Every so often, I pop by
RealClearPolitics.Org to see what, cough, 'trusted filtering' gives you in the way of news.
If you're looking for evidence that conservative leaders go to great lengths to protect themselves from criticism, and their base from thinking critically, then you've found it.
RealClearPolemics has a new look, and an even more 'filtered' news approach. It's morphing toward a true blog format, in that there are fewer mainstream media stories that support their view that things are going great under Bush, no matter what 64% of the country thinks.
Especially in Iraq, which is the point of today's diary.
Ralph Peters provides the rancid meat du joir, a piece called
Myths of Iraq, in which without the least substantiation Peters decries that everything you ever heard about Iraq, even information transmitted to you by U.S. soldiers in the field, is a lie.
Iraq's just fine. The unfiltered media's the problem, but you can trust Ralph Peters.
During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.
No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.
I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq's future.
Much could still go wrong. The Arab genius for failure could still spoil everything. [Nice, Ralph. Win those hearts and minds - CSK] We've made grave mistakes. Still, it's difficult to understand how any first-hand observer could declare that Iraq's been irrevocably "lost."
Consider just a few of the inaccuracies served up by the media....
It just gets better and better after that.
First, we need to know who the heck is doing the talking, here.
Introducing Ralph Peters
Well, He's got this new book out, see... and from the very first page you get a feeling you are sipping on Radler [a mix of beer and lemonade, it's quite tasty] on the sidelines at Nuremberg.
I think the line that leaps out for me is this one: Those who insist on limits are our enemies. Rather Nietschean. How dare the humanimals get in the way of gods such as we!
Oh, I dunno. There's a line a bit later that really catches the eye, too:
Without America and our English-speaking brethren, dictators would again rise without hindrance. And what great things we might accomplish, if only Austria and Germany could be reunited, instead of torn asunder by the whim of a fearful decadent West and shackled by cohabitation with mongrel and inferior races. [That, of course, being satire. It would not do to be taken out of context.]
Then we get to the justification, the self-evident mark of our birthright to rule: The example of our success is humiliating and bitter to all who cling to traditions our power reveals as inadequate. Kraft macht Recht.
My snark aside, these are Peters' own words, from his own work.
What people who endured the whole book thought...
from Amazon's reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this lively but rarely incisive geo-political screed, the battle lines are starkly drawn. On one side are Americans, who "are so successful, so powerful, so wealthy-and so humane-that our very existence humiliates the failed and failing around the world," assisted by the other English-speaking peoples and the promising regions of India, Africa and Latin America. Opposing us is the Islamic Middle East, a realm of "malevolence" and "sickness of the soul," the global scourges of terrorism and corruption and, worst of all, France, a.k.a. "that vicious child among nations," "the cancer at the heart of Europe," "a two-bit Soviet Union" and "poisonous snake." America's success depends on "killing boldly when killing is required," but we must be careful lest our ferocity be undermined by Pentagon "court eunuchs" who insist that war be cheap and bloodless. Ex-Army intelligence officer Peters, author of Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace, is a soldier-scholar who combines pitiless martial aphorisms ("prove your victory by planting your flag in your dead enemy's eye socket") with impromptu disquisitions on Renaissance art and the novels of Anthony Trollope. But his mixture of stoic verities, erudite allusion and rabid overgeneralizations about national character hardly amounts to a consistent strategic vision. He wants America to champion human rights, but also practice torture and assassination where necessary, and to ensure that our military operations inflict the requisite "devastation" and "pain on the enemy population." His most substantive recommendation-that America control the Indian Ocean's oil-shipping lanes-relies on the lazy assumption that trying to control Middle East oil is a strategic imperative rather than a strategic blunder. Peters is a vigorous, pithy writer, but he lacks a clear conception of America's global interests and capabilities.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Then there's the fiction writer...
War in 2020 is about a war between the United States and Japan, with Japan directly underwriting Islamic militancy against American forces that have been exhausted by two decades of failed attempts to hold ground on three continents, and have been abandoned by their former European allies. Now we're pals with the Russians, the Japanese with the Muslims, in the last war over the only non-radioactive major oilfield that remains.
Which might turn out to be prescient, after a fashion.
Back to the Myths of Iraq.
I'm just going to list what Peters decries, then link to a relevant Google news search. You make the call for yourself:
1. Claims of Civil War Peters says no. If you punch in "Iraq Civil War", 26,000 news articles weigh in on the topic One story that popped up repeatedly when I wrote this: "Americans Say Iraq Civil War Likely".
Then there are the other headlines. The ones that Ralph Peters missed, when he visited Iraq firsthand at some unspecified point in time:
Scores of Bodies Found in Baghdad But it's not civil war.
Four shot, then hanged by Mahdi Army in revenge... But it's not civil war.
Iraqi leaders warns of civil war threat Just another local stringer, per Peters.
When Iraqi death squads come calling: A family story Huh. More lies. Just ask your nearest 'trusted filter'.
But everything's going to be okay.
Bush touts progress in Iraq
That's the only story Ralph Peters acknowledges as valid. For his screed to be true to read, all the other news must be lies. Ralph has no trouble making that judgment call, and soldiering on.
2. Iraqi Disunity For this I use the search "Iraq sectarian". 30,800 hits on the News search.
Fears of Iraq sectarian violence as bodies found But that's a bunch of Arabs talking, and per Peters who can trust local stringers, feeding a decadent American appetite for bad news from afar? Yep. Americans are the problem, too, with their fears and their scruples. How dare they get in the way of gods such as we.
Gulf States worried.... The Gulf states can be trusted, with our points, with their wisdom. Except when they speak about things in Iraq which are not their concern. Oh. And it's still the media's fault.
1,300 dead in sectarian violence. But it's not a civil war.
But it's all good. Rumsfeld says the claims of sectarian violence are overstated.
Peters concurs. It's the media's fault. It's the Arab street's fault. It's America's fault for wanting to hear and believe such things.
3. Expanding terrorism. Google "Iraq insurgency". 11,000 hits.
Bush says Iran is disrupting Iraq by helping insurgents But getting serious backing from a foreign power isn't an expanding.
Thai militants learn from Iraq insurgency Usually, only successful insurgencies have people taking notes. But we're all wrong and Bush/Peters are correct.
IEDs costing military billions
4. Hatred of the U.S. military. Google "Iraq Abu Ghraib". 7,050 news hits. "Iraq troops killed" 14,400 hits.
I'm not going to tread this well-worn path for long. Peters does beg the question: Why do people who do not hate us kill us?
5. The appeal of the religious militias.
Peters is so wrong, it's not even funny. Religious militias are in open ascendancy in Iraq, so much so that Muqtada Sadr is on freaking tour, soliciting support from throughout the Middle East.
Iraq Sadr takes center stage in shrine crisis
6. The failure of the Iraqi army.
Performance of Iraq Security Forces Mixed
While Baghdad Burns
But I think this is the death warrant for this particular argument: Rents in Baghdad's Green Zone are now a match for Mayfair
The Iraq security forces, with exhausting American backing, have expanded the Green Zone to keep insurgents at bay. That has been a windfall for landlords, who command rents as high as $25,000 a month to tenants anxious to avoid car-bombings.
In a secure Baghdad, you would never see rents of that nature, for the size of accommodation being let.
7. Reconstruction efforts have failed. Peters blows this off as a straw man. It's not our job.
Fine, then. Give me my money back.
As third anniversary nears, Iraq reconstruction stalls
8. The electricity system is worse than before the war. Google "Iraq Electricity" = 3,990 hits.
Slowly, US effort gives Iraq electricity
Iraq Powerless
Iraqis remain starved of electricity
Wrap
Basically, for Ralph Peters to be correct, everything you ever heard about Iraq must be wrong....unless it came from Ralph Peters or the 'trusted filter' that is the Bush Administration itself.
And last I checked, well over 60% of the American people trusted neither.