Insurgents Resilient!
The AP’s Stephen R. Hurst proclaims the resilience of Sunni insurgents!
BAGHDAD (AP) - Sunni insurgents, resilient despite the five-week security crackdown in the capital, killed at least six more American troops over the weekend. A Sunni car bomber hit a largely Shiite district in the capital Sunday, killing at least eight people.
I’m getting a warm and fuzzy Pravda kind of feel off that, the ”resilience.” Stalwart insurgents resiliently marching forward! You have to troll the North Korean web to find that kind of thing these days!
The next three paragraphs are devoted to American death, spiced up with phrases like the one about Anbar being “controlled by the Sunni insurgency.” I’m concerned that might be somewhat overbroad, when you consider the significant influence of both the U.S. and Iraqi military and pro-government tribes have over what goes on in Anbar. But that’s what good propaganda is all about! Then we get to this:
While U.S. and Iraqi troops have flooded the Baghdad streets and a heavily armored American column was sent north to adjacent Diyala province, attacks on American and Iraqi forces have been robust.
The resilient enemy is also robust! Strangely, no mention of the “dozens” of resilient, robust insurgents who were granted martyrdom in that action in Diyala. But let’s not dawdle about the trivial details. We’ll get to those, the whole “violence down” thing later. We’re following AP’s game plan, and AP is playing gotcha! Any action or reaction by terrorists who have been severely set back is a sign of surge failure, and must be played high, resiliently and robustly. All American statements must be buried, carefully selected and couched to suggest futility. Like this one:
“The issue that we’re all trying to figure out is how best do you get the Iraqis to reconcile their differences - because after all, this is not going to be solved by the military. It has to involve political reconciliation in Iraq, among Iraqis,” Mr. Gates said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“We’re basically buying them time,” he said.
Obligatory U.S. death count follows. The AP wisely avoids applying this standard to the enemy, despite the availability of dead insurgent/terrorist numbers. Counter-productive. Counter-revolutionary!
The latest deaths raised the American military death toll in Iraq to 3,217 since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Terrorist Death Watch puts Iraq’s dead terrorist count for this month so far at 100 based on military press releases, and that doesn’t appear to include the abovementioned estimate of “dozens” when the 2nd ID’s 5/20 Stryker Battalion rolled into Baqouba the other day. That’s on top of 274 in January and 132 in February, and a running total of 1,470 confirmed kills in Iraq since Chuck Simmons started counting in Jan. 1, 2006. In case you were wondering. But enemy death figures, as we’ve seen, are not an approved part of the script. Moving on …
Across Iraq, at least 20 people died Sunday, a sign that violence continued to abate as American and Iraqi forces press ahead with what many view as a last-chance bid to quell the sectarian violence in Baghdad and central regions of the country.
“Continued to abate.” That doesn’t sound very resilient. Good thing they buried it.
An American official, meanwhile, blamed Al Qaeda in Iraq for chlorine bomb attacks that struck villagers in Anbar province earlier this week but said tight Iraqi security measures prevented a higher number of casualties.
Well, and a very good thing they buried that. Don’t want to create the impression something’s working. Someone needs to hammer that nail down quick. Get me rewrite! (Never mind the fact, as reader TMLutas insidiously notes in comments, that chlorine bombs in Iraq that purposefully target civilians are a compound war crime! White phosphorus is the only chemical weapon AP-approved for war crimes insinuations in Iraq, damn it!) OK, now keep reading for a learning moment on how the hated Crusaders are properly portrayed by a non-partisan, objective news agency:
American military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox said at least one of the attackers detonated his explosives after he was blocked by an Iraqi police checkpoint in Amiriyah, just south of Fallujah, killing only himself. Admiral Fox conceded that many Iraqis were exposed to the chemical fumes but insisted that steps Iraqi security forces were increasingly effective.
That’s right. Make him work for it. A little conceding and insisting is just the ticket. OK. Let’s ease up and give a little … if any of those saps in the reading public have hung in through all this doom and gloom, that is!
American forces are seeing some progress in their bid to drive a wedge between insurgents in Anbar province and more mainstream Sunnis who oppose them. The insurgent chlorine bombings were viewed as part of the building power struggle between those factions.
Hey, wait a minute. Some progress? Wedge driving? Power struggle? Which side is AP on anyway! I thought we agreed that the resilient insurgents controlled that place!
Whatever. You know, what this war has been lacking is a good stirring war flick to get the populace all riled up and backing the right horse. But this could do it. Lots of swashbuckling and no shortage of Hollywood heroes lining up to do the honors in “Insurgents Resilient!”
Welcome Instapundit, Hewitt readers, American Thinkers, etal! Don’t be a stranger. Happy anniversary of you-know-what! After you’ve met my pals Smitty and Baxter (those guys are a cut-up … wait till you see them in combat), you have to meet John Eade, American hero. I hate to even put polltroons like this on the same page with him. Meanwhile, here’s an embed who has theories on fighting insurgencies and cracking nuts! It’s an embed-a-palooza: Here’s my pal Sig, who was there in the beginning, back again with a Dear John letter. OK, different topic, different hemisphere, Ask not what you can do for Hugo Chavez. Hey, look who showed up. Al Stooges of Three.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:42 pm on Sunday, March 18, 2007
17 Responses to “Insurgents Resilient!”
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March 19th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Will tehre be film at 11 of the “patriotic” Mr. Hurst dancing for joy at the intoxicating thought of all those dead Americans? Some days are just better than others for the likes of Mr. Hurst.
March 19th, 2007 at 1:43 am
[...] headline earlier today and was going to get around to to it. But why bother? Jules Crittenden has eviscerated it already. The AP’s Stephen R. Hurst proclaims the resilience of Sunni insurgents! [...]
March 19th, 2007 at 4:10 am
I liked the bit about this being a last ditch bid…at least that is what is thought by some. Who know who the hell “some” are, or why they think what they think?
It gets increasingly difficult to control the salt in my language.
March 19th, 2007 at 4:17 am
2007.03.19 Iraq/Iran Roundup
I’ll try to find time for some excerpts later. Go read these: Insurgents Resilient! Emdignant Polltroons
March 19th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Good to see you caught liitle Stevie’s Ode to the Killers. This infuriated me and I fired off a note to AP - lots of good this will do. I blame the Pentagon for this. They should pull this insurgent cheerleader’s press pass and send him home in disgrace.
March 19th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Hurst is channeling Baghdad Bob
March 19th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Oh, the irony! This is the same media that excoriated the Pentagon for “body counts” in Vietnam.
But that was then, this is now. Turn on your radio for the top of the hour news and you’ll hear: “Train derails in _____, 4 more American soldiers killed in Iraq bringing the total to ________, the market is down…..and so on”.
March 19th, 2007 at 7:44 am
[...] Al-Yahoo Watch. Jules Crittenden fisks pro-terrorist media spin. Meanwhile, the big home-front story of the week was the impressive turnout of counter-protestors, [...]
March 19th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Here’s one bit of bias that you missed. The AP seems to have neglected to report that using gas as a weapon is a war crime as well as reporting on enemy war crimes in general. How hard, how dangerous would it be to ask, as a matter of routine, “what % of yesterday’s enemy actions were war crimes”? After a few months, they might even just put it out as a stack. The US is shamefully not upholding its Geneva treaty obligations to treat war crimes seriously. Our legal system was overwhelmed and our political system has never addressed the point. The US media could make a good deal of hay over this issue of Bush admin incompetence and nobody could accuse them of being in the pocket of the enemy on this one. But they don’t do it.
Why?
March 19th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Ouch, I need an editor.
The question in the above (”what %…”) should have been amended to make it clear that such a question should be asked at the daily military briefing. Later on, stack should have been stat. I need some coffee…
March 19th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Resilient and robust….mmmmm….sounds like a bad chardonnay to me. I thought you got the sarcasm and ridicule just right. I met a young man of 13 here in Australia the other night who sighed, “When are they just going to get out.” The Americans he meant, not noticing or not caring that I am one. One of the grown ups quipped “Soon.” I didn’t say anything thinking that it is understandable and forgivable that 13 year olds are still taken in by the likes of Hurst. The amazing thing is that these punters are apparently prepared to keep it up until they are universally despised and disbelieved.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:04 am
With Barely Contained Admiration
Stephen Hurst’s Associated Press story celebrating reporting the deaths of six US soldiers in Iraq yesterday contains not grudging, but barely contained admiration for the Sunni insurgents/terrorists responsible.BAGHDAD - Sunni insurgents, resilient d…
March 19th, 2007 at 11:05 am
[...] by Ron Coleman on March 19th, 2007 Insty points to Jules Crittenden, who writes: The AP’s Stephen R. Hurst proclaims the resilience of Sunni insurgents! BAGHDAD (AP) - Sunni [...]
March 19th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Have you seen the USAToday ‘Poll’ in today’s edition?!?
The entire thing is a steaming pile of anti-American propaganda and without even looking I noticed they over-sampled Sunni’s reporting that
71% said ‘things are good in their lives in 2005
39% said ‘things are good in their lives in 2007
But the Kurds are at 80% and the Shiites are at… 80%!!!
USAToday claims ‘Face-to-face interviews with 2,212 Iraqis’, but every poll number is polluted with the negative numbers of the 15-20% of the population of Sunnis, whose pessimism is founded upon their regret at the loss of their minority rule and passive, if not active, support of the insurgency.
Every poll number is positive for Shiites and Kurds… that is the real story that USA Today deliberately buries.
Who says there is no media bias?
March 19th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
[...] off of his insightful piece on the resilient Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Associated Press’s Stephen Hurst appears to be on the brink [...]
March 19th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
[...] News. Check out the pictures. Ah, but as Jules Crittenden points out, those insurgents are resilient! Read Jule’s well-done fisking. Gaius rightly describes it as [...]
March 20th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
[...] update! Crittenden does a bang-up job of mocking the MSM version of the same sort of assbackwards ethical cripples I was blasting [...]