Lies about Iraq and Vietnam
Dear editor:
For many months knowledgeable people have been comparing the disaster in Iraq to the horror of the Vietnam war. Of course the president, his administration, ex-Sect. of Defense Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney, Sect. of State Rice, and the Republican toadies in Congress, who will agree with anything that “W” says, have insisted that there is no comparison between the two wars. They do not want to see any relationship between the two. Well, the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group has found at least one…..the ability of our military, under the leadership of the Pentagon, to be lying to the public.
The following was reported by the Associated Press:
U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said. In its report on ways to improve the U.S. approach to stabilizing Iraq, the group recommended Wednesday that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense make changes in the collection of data about violence to provide a more accurate picture.
The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said. "The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases." It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count, either. Also, if the source of a sectarian attack is not determined, that assault is not added to the database of violence incidents.
Evidently General Casey is following the leadership of Gen Westmorland, the commanding general in Vietnam, who had the amazing ability to not report many American casualties and to balloon enemy casualties reports, with the blessing of his then Sect. of Defense, Robert S. McNamara. Amazing similarity of out and out lies.
For many months knowledgeable people have been comparing the disaster in Iraq to the horror of the Vietnam war. Of course the president, his administration, ex-Sect. of Defense Rumsfeld, Mr. Cheney, Sect. of State Rice, and the Republican toadies in Congress, who will agree with anything that “W” says, have insisted that there is no comparison between the two wars. They do not want to see any relationship between the two. Well, the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group has found at least one…..the ability of our military, under the leadership of the Pentagon, to be lying to the public.
The following was reported by the Associated Press:
U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said. In its report on ways to improve the U.S. approach to stabilizing Iraq, the group recommended Wednesday that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense make changes in the collection of data about violence to provide a more accurate picture.
The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said. "The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases." It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count, either. Also, if the source of a sectarian attack is not determined, that assault is not added to the database of violence incidents.
Evidently General Casey is following the leadership of Gen Westmorland, the commanding general in Vietnam, who had the amazing ability to not report many American casualties and to balloon enemy casualties reports, with the blessing of his then Sect. of Defense, Robert S. McNamara. Amazing similarity of out and out lies.
posted by Sam Schoolsky | 4:20 PM
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