Good Morning, VietNam

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Reports from VietNam were so negative that Henry Luce of Time Magazine had them rewritten in NYC and Washington. Charlie Rose periodically interviews reporters in Iraq who are pressured by their editor for good news. Reporters have complained for months that good news is difficult to find.

A reporter from The Economist could have been reporting from VietNam over 30 years ago.

When deadly force bumps into hearts and minds from The Economist of 1 Jan 2005
The old man should have read the bilingual notices that American soldiers tack to their rear bumpers in Iraq: "Keep 50 meters or deadly force will be applied". In Ramadi, ... the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching within 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: "If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them", says a bullish lieutenant. "It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people."

And not all of them were in cars. Since discovering that roadside bombs, ... can be triggered by mobile telephones, marines say they shoot at any Iraqi they see handling a phone near a bomb-blast. Bystanders to an insurgent ambush are also liable to be killed. Sometimes, the marines say they hide near the body of a dead insurgent and kill whoever comes to collect it. According to the marine lieutenant: "It gets to a point where you can't wait to see guys with guns, so you start shooting everybody... It gets to a point where you don't mind the bad stuff you do."

Since September 1st, when the battalion's 800 men were deployed to Ramadi, they have killed 400-500 people, according to one of their senior officers. A more precise estimate is impossible, because the marines rarely see their attackers. When fired upon, they retaliate by blitzing whichever buildings they think the fire is coming from: charred shells now line Ramadi's main streets. "Sometimes it works in the insurgents' favour", admits Rick Sims, a chief warrant officer. "Because by the time we've shot up the neighbourhood, then the guys have torn up a few houses, they're four blocks away, and we just end up pissing off the locals."

Those estimates of 20,000 insurgents is now at about 40,000 full time insurgents and about 160,000 part time insurgents. Increases also seen in VietNam.

Mosul demonstrates the problem. When he could not get support from the Bremmer bureaucracy, the 101st Airborne General started a program much like the British. His soldiers went out to find and work with the people. They all but stole money from the Bremmer 'we are the experts' bureaucracy (George Jr's chosen one) to get reconstruction going. Money from Bremmer's people was all but non-existent. Bremmer's people never even bothered to put staff in Mosul. Relations in Mosul were some of the best. Now even Mosul is a center of the insurgency. Once the 101st left, then intelligent cooperation left with it. George Jr's people were in charge. When insurgents from Fallujah arrived in Mosul, the 500 man Iraqi Army Battalion and 6,000 policemen disappeared. Just like the S Vietnamese Army - a coincidence?

Some expressions in Iraq. FISH - Fighting In Someone's House. IOW first throw in a grenade. Then learn who you have harmed - civilian or insurgent. Muj - short for mugahideen. This was previously called Charlie, VC, or gook. The language tells us how this war is progressing. In a previous war, "We burned the village to save it." We also saved Fallujah?

More from The Economist of 1 Jan 2005:
In November, one in four American supply convoys was ambushed. Three months ago, American officials overseeing reconstruction in Mosul were lobbied by 30 Iraqi contractors in an average day; now, they struggle to find even one brave enough to accept their dollars. A low helicopter flight over the Kirkuk oilfield, Iraq's second-biggest, presented a scene from the Book of Revelation: each of seven oil wells was marked by a tower of orange flame, meeting in a canopy of dense black smoke.

Where progress is being made - once we ask for honest news reports.

Confirmed recently was another fact. Phase Four planning must be fully in progress if not completed when combat starts. But Phase Four plans never appeared until seven months after the president declared "Mission Accomplished". That was four months too late according to American military leaders in Iraq. Phase Four only has 90 days show results. Rumsfeld is still denying the looting even occurred - or at least he will not admit to it. The honeymoon is long over.

Another expression in VietNam - light at the end of a tunnel. Where is the light at the end of this Iraqi tunnel? Look into George Jr's mind or Rush Limbaugh's propaganda. Its the only place that Iraq is getting better. Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard told us this over a year ago when he said the administration had screwed it up. Billy Kristol is a founding member of the Project for New American Century.

Iraqi elections must go forward. Why? No matter how bad things are today, we know this to be fact: it is only going to get worse. Better to have elections when violence is less.

Thus harried, American commanders have abandoned the pretence of winning the love of Iraqis ahead of the scheduled vote. "Our broad intent is to keep pressure on the insurgents as we head into elections", says General Casey. "This is not about winning hearts and minds; we're not going to do that here in Iraq. It's about giving Iraqis the opportunity to govern themselves."

Both the numbers and troop language say same thing: Good Morning, VietNam.