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Illegal PsyOp? No.
Yesterday one Maj. Gen. Caldwell had an OpEd on the pages of the Washington Post: Why We Persevere. It did not get a lot of attention as the ISG report took the day’s headlines.
But it is a helluva piece about all the good things that are happening in Iraq. It deserves some recognition.
As his column was released at the same date (not unintentionally I bet) as the ISG report, I will just contrast both efforts (page numbers for the ISG report (pdf) are along the pdf pagecount).
CALDWELL: I don’t see a civil war in Iraq. I don’t see a constituency for civil war.
ISG (p29): Iraqis may become so sobered by the prospect of an unfolding civil war and intervention by their regional neighbors that they take the steps necessary to avert catastrophe. But at the moment, such a scenario seems implausible because the Iraqi people and their leaders have been slow to demonstrate the capacity or will to act.
—
CALDWELL: A poll conducted in June by the International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan group that promotes democracy, found 89 percent of Iraqis supporting a unity government representing all sects and ethnic communities.
ISG (p29): Recent polling indicates that only 36 percent of Iraqis feel their country is heading in the
right direction, and 79 percent of Iraqis have a “mostly negative” view of the influence that the
United States has in their country. Sixty-one percent of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led
forces.
—
CALDWELL: After decades in which the armed services were tools of oppression, Iraq is taking time to build an army and national police force loyal to all.
ISG (p12+13): Significant questions remain about the ethnic composition and loyalties of some Iraqi [army] units—specifically, whether they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda.
…
Iraqi police cannot control crime, and they routinely engage in sectarian violence,
including the unnecessary detention, torture, and targeted execution of Sunni Arab civilians. The
police are organized under the Ministry of the Interior, which is confronted by corruption and
militia infiltration and lacks control over police in the provinces.
—
CALDWELL: I see a representative government exercising control over the sole legitimate armed authority in Iraq, the Iraqi Security Force.
ISG (p12): Iraqis have operational control over roughly one-third of
Iraqi security forces; the U.S. has operational control over most of the rest.
(BTW: Are the U.S. forces an illegitimate armed authority in Iraq?)
—
CALDWELL: I don’t see terrorist and criminal elements mounting campaigns for territory.
ISG (p11): Mahdi fighters patrol certain Shia enclaves,
notably northeast Baghdad’s teeming neighborhood of 2.5 million known as “Sadr City.”
—
CALDWELL: I don’t see a struggle between armies and aligned political parties competing to rule.
ISG (p11): Badr fighters have also clashed with the Mahdi Army, particularly in southern Iraq.
—
CALDWELL: As the Iraqi people labor to build a country based on human rights and respect for all citizens, they are moving from the law of the gun to the rule of law.
ISG (p20): Third, corruption is rampant. … There are still no examples of senior officials who have been brought before a court of law and convicted on corruption charges.
—
CALDWELL: Regardless of what academics and pundits decide to label this conflict, hundreds of thousands of brave Iraqi soldiers, police officers and civil servants will continue to go to work building a free, prosperous and united Iraq.
ISG (p13): Soldiers are given leave liberally and face no penalties for absence without leave. Unit readiness rates are low, often at 50 percent or less. … There are ample reports of Iraqi police officers participating in training in order to obtain a weapon, uniform, and ammunition for use in sectarian violence. Some are on the payroll but don’t show up for work.
—
CALDWELL: And every day more than 137,000 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen will lace up their boots, strap on their body armor and drive ahead with our mission to support these courageous Iraqis.
ISG (p15): U.S. forces can “clear” any neighborhood, but there are neither enough U.S. troops present nor enough support from Iraqi security forces to “hold” neighborhoods so cleared. The same holds true for the rest of Iraq. Because none of the operations conducted by U.S. and Iraqi military forces are fundamentally changing the conditions encouraging the sectarian violence, U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end.
Caldwell is introduced in WaPo as "the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq." Major General is quite a rank for a spokesman. In reality Caldwell is Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Effects,
Multinational Forces Iraq.
Col. Pat Lang thinks
the piece is information warfare, an illegal psychological operation
(PsyOp) on the U.S. public. But unlike real PsyOp Caldwell’s piece does
not contain any basic truth around which the spin is spun – it is pure
phantasy. To write and to publish such is thereby not illegal – just dumb.
Outstanding compare and contrast exercise b, much in depth analysis in your work here. However, I do not agree with your ending, it is not dumb, to the contrary, what you just pointed out perhaps unbeknownst to even yourself is the black magick these fraternal magicians are trying to conjure up, the tricks of the trade, the emergence of modern political magic of illusion;often by giving the impression that something impossible has been achieved.
The most chilling words I’ve ever heard in my lifetime, and probably some of the most chilling words in history:
“In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend – but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”
The importance of this quote to history should never be underestimated.
A comment from another board put it thus:
Cold Civil War, Intentional Divisiveness, Rift in Reality Perception
The illegitimate US government has created a Cold Civil war, intentionally dividing the population into the reality-based community and the faith-based community (where faith refers not to religion, but those who unquestioningly accept the government line, on faith) lined up on opposite sides of a rift in the perception of reality.
One massive mindfuck.
Further, to add insult to insult, why are we paying for this ISG gig, when we have a CIA, a State Departtment and various other Government agencies whose job was indeed to do the very thing this Baker-Hamilton think tank has just done. Lastly, I question if the ISG isn’t merely an offshoot or a highjacking of the Office of Special Plans.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 7 2006 18:08 utc | 4
following on from Uncle’s post, no 1.
The US certainly practises what it preaches, and not just ‘abroad’. The ‘post abundance’ era (to replace ‘post-cold-war’) is well named. The types of the authors that Uncle quotes (I’m being vague for brevity’s sake) often ignore or set aside one, or the, main reason why all this is taking place. It is not just a question of misguided ideology, stubborn hubris, poor calculation, one up-man-ship, or the slow infiltration of official gangsterism (e.g. buying politicians so as to sell pills), corporate take-over, Bush’s limited intellect, etc. Nor does, I feel, an overall and secret plan formented by the PTB exist, though that might be discussed.
Rather, what is happening is a global reaction by those in power to the fact that ‘Peak Oil’ – that expression means different things under different definitions and to different people but let’s leave it rough – is here, or past, or dawning.
Its implications are that there will be less. Less of everything for everyone. Or, if one prefers, present ‘growth’ cannot continue.
Less transport, less manufacturing, industry, less housing, and less food. Concentrated liquid energy drives economies, it gives a tremendous bang for the buck, not just the dollar, but in a measure of energy (manpower, etc.) That free lunch, which ensured ‘growth’ about post ww2 – 2000 is now diminishing, and everyone is scrambling to save crumbs or to lock up, capitalise on advantages, and ensure that new opportunities will be available.. ..
The US has used its military power to that end, to no avail at present, as predicted, but the long term is moot. Creating chaos and ‘zones of insecurity’ is congruent both with a long term ‘national’ strategy and that of corporate actors. The PTB, state and non-state, have seen the writing on the wall and will jockey for personal-in-group advantages, just like the Sunni, Shia and Kurds in Iraq, the poor in Nigeria, etc. The Nation State is fractioning under these forces, as redistribution, in whatever form, and hope for the future, ditto, are rapidly eroding.
The reasons are kept silent to limit interference and unrest. Schisms and polarisation are evident everywhere nonetheless, including in the US, where some see aggression, a quasi-dictatorship, fascistic trappings as a solution, and others – by now the true conservatives, i.e. democrats – persist in believing (or pretending to believe) the old order can be revived.
The latest report from the CFR speaks of ‘oil dependency’ and uses other cute paraphrases, areas of silence. It is nonetheless surprisingly explicit, as a public, quasi-official document.
link
Posted by: Noirette | Dec 9 2006 15:48 utc | 14
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