Why Bagdad needs the troops

Just finished watching a harrowing documentary shot by a Baghdad Doctor at Al Yarmouk hospital. From the Synopsis:

Once a hospital where appendix removals dominated operating lists, these days surgeons at Al-Yarmouk hospital work round the clock to save the limbs and lives of bomb blast victims. Filming inside the hospital which is located in one of the most dangerous areas of Baghdad was extremely risky and many staff were afraid to show their faces on camera. Before the insurgency Al Yarmouk was a "normal, local hospital", now it's a "field hospital in a civil war," said the Iraqi doctor/documentary maker. He was given unprecedented access to film in the hospital. His identity cannot be disclosed - to do so would endanger his life. "I've worked as a doctor for five years, all through the invasion. It's never been so bad and it's getting worse every day. I don't know how much more of this I can take," said the doctor. This program looks at the sectarian strife tearing Iraq apart from the perspective of the United States, British and Australian forces. Baghdad Doctor, by contrast provides a gritty, enthralling take on the collapse of Iraqi civil society. Most of the hospital's patients are Shiite civilians injured by the bombs of "extreme Sunnis and Al Qaeda." Even so at Al Yarmouk hospital Shiite and Sunni muslims work side by side. Medical staff fear being targeted because they treat patients from all sects. Gunshots have been fired in the ER room and doctors have been kidnapped and killed.

The point was made that much of the reconstruction money for Hospital refurbishment as well as supplies was squandered. The Doctor who made the film also thought that the departure of the foreign troops now would lead to a catastrophe. The Government of Al Maliki came in for a heavy pasting of criticism. Everyone who appeared in the film - Sunni or Shia, Doctor or patient - were unanimous that they wanted a united Iraq without sectarian division. Everyone spoke of terrorists without any qualification - no-one referred to "insurgents" or "resistance" and nearly unanimously they termed the Terrorists as being the product of extremist leaders who have little mandate amongst the populace at large and that they were driven by Al Quaeda. There was none of the mealy mouthed apologists for the terrorists that is such a feature of Anti-War discourse.

These are people that deserve our support - and any way to make that as direct as possible should be sought out. The terrorists have to be defeated, and pressure put on the Maliki Government to be worthy of the people who elected them, just as the Coalition civil reconstruction effort has to improve - the military cannot do all the lifting. What we can do at this distance from Iraq is make sure that the many good men and women who are doing an incredibly difficult job in Iraq get the support they need to do it - and be mindful that the Terrorists and extremists have strategy based upon their ability to influence the domestic politics of the coalition countries whilst at the same time presuading Iraqis that they are imminently going to be abandoned.

Website Link to Synopsis

Criticise Murtha and it's a Smear

I was originally going to post in response to the sheer volume of vituperation that the Washington Post attracted by having the temerity to point out plan to hamstring the surge was breathtakingly cynical. Few will have the patience to read through the 360+ comments the article attracted - but even skimming through it is pretty clear it provoked an almost primordial howl from the Nutroots, who typically charge the WAPO with having become a Rovian mouthpiece of the White house, a neocon cabal.

Whilst much of the criticism is of the ad hominem variety a good deal echoes Murtha's own cynicism - with palpable disingenuousness commenters attempt to maintain with a straight face that it simply concern for Troop welfare that motivates them and this has nothing to do with their position on the war itself, as if anyone should be prepared to believe that they just want to ensure that units are going to be deployed so as to better prosecute the war.

Of course whatever their motives surely the point stands that equipment shortages and readiness levels should still be an area of concern? Is that not what Murtha means when he says:

"What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with,"

Well actually it is very easy to find fault with it - as Michelle Malkin points out there is not really an equipment shortage. And the readiness rate is also largely mythical, and the product of Army reporting requirements - eg a unit will report unready whilst in transit to Iraq as it has left it's own Equipment in CONUS whilst it will pick up the Unit it replaces equipment in Iraq. So the concern is not only insincere and a disingenuous attempt to cover up the real aim of halting the surge, but is anyway not even good cover because it is essentially based on myth anyway.

But at the top of this post I said I was "originally" going to post on the phenomena of a huge volume of hostile commentary the WAPO attracted - so where is the actual post? Well it did not take long to find the source of the mobilization of the activist defense of Murtha - the Kossacks had been drinking the delusionary kool-aid of posts like this where all the criticism of Murtha is dismissed as a smear job, because of course Murtha is just concerned for the troops and his plans are not really about trying to halt the surge. This is where Murtha's own words become a tad inconvenient:

Second, we can't extend people. Now if they can't extend people, if they can't send people back that don't have equipment and so forth, they can't continue the surge is what it amounts to. [...]

And the fact that the link for the quote points to MoveCongress.org -whose entire raison d'etre is to "halt the war in Iraq" only reinforces what should really be obvious anyway -the whole stunt is a calculated effort to hold up the reinforcements in the hope that the mission is thereby sabotaged.

The double think that must have gone into concluding with the following makes the brain hurt:

This potential legislation terrifies the Republicans. They face having to vote against ensuring that our troops are properly trained and equipped before they are sent into battle in Iraq. And after four years of the Republicans looking the other way while the administration over-extended our military, they know that it can't be done. Finally facing the possibility of acting in the best interest of the men and women of our military rather than continuing with their empty, mewling platitudes about supporting the troops, they attack. And the target is squarely on John Murtha's back.

It requires a real talent for self delusion to both believe that you are acting in the best interests of the men and women serving in Iraq by trying to undermine their mission badly enough that you can bring about a defeat that you will then disavow responsibility for. And to then howl about smear jobs when people actually notice the mendacity and cynicism of the manoeuvre is a sure sign that the mental stays are starting to snap under the contortions required. In some ways William Arkin should almost be thanked - if he had not let the cat out of the bag about how the Nutroots really feel about the troops and their opinions Murthas manoeuvres might not have been quite so obvious.