US helicopter in IraqWe are still a month away from the Petreaus/Crocker White House report on the progress of the US escalation. But already the “findings” of that report are being written on the minds of the American people through an incessant drumbeat of Administration spin and propaganda, reinforced by the usual
neocon suspects and long-time war hawks like O’Hanlon/Pollack, and complete with White House ad campaign. [h/t MayDaze] As George Bush once said, “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” [h/t and paraphrasing to commenter George]

The “we’re making progress” crowd seems to be dominant in Washington, even though our own Ambassador reports no progress on reconciliation, which was the principal objective of the President’s surge. Worse, the unhyped evidence indicates violence against Iraqis has not declined, while the June-July period of 2007 has been even more deadly for Americans than the same two month period in the past four years. Fourteen more US soldiers were killed this morning in a helicopter crash, while dozens more Iraqis died in other violence.

Yet we must be making progress because the neocon, pro-war experts — the only kind of experts we seem to have — say we are. Never mind those seven courageous non-commissioned officers and infantrymen — courageous because they are expressing a contrary view while still serving in Iraq — who wrote in a Times op ed that the mission has failed and it’s time to get out. Unlike the neocon pundits and Congressional delegations who get the military-shepherded dog and pony shows, these men see a very different picture:

To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day.
. . .
Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

It is a measure of the media’s laziness and complicity in sustaining the Administration’s propaganda that, as TRex, Greg Sargent, Paul Rieckhoff, and others have noted, this genuine first hand account is not treated seriously and has received almost no media attention except as an excuse for refutation by neocon war proponents.

But despite the growing chorus of Administration shills and pundits and misguided Senate Democrats proclaiming that the “surge” is working in some narrowly defined military sense that ignores the Iraqi perspective, the Administration’s Iraq policy is about to collapse in complete failure. If the al Maliki government falls or is portrayed by our media as helpless, powerless and friendless, nothing that David Petraeus reports to Congress about “progress” will matter that much.

Photo: US Blackhawk helicopter over Baghdad, (Mahmoud Rahouf Mahmoud/Reuters).

Related posts:

  1. Conn Hallinan: Why the Afghan Surge Will Fail
  2. The Debris of an Occupation
  3. Working Through the Extra Hour Tonight
  4. Torture: Obama Heeded Maliki on Abuse Photos, Says McClatchy; What That Says for Our Occupation
  5. Less Robust Public Option a Double Slap in the Face to Working Class Americans