BAGHDAD -- I'm sorry for not posting more. Still some latent server troubles. But I have to address an issue: Ralph Peters, who is currently traipsing around Baghdad with the 506th Infantry Regiment 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery, is, to be blunt, full of shit.
He's currently a favorite of the pro-war set, who say we reporters have "agendas" to undermine the troops and get our civil war on, 'cause, you know, that makes Bush look bad... or something.
(A quick note on the above link: it's all conservative publications. Why is it I, a professional journalist, get tarred with a "liberal" brush when I have never, ever written for Mother Jones, the Nation or Granta, etc. But polemicists who spend the all their energies cranking out pieces for the National Review, Front Page and the New York Post somehow don't get called "conservatives" but instead are "truth tellers"? Such a mystery.)
Among the claims in his slanderous column: "The Iraqi Army has confounded its Western critics, performing extremely well last week. And the people trust their new army to an encouraging degree."
The Iraqi Army -- and police, for that matter -- stood by while Shi'ite militias ran rampant through Sunni neighborhoods. They only took up the security positions when the Shi'ite clerics, including Moqtada al-Sadr, had already calmed down the worst of the violence. That's not "performing extremely well," unless by "extremely well," you mean not confronting the enemies and keeping your head down until it's safe to come out. That's usually called "hiding."
He also says we western reporters don't get out on the streets, which is patently untrue. I don't get out as often as I'd like, but I do get out. My colleagues at TIME, who look much less western than I do, get out much more. And, unlike Peters, we don't travel with a big-ass armed convoy under the protection of the U.S. military.
He then further slanders Ellen Knickmeyer, of the Washington Post, when he says, "Did any Western reporter go to that morgue and count the bodies -- a rough count would have done it -- before telling the world the news? I doubt it."
Well, actually, Ralph, I know Ellen. And yes, she did go down to the morgue. While there are many issues with her story, what is undeniable is that she risked a hell of a lot more than you did when she put her life in jeopardy to go down there.
Then he says, "If reporters really care, it's easy to get out on the streets of Baghdad. The 506th Infantry Regiment -- and other great military units -- will take journalists on their patrols virtually anywhere." Well, no, they won't. Some reporters I know are having trouble getting embeds because they're not the "right" reporters. They don't write the "right" kind of stories -- meaning they don't follow the military's playbook.
It's more than a little churlish to say, "We'll take you anywhere, as long as you're not too liberal/French/whatever" and then turn around and criticize those you refuse to take with you as cowards. If they situation is so rosy, Mr. Peters, why on earth do I need to embed in the first place? Believe me, I'd much rather travel around without a military entourage. You tend to get more truthful answers from Iraqis when they're not surrounded by soldiers with big guns, after all.
Then, this guy with a "background as an intelligence officer" goes on to say there's no civil war because, by gosh, he sure didn't see any thing like that. And the Iraqis cheered the Americans!
Let me try to paint the picture a little more clearly, Mr. Peters: When Sunnis cheer the Americans, it's not because things are rosy, it's because they're more scared of the Shi'ites than they are of you. Sunnis in Baghdad I've spoken with have told me they would rather be arrested by the Americans than by the government forces, because at least now the Americans won't torture you as badly. They have no love for Americans, they just know who is best able to protect them from their neighbors.
Yesterday, the general in charge of the Iraqi Army division in Baghdad was killed by a sniper while he was on patrol. An investigation has been opened because there are suspicions he was killed for being Sunni by one of his Shi'ite troops.
To be blunt: We are as close to full-scale civil war as we've ever been. We are one more bombing, massacre or atrocity from a national bloodletting. But even if that happens, there will be ebbs and flows. Just because people aren't curled up in the fetal position under their beds all the time doesn't mean there's not a war on of some kind. In Lebanon, for 15 years, people went to the beach, cafés, bars and, in general, tried to live a normal life. For long stretches, a neighborhood would be calm. And then the shells would come, or a running street battle would break out and civilians would go running inside to hide. The violence would eventually pass, like a breaking wave, and they would come out into the light. That's the way war works, and that's what's happening in Baghdad right now.
Finally, two things: Mr. Peters says he has a background in intelligence. And he says he's been hitching rides with this unit, rather than being assigned to it. He also makes what may be an unintentionally ironic comment when he criticized Iraqi stringers: "The Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don't pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad."
First of all, the Americans do pay for good news. They have in the past, when American officers wrote stories and paid local papers to run them. These happy tales invariably painted a rosier picture than was warranted.
Secondly, Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. troops here, told reporters in a news conference three days ago that the pay-for-play program was on-going. "We were operating within our authorities and responsibilities," he said, and added that he had not received an order to stop the program. "And, right now, based on the results of the investigation, I do not intend to in the near term."
Thirdly, just what is Mr. Peters doing here? A former intelligence officer, riding around Baghdad, painting a rosy picture? I may just be assuming stuff here -- hell, if Ralph can do it, so can I -- but is Mr. Peters one of those story-planting Americans? Was he out getting material and pictures? And has he taken his skills at writing happy stories to the American public?
Peters' little yarns sure sounds nice, but he sounds either desperately clueless or willfully blind. Officials in the American embassy, at least, are very worried that civil war is upon us, and it's surely no coincidence that Casey has a reputation for not wanting to hear bad news. And so Peters continues to think because he rolls around in an armored convoy and no one takes a shot at him, there's no civil war. As someone I'm sure he admires once said, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Rant over. For now.
CORRECTION: Slight correction regarding my post on Ralph Peters. He is with the 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery rather than the 506th Infantry Regiment, which he mentions farther down in his piece. My apologies.
This isn’t on-topic but… I’m no longer receiving update emails. When I tried to add myself again, I got a response that I was already in the database. Would it trouble you to check that my e-mail is still added?
miraba [at] slashhome [dot] org
This isn’t a comment but… I’d thought I’d try a test post. . . . test . . ?
Quite a rant and revealing. All I know about the MSM in Iraq is a story that involved a soldier very close to me in Mosul in which a WAPO reporter came up with a lengthy story about women serving in the Army that in no way resembled the facts, full of quotes completely fabricated when not out of context which were answers to questions that were transparently agenda driven. It is no coincidence that the average US soldier is contemptuous of the average reporter, or that ‘journalists’ are held in such low regard among the population at large. Rants like this summon visions of prostitutes fighting over a street corner. Only their particular customers would be even mildly interested in the outcome. You calim a roiling civil war is in the offing, and this is all you have to do in its midst?
Hey Chris, I glanced over this article by Ralph Peters. http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64752.htm
I recall you rode with the army on a couple occasions. People posting here burned on you so bad that you had to shut them out.
? Is the current “Sucker or Liar” blog entry some sort of appeasment gesture to those “old friends” of yours return to get back on the soap box and preach to you blog visitors? LOL Some of those screeds were full of pure hate for “what you had become” .
Hopefully, the exchanges in the future will be civilized. If not, go ahead and shut off the comment section.
I’m wondering who was behind that mosque bombing in Sumarra. I find it off,after seeing pics, That nobody was killed……I don’t think there were reports of injuries come to think of it…. Anybody else think the odds of that ( no deaths ) happening in Iraq are ;
slim to none… and we all know slim left town a few years ago ;)
BTW, Whats your ( and other readers here ) think about the quick wit and dry humor of Michael J Totten ? http://www.michaeltotten.com/
He has some good posts now and again.
Good luck Chris,
Don’t let the troll bites get to you down ! :)
I knew you would have some type of riposte for Peters. You never let me down, and I didn’t doubt you this time. I don’t think anyone can say that everything is good in Iraq or it’s all a civil war. Like you say it’s a ebb and flow, one day it’s a war the next it’s a uneasy truce. I always hear that this is a different war, a 4th generation war if you will. Well it seems that this is a 4th gen. civil war. And on Ralph and his convoy do you think anyone is gonna cause any trouble with that much firepower around, I don’t think so. They have learned not to hit every convoy they see, only the ones they think are vulnarable. But we need both sides if we are to stay informed of what’s going on, Peters could be a little more open minded about what his peers write and print.
Chris, Some equal time for “newbies” those who never saw your older stuff , such as ,
eating ice cream purchased from a street vendor….Embedded in Anbar
10/28/05post comments; http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/10/embeddedinanbar.php#comments
No wonder the Iraqi patriots of the insurgency target American journalists. Allbritton has gone from vapid & credulous political reporting to active collaboration with the criminal occupation, most likely because, as he admitted on his blog, not embedding with the army is too dangerous and he’s afraid. Coward! What a pussy. Kill him, my insurgent brothers. Chop his stupid, provinical head off and post vid on the Internet! :) Posted by: Che_Guerilla | October 31, 2005 06:12 PM
che you are an idiot, but chris has by embedding (in bed with ) with the occupation lost the ability to TRULY say he is an independent observer, a journalist. but this all goes back to “hotel journalism’ which journalist Robert Fisk coined. Posted by: butch | October 31, 2005 06:25 PM
I just don’t see anything brilliant about embedding with the MNF troops, whatever place in Iraq! But I see that you had a visitors from the gang, guess you did make them angry. Posted by: W80 | October 31, 2005 08:30 PM
Well, nicely put, embedded = in bed with. To bad that an independend journalist gets embedded with this bunch of war criminals. Only the US are still calling them MNF, others just call it occupation forces. Do these occupation forces really think by threathing the locals like humans makes them friends. Ha ha… The locals just do what everybody would do with occupation forces. The war was a lie, the occupation is a lie. It will take the US lots more time and body bags to get out there. And still the didn’t get the Oil, but millions more enemies. Doesn’t matter if the raid flash bang or not. I was reading the crap about the redeployment of 4 ID. They still talk about the global fight against terrorism. Still to stupid to get it that there was no terrorism before the US went there. The first terrorists that arrived in Iraq where US soldiers, and after that Al Kaida did follow. Posted by: skype_fan | October 31, 2005 09:33 PM
Chris, you’ve got the weirdest comment spam ever. Do drop a note if I can help out with the military public affairs guys in the States—I’ve no particular “in” but am in the same time zone… Posted by: Chap | November 1, 2005 09:47 PM
another whore propagandist looking to be pimped…. Posted by: butch | November 1, 2005 10:35 PM
Chap— It’s because I’ve embedded and it drives some people crazy. There’s a certain element here that thinks that ANY contact with the military compromises a reporter, but they fail to realize that the U.S. military experience is as valid an aspect of the story as that of ordinary Iraqis’ or of insurgents’, for that matter. I don’t believe in cutting anyone out of the coverage if I can help it. Alas, getting to the Iraqi people has been the most challenging this past year and they’ve gotten short shrift. Posted by: Christopher Allbritton | November 2, 2005 02:56 PM
Chris, I agree with you on both counts. In re reporting the military, there are very few folks doing that kind of work that aren’t parachuting in. You know of course about Michael Yon, but the Omaha World-Herald has been doing good work embedded with their National Guardsmen. But there is nobody else doing work with the Iraqi Army, IP, or the guys defending the pipelines—and it’s an important story. Well stated. Posted by: Chap | November 3, 2005 04:17 AM
I enjoy the blog…AS AN AMERICAN SOLDIER (and proud of it), I really can’t wait to see whats in store for me this time around. Yes I lived through 2003 but barely (www.gunnerpalace.com). I hope to keep you all informed myself from a Soldiers perspective and the the perspective of non spelling, ignorant, simple minded people like SKYPE and Butch….. Posted by: TerroristKiller | November 5, 2005 04:17 PM
Terrorist Killer——How many kids have you killed? Posted by: Anonymous | November 6, 2005 08:06 AM
@ “Christopher Allbritton rocks. … Let’s get him - our first professional weblog war-journalist - a ticket to Baghdad.” — Lisa English of Ruminate This!
“Just read it.” — The Agonist
“Whether you think invading Iraq is a good idea or not, I’m sure one thing we can all agree on is that the more independent reporting of the matter, the better.” — Tim Dunlop of The Road to
Well, that last post of comments from a previous entry didn’t work. . . The comment section doesn’t allow paragragh spacing ?
Been reading for a long while, but never bothered to activate the typekey thing to comment. However, I’m moved to comment about the comments. I expect there are others who read your postings regularly, who appreciate the perspective you give while considering it is just one perspective, and who don’t feel compelled to challenge you or try to sling you into one camp or another. I appreciate your insights; don’t always agree with you; admire your courage and chutzpah in even going, and hope you continue to give perspective on a conflict I’m watching closely.
Well Chris, not that it will be welcome by you, but you’ll most certainly be called a “truth teller” by a few Kos Kids.
Anyway, keep up the great work.
I’ve always found you fair and balanced.
That’s why I linked to you at my ‘conservative’ blog.
Well, I post on dkos fairly regularly and I’m about 50+ years beyond even the loosest definition of ‘kid’, but be that as it may… I have been reading and appreciating your posts for quite some time now…
Silly liberal baiting aside, I have a question for you, Chris. Now that Khalilzad (sp.) has gone off the reservation and become a ‘truthteller’, how long do you reckon he’ll be allowed to remain in his post?
Keep up the good work and take care!
Typekey seems to be acting up. I posted entry beginning: Well, I post on dkos… Stay well, cvanwey
I’m not criticizing the idea of embeds, nor am I trying to curry favor with any set. I really stopped giving much of a damn what the far-left or far-right think of my work, but I do care very much when they’re casual or careless with the truth. That Daily Kos might cheer this post doesn’t make me glad. I honestly don’t have time to worry about that.
But I am proud of my work that I did in Fallujah and al-Qaim when I was embedded with the Marines. What the people who criticized me for those stories don’t get is that embeds are not designed to get the complete story of Iraq. You get the military side of the story. You don’t get Iraqis’ true feelings, and people need to be aware of that.
Iraq is a big, conplicated story with a lot of moving parts: US military, Iraqi military, US Embassy, Iraqi government, Iraqi people and society, etc. You can’t cover the whole thing in every story, so you cover an aspect of it at any one time. That’s why TIME tries to have multiple reporters on every story.
For example, on my embeds, I never reported the stories as anything other than a slice of life within the U.S. military. That’s not to say I only reported what the U.S. military wanted me to report. I got slammed by the Marines for the Fallujah story, by the way.
To get the Iraqi side, I sent an Iraqi stringer into Fallujah to ask questions and get me quotes when the military wasn’t around. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I could do at the time.
My beef with Peters is he doesn’t seem to get this difference. He takes his embed experience — “they cheered us!” — and extrapolates that Iraq is doing just fine and that people love the Americans. No they don’t, but they’re adept at adapting. (Like I said, some Sunnis probably are more grateful now, but that’s a relatively recent development. It doesn’t mean things are going well.)
My experience with Iraq, which is a hell of a lot more than Peters’ I would imagine, is that Americans have not been the main target for a long time, for a number of reasons (they go out less now, insurgents are dominated more by Ba’athists than jihadis and so see the Iraqi government as a more pressing enemy, etc.) It’s not at all surprising that Americans are no longer shot at. In Fallujah, the Marines I accompanied never took a shot, but that didn’t mean the place wasn’t dangerous. Every Marine I talked with said the insurgency is leaving them be, but that Fallujah is still very dangerous. It’s significant that there are no quotes from soldiers in Peters’ pieces. And only a reference to a lieutenant. In my experience, the grunts will be more honest with you if you ask them, while the officers will spin and spin and spin.
And finally, someone complained about me turning off comments. I never did. I asked that you register so as to cut down on spam in the comments, which was getting out of control. I never censored anyone, although I did ban a few people who got seriously out of control. (You don’t get to urge Marines to shoot me, for example, or insurgents to cut off my head.)
I’ve since removed TypeKey registration as the spam issue seems to be brought under control. But I will put it back on if it gets bad again. TypeKey is free, you can stay anonymous, and it’s a simple extra step. No, you can’t leave drive-by abusive comments with it turned on, but that’s a pretty small price to pay, in my view.
It makes more sense to believe a journalist walking the streets of the people directly affected by all of this, than to believe someone getting all of his information from a secondary source. I am not saying he is a gigantic liar, but I do believe he stepped out of line almost stating that what he saw was the whole truth and nothing but it.
As an Army PA soldier, I’ve dealt with my fair share of reporters in Iraq. I don’t like a lot of the mainstream media because most of them treat us like garbage.
As for not allowing the “right” type of reporters to embed? Eh. Can’t comment of that one way or the other, since I wasn’t part of that section, but I do know that most of the civilian journalists have made their own bed. Soldiers are leery of anyone who might be anything that resembles a reporter, simply because they don’t trust the media to get any of the story right, or not to twist what’s being said.
Right, wrong or otherwise, those are just a couple of my observations from a year over there.
Good luck.
Thanks for the rant. What you give us seems to be what you see, not what your pre-existing belief structure dictates. That is what I hope for from a reporter. I’ve seen enough in a few strange circumstances myself to know that is not easy, especially in a completely foreign culture. The temptation to force what we see into pre-existing boxes is huge. All you can do is try.
I have no idea who is right between Christopher and Ralph Peters however I can say that, having read both articles, Chris is a hell of a better writer!
I find this a frustrating post. Seems like it’s merely an emotional reaction to Peters’ piece, without any of the information that might help you counter his opinion.
For example, you write that the Iraqi army “stood by” during the recent troubles.
Also, in rebutting what is the central point in Peters’ criticism of the media coverage (the possibly-inflated death toll), you write that you “know Ellen”, that she went to the morgue, and “took risks”.
It’s also extremely frustrating that you mention that there were some mysterious sounding “issues” in her reporting, without mentioning what they were. I would like to know and this blog seems like a good forum to talk about them. And did she or did she not count the bodies? If the main contention of her story that this morgue processed 1,300 bodies is correct, then that really supports the overally contention that this was a bloodbath. If it is not correct or we simply cannot tell (e.g., if she went there yet only got second-hand info) then it’s not quite as impressive.
It really looks like Peters got under your skin here. For example, what is this nonsense about “pay to play”? If you have evidence that Peters is on military payroll to plant false stories, say so. If not, who cares?
I for one appreciate what you are doing, both in reporting and also in bringing us a “glimpse” of all the stuff that’s going on that doesn’t make it to print.
But this “rant” of yours would be more persuasive with facts.
Also, when I hear of the use of “stringers” who are not professional journalists and especially ones from cultures where the concept of “truth” may have a different basis, I always think of the images of Palestinian stringers faking the death of Mohammed Al-Dura:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1765674.php
Excerpt: “At the same time, in the “theatrical” zone, Palestinian stringers sporting prestigious logos on their vests and cameras are seen filming battle scenes staged behind the abandoned factory, well out of range of Israeli gunfire. The “wounded” sail through the air like modern dancers and then suddenly collapse. Cameramen jockey with hysterical youths who pounce on the “casualties,” pushing and shoving, howling Allahu akhbar!, clumsily grabbing the “injured,” pushing away the rare ambulance attendant in a pale green polyester jacket in order to shove, twist, haul, and dump the “victims” into UN and Red Crescent ambulances that pull up on a second’s notice and career back down the road again, sirens screaming. In one shot we recognize Talal Abu Rahmeh in his France-2 vest, filming a staged casualty scene.* “
I would like to think that the Al-Dura hoax was an isolated affair, but can we really know?
Hello, Chris. When you get a chance, or if you should hear anything on the qt, let us know what’s going on with Khalilzad. Also, the hit on the security chief in Baghdad looks like an inside job. What are you hearing about that?
All best, Chuck
PS Ain’t nothing wrong with dkos. We seem to have some sort of totemic value for the right…
Great post.
Are not most journalists either full of themselves…or sht? Maybe you need a primer in what civil war is Chris. And why is it that Liberals hate to be called Liberals…. while Conservatives are proud to be called Conservatives. Also may I ask why is it bad for American Officers to be paid to write stories, but its not bad, or wrong, for you to be paid to write stories?…sounds like pens envy. How is it you are so snowy pure that you have no agenda, but Officers have to have one?
Hello Mr. Albritton:
What do you think of Bill Roggio’s reporting? Like Peters, he offers a more upbeat assessment of the situation than yourself.
I’m just another American trying to figure out what the hell is going on over there.
Stay safe.
WTF? I don’t know you or your site, don’t know the people you are bitching about, but if any of this is “news” then come home and get a job at Entertainment Tonight. All of this “inside baseball” BS with the press is very offputting. So you “know” this reporter or that reporter - so how does this make an attack on the credibility of a particular report irrelevant? It is “dangerous” yet then we to believe that this other reporter would never do anything less than personally go and count the bodies to cite in her report. No, wait, just that she “investigated” and got a number. OK - so if the police “investigate” a shooting or if FOX news “investigates” a Bush white house member, we are to shut up and accept it - because - well they told us they “investigated” it and who are we to even question it? Ha Ha Ha Ha. Whatever. Dude, report the story on the ground - and if it is too hard, then come home and shut the F* up. Or better yet, (as if to a 3-year old) use your words to express yourself, not childish tantrums. Unless your frustration is more about the facts not comporting with the conclusion you harbored before you even hit the ground there - I don’t know this, but…….. (don’t you just love innuendo?)… Hmmm, who is paying YOU!! Naturally a spy would deny being a spy,…..(innnuendo again!)
So when you are embedded with MNF forces you can’t really get the Truth because of all the big bad Men with guns around the poor cheerful Iraqi who is talking to you. On the other hand, you would always assume the “Truth” is what the same Iraqi says after he has been threatened by the insurgents with death if he says anything unkind about them. If that is your argument, you might as well stay in the hotel and write fiction. Please explain the last time the US military told you a lie to your face and you couldn’t back it up with facts. Just because you think a civil war has broken out, doesn’t mean your opinion counts for sh*t if you can’t show us a picture or explain the violence you have personally seen or verified to occur on your own. If you can’t or won’t do this, then shut up about who is really winning. Because you don’t get paid to say who is winning the insurgent war. You get paid to provide me facts for me to make my own judgment.
I wouldn’t trust your opinion as far as I can throw you. Which probably is pretty far.
Subsunk
Well, Chris, looks like a certain propagandist website loves your Peters smackdown.
Hmmm. I don’t see a copyright notice anywhere on your blog.
Via Google News:
Ralph Peters: Sucker or Liar? uruknet.info, Italy - 25 minutes ago … But I have to address an issue: Ralph Peters, who is currently traipsing around Baghdad with the 506th Infantry Regiment, is, to be blunt, full of shit. …
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m21327&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Dear Sir: One need not travel far to discover what feeds peoples’ suspicions about the objectivity (or even the quality of education) of many journalists “reporting” on Iraq. Just consider the foolish binary which leads your own piece: is Peters a “sucker or a liar.” And I presume your view is that those are the only choices? Or put another way, is “partially correct and partially incorrect” a possbility? How about another possibility, i.e, that the underlying situation is highly ambiguous, with evidence arguing both ways, with significant interpretive leeway?
Implicit throughout this article are other false binaries, which you and your journo comrades seem to share (witness NYT’s reporter Wong’s hilarious 48 hour turnaround last week: Sunnis withdrew from governing coalition, “government in collapse;” Sunnis came back 36 hours later, government not in collapse.)—We are either in a Civil War, or we are not; the Iraqi government is either in disarray or it is not; the American effort is either failing or it is not, and so forth. Unfortunately for you, the words of the very late Sen. Everett Dirkson are likely to survive either of our reporting: “Things are never as good as they look or as bad as they seem.” Indeed, as I write this (I’m at CPIC in the IZ awaiting deployment on my third embed), I realize that there is a third option, both likely, and for the drama it lacks, rarely reported: what the Brits used to call, “muddling through.” My experience has been that the country is so large and complex that it defies easy generalization, as do we all: I’m afraid “sucker or liar” provides as much understanding as “civil war or no civil war.”
A final comment: as a reporter myself, I would encourage you to lose some of the apparent status anxiety that besets your piece. In covering this war, our profession has shown great courage, occasionally outstanding writing but has also revealed deep flaws. And a redux of the “Saigon Hilton” syndrome is certainly one of them, as is use of stringers whose various agendas may not always coincide with those taught at the Columbia School of Journalism. So rather than obsess ad hominum about Peters’ intelligence background—for there is little about it that will improve either of our journo skills—it makes more sense to think about the issues he raises, especially regarding the possibility of filter distortion through the use of stringers—issues that are occasionally validated.
By the way, whether or not he is a “story planting American” is also irrelevant to the issues he raises—unless you’re doing a story on “story planting Americans.” For decades, the CIA planted stories throughout the world, talking about the weaknesses and abuse of Soviet Communism. Were they “true” or “false” or somewhere in between?
Richard, please remember that the main reason for using stringers is that westerners have a bad habit of being killed.
When a westerner needs an army platoon to travel freely through the capital, almost three years after the initial invasion, that suggests a robust guerrilla war.
Joseph, about ‘ebb and flow’: that’s the norm in war, and is quite destructive. Some planes come by and bomb, some armies come by and bombard/shoot up the place, and then all is quiet again.
Peters is clearly a propagandist writing for the rubes back home. I went to a discussion last night with Salem Chalabi who was very open about the fact that Iraq is in a low grade civil war situation. He repeatedly made comparisons with Lebanon in the 1980s. Whom are we supposed to believe - a member of the Iraqi government, or an American embed looking on from a Humvee? I think Peters is actually doing supporters of the occupation a disservice by pretending things are going so well.
Not to get all ad hominem, but Ralph Peters is the author of Red Army, a 1990 novel about how the unstoppable Warsaw Pact armies crush the feeble resistance of NATO. It seems his vaunted analytical skills have not deserted him.
Not to get all ad hominem, but Ralph Peters is the author of Red Army, a 1990 novel about how the unstoppable Warsaw Pact armies crush the feeble resistance of NATO. It seems his vaunted analytical skills have not deserted him.
point of accuracy: Salem “Sam” Chalabi is the nephew of Ahmad Chalabi, who is — for now — in the Iraqi government. He was indicted for murder(!) in 2004, but the charges were later dropped, he said, when the judge who issued the indictment was removed.
Ellen Knickmeyer has an article in today’s Washington Post about the pressure to lie about the number of casualties, especially for those who have been shot execution style as the 1300 were.
Since he unfairly impugned Iraqi stringers — several of whom the U.S. military has killed — I will post this review on his book, “New Glory…”:
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.
Let’s not forget THE WAR IN 2020, another Peters’ classic, where he predicted a Japanese/Iranian alliance that would invade Russia and fight the U.S. Japan gets to do this because it is protected by a magic missile shield.
Peters’ view of Muslims in that book is especially instructive. He essentially views them as a pack of lazy savages and characterizes Islam as inherently aggressive and militaristic —-standard right-wing tropes. Funny how Muslims who join the Iraqi Army get a pass on this nowadays.
I actually liked RED ARMY, except for the fact that every single character in the book is a stereotype out of a undergrad Russian lit course. And Peters’ reasons for why Russia wins are ideological, not military —- the Soviets win because the Europeans lack the will to nuke themselves, the pansies. Can’t wait to see who he will blame more after Bush pulls out —- the media or the Iraqis, who I suspect will relapse into being hopeless savages soon thereafter.
Dear Ralph, I’m sure its hard to see the Civil War when you’re riding around with the 506th. That’s soooo chicken shit. If its so f*cking safe, get out there among the “people” and see what happens…Keep your armor on. You’ll need it.
Dear Ralph, I’m sure its hard to see the Civil War when you’re riding around with the 506th. That’s soooo chicken shit. If its so f*cking safe, get out there among the “people” and see what happens. Keep your armor on. You’ll need it.
Chris,
Keep up the good work. Another thing about Peters to remember is he is there specifically to refute the the “bad news” from Iraq. Another thing about the good news crowd is that they have been on this kick since 2003. And they have been wrong since then. They act like a freshly painted school makes up for the kidnappings, bombings, mass executions, etc that are a weekly feature of Iraqi life. The truth is that we pull out the government probably would not be able to convene.
You are wrong about Peters’s view of Rumsfeld though. Peters is ex-Army and he has hated how Rumsfeld and treated that branch.
You look at Rumsfeld, and beyond all the rationale, spoken and unspoken, he just dislikes the Army. It’s just palpable… . You always have to wonder if when Rumsfeld was a Navy lieutenant junior grade whether an Army officer stole his girlfriend,” said Ralph Peters, a former Army intelligence officer who writes on national security issues.
Thank you for your reporting, Chris.
You don’t have to justify yourself to any of the trogs.
Sometimes the worst witnesses are the ones who are right there. They’re so sure of what they’ve seen they can’t concede there might be another point of view.
In the case of Iraq, almost none of the journalists (and especially the right-wingers who think everything is peachy) speak Arabic or have any awareness of Iraqi history and culture. That blinds them.
Again, many thanks.
Ralph Peters: Sucker or Liar?
He could be both. What is the saying — every con artist is a bit of stool pigeon and every stool pigeon is a bit of a con artist?
Mr Albritton -
I was still wondering if you would care to tell us what the “issues” were with the Washington Post story about the 1,300 dead bodies in that morgue.
I know sometimes details can get hazy in news reporting, especially under deadline pressure.
But 1,300 dead guys is one pretty big matzo ball of a detail…
Sir:
I have often considered the argument about “how much one can see” from the green-glazed box windows of an up-armored Humvee. Indeed, anyone must see far more on the streets surrounded by ordinary Iraqis rather then Kevlar vests. I certainly felt that way today when I (and many other journos) were convoyed in a Rhino to FOB Hope to witness a transfer of command ceremony by the 506th Infantry to the 2nd Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Army.
But you’ve made a curious evidentiary leap here by assuming, QED, that the adoption of extravagent force protection policies by the military must indicate the presence of a robust insurgency.
Force protection policies in Iraq have been excessive relative to other wars. The reason for its ramped up status in tactical doctrine derives (in my opinion) largely from political anxiety—particularly, the conviction among policy planners that when the United States deploys to wage war there wil come a casualty tipping point beyond which domestic political support for the conflict will begin to decline. Thus, as they have been for every war that America has ever waged, casualties once again merge with policy. (This is not the appropriate place to prove this last point, so forgive the sweeping declaration.) Once merged, the two elements influence each other in significant ways. Consider the morale boost given to the insurgents through observing the garrison and patrol strategies of teh Americans. Others have noted that the IZ compound is a reconstruction strategy based on fear, not trust.
Indeed, from the standpoint of good military history, Rumsfeld’s and Bush’s obsession with the public’s fear of “excessive” casualties has helped drive Iraq into the ground: too few troops (thus avoiding too many casualties), fear of turncoats who would exploit the advanced weaponry given the Iraqs and turn it against the Coalition; the aforementioned garrison and patrol strategy that assumes no major countryside offensives; instead we are content with playing Whack-A-Mole, a low casualty strategy if there ever was one.
I
What a fascinating and insightful piece. I think you’re on to Mr. Peters; he is obviously a plant.
Bill Roggio, btw, is a prowar blogger who got invited by the Marine Corps to embed for the purpose of providing a rebuttal to what the Marines view as too-negative reporting. This is part of CENTCOM’s blogger “outreach”. Not to impugn the Corps, but Truman was on to something with the whole Stalin comparison. Hell, it convinced me to try and join up in June, and I despise the Iraq War.
Off topic, Chris.
I am very disappointed Mr. Richard F. Miller.
I want to know one thing, sir.
The last five published pieces listed on your website were for HNN (My favorite being “Camp Followers, Contractors, and Carpetbaggers in Iraq”).
Why, then, is your name not included on this list:
HNN History Blogs: Active
Your Take Cliopatria Liberty & Power Judith Apter Klinghoffer Thomas C. Reeves Mark A. LeVine Daniel Pipes Theory & Practice POTUS
Won’t you join us in the blogosphere and add your name to not only to the HNN blogroll, but also this one.
Christopher Allbritton Nibras Kazimi (Talisman Gate) Omar (Iraq the Model) Bill Roggio (Threats Watch) and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (Ok, so he’s no longer blogging, but he should be. Also, as a stringer in Iraq, set the example that every stringer should follow. )
It’s easy to get out on the streets of Baghdad … military units — will take journalists on their patrols virtually anywhere
No, Mr. Peters. Easy to get around is going places without a military escort.
And they made fun of Baghdad Bob.
Dear Mr. Stevens: Thank you for the suggestion. It is both useful and flattering. Unfortunately, I am torn between two selves—a pretentious, self-inflated academic self, a jealous mistress, insistent upon books where endnotes constitute 20% of the text. Then there is the “hidden Savanarola,” the “know it all” afflicted with “tell it all,” the 54 year old journalist, who insists on the trip-taking habits of a 21 year old. Alas, to do either correctly requires something more than a full-time job. If I were to host a blog, I would soon be enslaved. My bride of 30 years would approve, on the theory that blogging is, as the foolish has-been television executive once noted, “for guys sitting around in their pajamas.” (which has a whiff of being home-bound, no?) But the best of blogs (and I shall add yours to my favorites) require work, thought, and time—-I’m “hustling” away on my next tome, which, with luck, may see light of print in about three to four years. But you are kind to inquire.
How many times do the deck chairs on the Titanic need re-arranging?
General Abizaid and others in the military have told us that there is no “military solution” here, and there ain’t no p.r. solution, either. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was a blockheaded notion, based on ideology and political expediency and not footed in any reality except the certainty that our powerful military could sweep aside the far less well trained, equipped and motivated Iraqi military. Post-war planning was based on hubris and the ambitions of neocons and Iraqi expatriates.
The adventure is a disaster - and the outcomes we have seen and see emerging were predictable… the most objectively likely…from the start. The best realistic hope was for superficial and transient “success” (as in “Mission Accomplished” and “Free Elections”). Those served their purposes, as have the brave, patriotic and misused men and women of our armed forces.
It never served, nor promised to serve, the best interests of America and it isn’t going to start now.
One must have a hole in their head (or a deep emotional investment-gone-bad) to believe in the notions that things are getting better; that a truely unified government is just around the corner; or, that there is not a bitter and violent struggle for power and survival going on which is far more likely to become a larger and more intense one, than to go away within the next decade or two.
How many times do the deck chairs on the Titanic need re-arranging?
General Abizaid and others in the military have told us that there is no “military solution” here, and there ain’t no p.r. solution, either. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was a blockheaded notion, based on ideology and political expediency and not footed in any reality except the certainty that our powerful military could sweep aside the far less well trained, equipped and motivated Iraqi military. Post-war planning was based on hubris and the ambitions of neocons and Iraqi expatriates.
The adventure is a disaster - and the outcomes we have seen and see emerging were predictable… the most objectively likely…from the start. The best realistic hope was for superficial and transient “success” (as in “Mission Accomplished” and “Free Elections”). Those served their purposes, as have the brave, patriotic and misused men and women of our armed forces.
It never served, nor promised to serve, the best interests of America and it isn’t going to start now.
One must have a hole in their head (or a deep emotional investment-gone-bad) to believe in the notions that things are getting better; that a truely unified government is just around the corner; or, that there is not a bitter and violent struggle for power and survival going on which is far more likely to become a larger and more intense one, than to go away within the next decade or two.
One must have a hole in their head (or a deep emotional investment-gone-bad) to believe in the notions that things are getting better;
This is exactly the kind of snotty arrogance that shoots its message in the foot. I served in the Peace Corps and I’ve traveled around the world at dirt-poor level. I know about “bakshesh,” about tribalism, I know how hard it is to get to the truth in the Arab world, and, like conservatives William F. Buckley and George Will, I’ve been dubious from the beginning about whether the experiment in turning Iraq into a democracy will work. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put my head in the sand and ignore evidence to the contrary, because ultimately, I’d like to see the effort work.
Americans who are trying to get a fix on what’s happening in Iraq have every reason to doubt the analysis of those presently saying the effort won’t work. The media has done a terrible job of providing PERSPECTIVE. Everything is couched in apocalyptic terms. First, we heard that Afghanistan would probably be a quagmire, like it was for the Russians. Then we heard we’d probably suffer thousands of casualties getting to Baghdad. Then we heard once we got to Baghdad it was going to be urban fighting like Mogadishu, triple-squared. Then we heard around the time of First Falluja that Civil War had broken out. Then we heard the elections were going to be a bloodbath.
At the same time, we watched more positive stories ignored or under-reported. We watched the news cut and shaped to what appeared to be an agenda. And we scratched our heads. Were we getting the truth?
I sat through all those negative reports wondering if we were really facing a disaster. And every time it didn’t happen. And on further analysis, I could see lots of it was just thrown out there to undermine the war effort because some people’s capacity for objective thinking is destroyed by a virulent hatred for Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney or a desire for power.
Now lots of the same people are saying, once again, “we are screwed. It’s all falling apart. ”
Please excuse me for daring to question their infinite wisdom.
Btw, since this thread started with Chris Albritton defending the record of the press against the accusations of Ralph Peters, I thought it was a good idea to focus the comments here on the performance of the press.
My question about the mysterious-sounding “issues” in the Washington Post report of 1,300 dead at a single morgue was not rhetorical at all.
It was a sincere attempt to learn what really happened there. Were there really 1,300 dead there? Did the journalist from the WaPo really count the bodies or even just make some kind of a rough visual “guesstimate” based on first-hand observation. Or was it mostly second-hand data. Is this one of the “issues” Albritton refers to? Or are these issues more innocuous and do not have any bearing on the central claim of Ellen’s piece.
Again, not trying to make a greater point. Just curious what these “issues” were.
An update post or just a quick comment here would be appreciated.
Thank you for commenting on bad military novelist Ralph Perter who has become a bad journalist and worse military analyst.
The American news media is still not covering the Iraq War in any realistic way. Forget the size of our countries, if the US had as many bombings and people killed each week would Americans deny they were in a civil war? Not to mention the secret police and national guard murdering and torturing a minority group.
The right-wing blogosphere is still after the WP story on the 1300 dead since the Shiite Interior Ministry who committed many of the murders denied the story. It is now a question of how much this is denial and how much purely political.
Iraq has become Guatemala or El Salvador of the 80’s with the government death squads covered up by the US.
Again, thanks for the continued reports.
I read the linked articles of Mr. Peters and Mr. Miller, both embedded with American military units. First, I believe that to criticize anyone for having an “agenda” is absurd, because everyone has personal views that could be descibed by someone else as an “agenda”. However, Mr. Peters infused his reporting with such an abundance of “enthusuiastic positivism”, compared with the simply “positive observations” of Mr. Miller, that I had no difficulty believing that the “truth” is much closer to what Mr. Miller is saying. Chris, I have been reading you since before you took “extended leave” and am grateful that you are “back in Iraq”.
Dear Salt Lick:
Yeah. It’s that “hatred for Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney” and a “desire for power” by those who held that this adventure was foolhardy to begin with, or that have since come to believe it is a bad business, doomed to failure. THAT’S what’s going to screw up an otherwise fabulous experiment and wonderful success. Bad attitude. A lack of patriotism. Inability to achieve objectivity. Media bias. “Snotty arrogance.”
Sounds like you’re all set, sparky. Notify Mr. Buckley.
You sound cranky and angry, which you quite possibly have a right to be.
But what would you say the fixes are? If you’re so famialiar with the war, then you should also be able to point out what’s working and what isn’t.
How about ending constructively instead of just bitter?
I think it pretty obvious to anyone that there may be a civil war. Certainly things are not working out as we hoped.
I think Rumsfeld and others are taking down their credibility one more notch by the blatant dismissal of this possibility.
It is one more piece of evidence that faith based reality doesn’t think Iraq exists as something that persist day after day month after month, but thinks the only important reality is providing Rush with remarks to feed the addicts, that people don’t remember and that you can keep the artificial reality going forever.
Dear Trevor:
You’re right. I am a bit cranky, but that’s not important now. Let’s get down to it and be constructive.
(1)Which “fixes” would you like me to address?
(2)Which aspects do you perceive as “working”?
How dare Mr. Peters bombard us with his excessive “positivism.” Isn’t the media doing that already? After all, our lucid, generous, enlightened media establishment never present an overly negative point of view. They never obsess about deaths, bombings, body counts, beheadings and acts of terror. The are constantly reporting on the openings of schools and hospitals and power plants. How can we get an accurate, balanced view of Iraq if we are never reminded of the difficulties there by our courageous journalist friends? For shame Mr. Peters! (By the way, is India also in the midst of a civil war?)
I’m not sure who “anonymous” is, but s/he sounds like they’re posing as me. They are not. I comment here using TypePad, and if you don’t see an authenticated comment from me, you can assume it’s a forgery.
My apologies, Mr. Allbritton, if you mean me. I neglected, inavertantly, to add my i.d. I was responding to the post directed my way by “Trevor” at 10:45 am on March 11th.
I’m not sure what aspect of my post might have suggested to you an attempt at masquerade, but frankly, while I admire your courage to be there in that mess and your pertinacity in trying to fathom events, attitudes and motivations, I wouldn’t even wish to PRETEND to be in your shoes.
Richard— Sorry. Trevor asked for suggestions for fixing this mess, and I thought the question was aimed at me. It might have been aimed at you, however, as it immediately followed your comment about notifying Mr. Buckley.
So when you responded to it, sans signature, I thought someone was trying to impersonate me. I see the misunderstanding now.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army Officer who’s spent a lifetime in the study of war and the world as it is, and remains.
Maybe Chris Allbritton is so jealous of his entire year of experience that he might want to stack it against Peters’ 30.
Point is, any private waling a beat knows more about Iraq than Chris does, and there are 135,000 of them. Forgive me if I weigh that experience versus the hundreds of journalists in card-game death matches in a Baghdad hotel, and side with the considered opinion of actual professionals, instead of amateurs with cameras.
Vercingetorix - then you trust the 85% of the “private waling a beat” who believe that Saddam ordered 9/11, or the 72% who think we should leave Iraq anyway?
Dear Vercingetorix:
And now that 70% of those troops think we should pull out within a year, does that trump Peter’s assertions - or do you suppose the overwhelming majority of troops believe things are going so WELL, that our services will not be necessary 12 months from now? And if so, how does that jibe with our military leadership over there? They don’t seem to think we’ll be out in a year, along with the Pentagon, the White House or anybody else.
If you prefer clinging to Peters’ view and object to Mr. Albritton’s rant on it, maybe you should just say that, instead of trying to prop it up with sadly lame and sycophantic exposition?
Chris, Keep on keepin’ on. And stay safe. Those are all that matter.
The Bush Administration chose to go to war based on their own disregard for reality, for the truth, and on the denial of their own willful ignorance. Shameful and, in retrospect (as the critics warned), the perfect strategy for chaos.
Lame
So, if things are going so great, why can’t the US leave Iraq?