Good News Bad News
When is bad news good news? When it is your enemy’s.Â
Reuters loads us up on the Good News out of Iraq: too many al-Qaeda dead to count in a village in Anbar, where Iraqi security forces just kept killing them all day. US and Iraqi forces raiding into Sadr City, just messing around right now, a death squad leader here, a death squad leader there, gearing up for the big push. And the Iraqi Foreign Minister says 1,000 former Iraqi Army officers are coming back, a “sign of reconciliation.”
It’s gotta be good news when it gets so quiet in Baghdad they are forced to admit it and make news out of it.
So why is the Baghdad Brain Trust so bummed? Six months or bust? Talk about zeroing in the bad news. Those guys need to get out of the Green Zone, talk to that Anbar sheikh who wants us to win so Iraq will be rich like Japan and Germany and South Korea. Or talk to Mohammed at ITM, who doesn’t mind being stuck in traffic at checkpoints. Maybe talk to this guy’s dad, who says Baghdad’s Shiites want that surge to work. Six months, and you’d let them down? Buck up, Brain Trust.
Good news from the Small Wars Journal, compliments of a reader: the Guardian’s Brain Trust article, as I had suspected, is full of crap. (h/t reader EWB)
ConfYank weighs in with more Baghdadi surge reax.
Supposedly its good news that everyone’s getting their talk on. But only if our guys are willing to tell it to the Iranians and Syrians and don’t let them … or their Security Council pals Russia, France and China … turn it into some kind of Middle East Daily Show.Â
Speaking of insurmountable facts, Body count down. Abductions down.
But here comes the bad news: Military spending among our allies, also way down.
A scandal at Walter Reed over the treatment of outpatient WIAs results in the rapid removal of a scapegoat, rapidly replaced by the wrong guy? Good news … there’s heat on leadership in the U.S. Army Medical Command and the VA. Â
Disturbing news, when staunch Iraq supporter John McCain calls American deaths in Iraq wasted. Still waiting on word back from the McCain camp, which may want to listen to a word on words to the Obama cheering squad: saying you regret you said something isn’t an apology for having said it.
Good news: More trouble in Democratic paradise! Dem Cong divided over surrender plans.Â
Heartening news: If the Part of Surrender does sort that out and start Murthasizing the military, our resourceful soldiers are ready for it.
Iraq divvies up the oil. This is good news but, like everything else in Iraq, has the potential for bad news.Â
Sorry about the news: Apologism rules!
Two-fer good news in Hilla, where a raid turns up a weapons cache that provides the best evidence of Iranian meddling yet. Nice fake rock, by the way.
And its gotta be good news when the Washington Post must formally announce that John Murtha has tripped over the shark and fallen under the bus, as other Democrats look idly on.Â
Laugh riot news out of Iraq: Al-Sadr comes out against the surge. Says its stupid, a waste of time. In a statement from Teheran, or wherever he’s hiding.
GWOT good news it is:
Judge to Padilla, if you’re competent to sign your own complaints about torture, you’re competent to stand trial. Meanwhile, Australian Taliban David Hicks, gets the first licks.
But there’s also Bad GWOT news: Al Qaeda establishing new camps in Pakistan
And good GWOT News: Musharraf will force the terrorists out!
Muddied by bad GWOT news: Pakistan denies they are there!
Somewhat better GWOT news … Pakistan throws Taliban No. 3 under the bus.
Wacked GWOT news: the Taliban has a new star in Dadullah.
Sad GWOT news: Taliban targets Cheney, or says that’s what it was trying to do with a bomb that kills 23 people at Bagram’s gate.
In pathetic GWOT news, the Taliban’s fellow travellers in America so delighted by Bagram bombing, they shoot themselves in the foot!
Forget the shooting wars for a while … the culture wars have been heating up:
Good morning, Punditeers and Powerliners! Coffee’s in the kitchen, sit a while. The Egyptian Sandmonkey was just telling us a howler about Seymour Hersh. Stop me if you’ve heard this one from the Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor over at the Small Wars Journal about the UK Guardian. You might have trouble staying in your chair, but you’ve gotta check out the hippest dude this side of the Khyber Pass … Mullah Dadullah. We’re trying to keep it clean, but those effs and esses and effing A’s and mofos keep coming out, goddamn it! Meanwhile, a little political genealogy visits the sins of the great-grandafthers on the sons … careful with that, you never know what you’ll find.Â
Topics: Good News Bad News
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:10 am on Friday, March 2, 2007
10 Responses to “Good News Bad News”
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March 2nd, 2007 at 1:45 am
Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.03.02
Just read ‘em. Maybe I’ll find time to do more with ‘em later. (And some things that are too short to excerpt and too good to not mention.) Please feel free to use this post for comments and trackbacks not
March 2nd, 2007 at 1:46 am
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.03.01
Some Bill’s Bites posts, some things I excerpted and linked but I’m sending you to the original post. I may rearrange the order of the items within this post as I add new things that I think belong above the
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:06 am
Good news: The Guardian’s report on the mood of the Brain Trust is actually crap:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/03/guardian-article-misrepresents/
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:13 am
Maybe News: The Veterans Administration definitely needs a swift kick in the pants and a thorough housecleaning, and I say that as a wife of a veteran who has to deal with them. It remains to be seen whether anything will be done once the heat’s off.
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:07 am
Web Reconnaissance for 03/02/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
March 2nd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
[…] More at Jules Critten. […]
March 2nd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
[…] Here’s an interesting piece […]
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Islamic State of Iraq Suffers Crushing Defeat
Update: More good news from Jules Crittenden and more on this story from WAPO here.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:28 am
[…] Read the whole thing here. […]
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
[…] Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald has his own roundup of good and bad news from Iraq and elsewhere. “When is bad news good news? When it is your enemy’s.” […]