy until 2000 and now dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center at the University of New Hampshire.
Hutson said in the 1970s, the last time moral waivers were given out in large numbers, many of the soldiers who needed them ended up in military court, often for what he calls "frustration offenses" -- drug use, burglary and violent behavior.

William Arkin, the national and homeland security blogger at The Washington Post, writes that right now, the Army is only meeting its recruitment goals because of the way it's stretching the rules. That includes accepting recruits without a high-school diploma and those previously rejected for being physically unfit, along with those with criminal records, he writes.

Is it OK for the Army to meet its goals this way? Does it hurt the military in the long run, or is the shorter term goal of meeting recruitment targets more important in the face of the Iraq war and other commitments around the globe? Love to hear your opinions.

HERE: We should leave Iraq as soon as possible in an orderly manner that will be the most efficient and safe for our troops.

What you don't appear competent/willing to discuss are: A = the consequences of our leaving without success versus B = the consequences of our staying until success.

If A is worse than B, then we should stay until success.

If B is worse than A, then we should leave without success.

Which do you think worse and why?

The SUCCESS is in the leaving, dummy!

What you don't appear competent/willing to discuss are: A = the consequences of our leaving without success versus B = the consequences of our staying until success.

If A is worse than B, then we should stay until success.

If B is worse than A, then we should leave without success.

Which do you think worse and why?

Washington, D.C. (November 10, 2006) ?- Bruce Riedel, an expert on the Middle East and South Asia with 30 years of policy-making experience in regional diplomacy and counter-terrorism, joined the Brookings Institution as a Senior Fellow, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced. Riedel will be affiliated with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Riedel joins Brookings after a long career with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Council (NSC), the Department of State and the Department of Defense. His work at Brookings will focus on the progress of transition by examining effective diplomacy, conflict management, and counter terrorism tactics.

"The world is in a state of transition, perhaps now more than ever," said Carlos Pascual, vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. "Few have more experience than Bruce in the study of defense and intelligence in the world arena, and we are very pleased to have him at Brookings."

Riedel retired from the CIA in 2006. He has served the past three presidential administrations on the NSC, where he was a key figure during the India-Pakistan stand-off of 1999-2000. Between his White House stints, Riedel served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Near East and South Asian Affairs and as Principal Advisor to Secretaries of Defense William Perry and William Cohen on the Middle East and South Asia.

"I have dedicated my career to government and the intelligence field," stated Riedel, "it is with great pride that I continue this path at an establishment such as Brookings."

"Bruce is a strong addition to the Saban Center and we are eager to continue to generate innovative and effective research with him on staff," said Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center.

Bruce Riedel is the recipient of the 1997 Secretary of Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal in 2001 along with the Department of State Meritorious Honor Award in 2006 for his work in the intelligence and defense community. He has a B.A. from Brown, a Masters in Diplomatic History from Harvard, and has studied at the Royal College of Defense Studies in London.