Some of you may have heard that the redoubtable Arthur Chrenkoff who has done such an amazing job of compiling information from Iraq and Afghanistan and presenting it clearly in his Good News from Iraq and Good News from Afghanistan columns, is about to stop blogging. He didn't run out of good news, but apparently he decided to put his writing skills to work to earn a better living, which put him in a position of prominence where his blogging activity was no longer appropriate.
Chrenkoff's meticulous fact-finding and common sense analysis of events will be missed. He was remarkably successful of cutting through the spin and selective reporting to find essential facts from the original sources and explain them clearly. It's a pity that such excellent work in the blogosphere couldn't earn him the kind of rewards which he certainly deserved.
The good news is that he's passed the job of compiling the overlooked news from Iraq and Afghanistan on to a team of experts - it takes five plus people to do what he was doing by himself - who have started the new site Good News from the Front. The crew compiling information there includes people from the pro-democracy site Winds of Change, from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and from Iraq the Model for info direct from inside Iraq. The first two are basically informational and non-partisan - much more neutral than Chrenkoff was, though he never let his politics obviously influence his objectivity. The last is pro-Iraqi first and sympathetic to the US, but one of the few really good reliable sources for direct Iraqi interpretation of events within the country.
All of these sites are well worth checking out. Good News from the Front is an excellent starting point if you want to know more about what's really going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. They will be continuing Chrenkoff's work with regular updates on the minutiae of life, war and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. The other sites are very useful if you want to go into more - even exhaustive - depth. There's some really well researched and extraordinarily detailed information taken straight from primary sources in the Middle East on these sites.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - WhatIsDavidSmoking
More good news, no doubt from page 2 of whatever David's source.
Oh, wait - there is no page 2! And page 1 only exists in David's head. Why? Because there's no good news out of Iraq!
War Pornography
US soldiers trade grisly photos of dead and mutilated Iraqis for access to amateur porn. The press is strangely silent.
Source: link
Iraq Body Count
MINIMUM Iraqi civilian casulaties, er, collateral damage as of 9/27/05: 26,092
Source: www.iraqbodycount.net
New allegations of prisoner abuse
Army captain went to senators' aides after being ignored by superiors
Source: link
Cost of War in Iraq Approaching $200,000,000,000.00! as of 9/27/05
Source: costofwar.com (per Congessional appropriation reports, and we all know how accurate they are).
US military set to assume role in assisting major Iraq ministries
State Dept. yields responsibility for Defense, Interior (9/27/05)
Source: link
2 - Dave Nalle
Thanks for demonstrating so clearly how desperately we need in-depth, rational reporting from Iraq.
Dave
3 - The Fifth Dentist
I hear we're just about to turn the corner in Vietnam as well.
4 - Shark
Dave's Funniest Understatement: "...They don't paint a rosy picture by any means..."
Davey, (aka "Crazy Ray Stevens") seriously, you need to stop this "Everything is Beautiful" shit. It only draws attention to how bad things are in Iraq. It's like that horrible "No One Died Today In Iraq" post you did a few days ago: the contrast between Reality and Your Deluded Assertions is explicit and pathetic.
See, this ain't like an oral conversation where you can toss out some bullshit and then move on; no, man, this is public -- and it's also etched in digital stone.
Someday, you're gonna post a "Bush Homeland Security is Successful" essay on the same day a dirty bomb goes off -- and then you're gonna feel like a real self-deluded, insane idealogue.
xxoo
S
PS: Did I hear Dick Cheney say Dave Nalle's sanity is in its "last throes"?
(C'mon, Dave, even friggin' die-hard Republicans are finding it hard to defend Bush the Moron. Find a new hero.)
======
[Shark imagines future scenario...]
Helicopters land on roof of American Embassy in Green Zone, Baghdad -- in order to evacuate remaining American staff from a country knee-deep in incoming bullets and bombs.
Dave's Headline:
"American Diplomats View Recent Victory from the Air"
5 - Vox Populi
Ah, Shark. You cute little mushhead. There could be not one death in Iraq and all the terrorists could be rounded up and it would still be a 'quagmire' to you. Here's a thought. Rather than repeating the same unsupported statements about Iraq over and over ad nauseum, why not go check out some of the links provided in the article and see if the facts bear out your assumptions?
Vox
6 - Druxxx
Here is a comment from one of your last posts.
"This is like a doctor cutting someone open to remove a burst appendix, and while he is there he finding out the appendix is okay, but the patient has a huge, life-threatening tumor. But since he went in for the appendix he should just sew the patient up and leave the tumor there, because that's not the reason why the operation was authorized."
Well how about this.
Say the doctor keeps finding little tumors. Does he just keep operating, hoping to find all of them, but knowing that he may never find them all. Or would he save a lot of time, effort, and money and stop operating after he knows the patient has no hope of survival no matter how many operations he performs.
How much money and lose of life are you willing to give up before you change your mind. I realize we have responsibilities, but they are not infinate. At some point it is time to leave.
I say fix as much infrastructure as possible and get the hell out. If Iraq implodes into civil war, let it be the Iraqies problem.
The terrorist can still do there killing "over there" to try and fill the power void we will leave behind, but our men and women won't be in the way.
7 - Vox Populi
Another fine example of the inhumanity of the left, Druxx.
Vox
8 - Druxxx
So Vox, you think we should keep thousands of our troops in Iraq forever. Leaving a nice steady stream of casualties. How is that humane?
I am not a democrat,nor republican. I am a realist.
If going into Iraq can be justified, so can many, many other countries. We don't have the resourses to start invading and rebuilding all the countries we think are "bad"
We have enough issues here at home. I pay enough taxes. We can't afford Iraq, Hurricane relief, and the invasion of other countries.
9 - Bob A. Booey
I'm getting a bizarre "Hitler's Last Days" bunker vibe going on here.
Anyone else know what I mean?
No, I'm not calling everyone's favorite outraged Napoleon Dynamite-meets-Hank Hill Hitler as a cheap shot. I'm saying that he's taking the cognitive dissonance he has with his new GOP affiliation to a new, even more myopic and narrow extreme, even for Dave Nalle.
That is all.
10 - Bob A. Booey
Oh, and I think these Pollyanna posts, which are so at odds with the usual bitter, cynical Dave Nalle, are meant to get a reaction more than anything.
He wants you left-winger types to get mad at him to get a reaction so he can feel further justified that "the Left" is "angry" and an enemy army of "neo-socialists who want violent overthrow of our Constiution" to be hated. Where are my shooting guns, Peggy? I think he's turning into John Bambenek.
That is all.
11 - Vox Populi
So Vox, you think we should keep thousands of our troops in Iraq forever. Leaving a nice steady stream of casualties. How is that humane?
Which is worse, years of civil war killing tens or even hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, or maybe 2 or 3 more years of American involvement at a cost of probably another thousand lives? How many dead Iraqis equals one dead American? For that matter, how many of your dollars is a dead Iraqi child worth?
Vox
12 - Vox Populi
Why all the hate and name calling, Mr. Booey? And when you start calling people Hitler you've already lost the argument.
Vox
13 - Rich
"we need in-depth, rational reporting from Iraq."
Dave do you really think that things you agree with is "indepth" and "rational" that in itself has no depth and is far from rational.
Your type may just as well argued prolonging the Vietnam war as indepth and rational.
14 - Vox Populi
Rich, you wrote two sentences, neither of which was grammatically correct, and both of which taken together or separately made no sense at all.
Vox the Grammar Police
15 - Shark
Vox, who called Shark a "mushead" says:
"Why all the hate and name calling, Mr. Booey?
Hey Vox, you're just another FUCKING HYPOCRITE.
[Shark to Booey: "Eva, my little Mousi, come sit on my lap."]
16 - Vox Populi
Nobody does it better, Shark. When it comes to namecalling you're the KING!
Vox
17 - Shark
As a counter to Shark, a somnabulent Vox mumbles during a dream: "...There could be not one death in Iraq and all the terrorists could be rounded up..."
Then, like the Sleepy, Distracted American Populi he represents...
...zzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Go back to sleep.
Things are getting better in Iraq.
Go back to sleep.
18 - Shark
Vox: "how many of your dollars is a dead Iraqi child worth?"
Boy or girl?
19 - Bob A. Booey
Vox, did you miss this sentence somehow, [edited]?
"No, I'm not calling everyone's favorite outraged Napoleon Dynamite-meets-Hank Hill Hitler as a cheap shot."
Settle down, [edited].
That is all.
20 - ss
I'm doubting this made the 'Good News from Afghanistan' post:
KABUL, Afghanistan Sep 20, 2005 â€" President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday challenged
the need for continued U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan such as air
strikes and house searches.
Instead, he recommended that foreign governments should "concentrate on where
terrorists are trained, on their bases, on the supply to them, on the money
coming to them" a veiled reference to alleged support that militants get from
neighboring Pakistan.
Afghan officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of aiding Taliban rebels and
other militants, a charge Islamabad denies.
So Islamabad used our money to help Osama create the data base that later became al-Queda. Engineered the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Had an engineer selling nuclear secrets to most of the 'axis of evil'. Couldn't help us get bin-Ladin. Still won't let us search for him in their country, though they assure us he's in Iran anyway. And still won't let us directly interview A.Q. Khan.
Sadam, on the other hand, said the jackals would drink our blood. So now we're all hoping Iraq turns out well after we start leaving before our next election cycle.
Trust 'allies' who consistently hurt us. Starve, bomb, and occupy people ruled by loud mouthed tyrants.
That's quite a strategy. Who am I to question such rational, even headed wisdom?
21 - Shark
I've been saying it for years: if we really wanted to take out terrorists -- (after Afghanistan) -- we would have invaded:
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
and Florida
(I'll be announcing my candidacy in early 07, btw.)
22 - Dave Nalle
SS, that quote from Karzai sounds absolutely like good news to me.
Dave
23 - Dave Nalle
I'm not even going to dignify Babs' personal attacks and Shark's typical repetitions of his old ad hominems with a response, but I will give a general response to all those who've commented on this thread.
The original article was not a 'polyanna' piece promoting how great things are in Iraq. In fact, it says nothing about whether things are good or bad in Iraq. It's merely a bit of news about Arthur Chrenkoff and the work he did and who's carrying that work on. It's primarily a suggestion to visit the websites mentioned.
Any person who wants to be informed about the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan should read these sites. They are non-partisan and extremely informative, and present a much more complete picture of the situation. They are not solely about good news, they are about reporting the whole picture, not jus the soundbyte you see on the evening news.
If you are not interested in being informed and knowing what you're talking about when this subject comes up, then by all means don't visit any of the sites and continue to hammer the same worn out and increasingly irrelevant points.
Dave
24 - Mark Schannon
Dave, old sport, you know that if a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a lot of knowledge'll kill you, so don't be so hard on people who subsitute opinion for fact. It's the American way.
Come to think of it, it's how we got into the Messopotamia in the first place.
To quote again from the Atlantic article in my post somewhere on blog critics,
(I tried to do a link, but as a techno-klutz, I may have linked to the NSA. If so, I didn't mean it...honest.)
"Yet in Iraq even the most credulous of Washington insiders had to know before our 2003 invasion that key White House assertions�we could pay for the war out of Iraqi oil revenues; we could secure that vast and raucous country with a little over 100,000 troops�flatly contradicted what almost all civilian and military experts were saying publicly and privately. Much that has gone wrong in Iraq could have been foreseen�and was."
Today's truth does not obscure yesterday's incompetence, lies, and deceptions.
In Jamesons Veritas
25 - Mark Schannon
Oh dear--link got a way with me, but it does get you to the right article, lol.