Escalation Architect Fred Kagan: Ethnic Cleansing In Iraq Is A ‘Magnificent Myth’
Escalation Architect Fred Kagan: Ethnic Cleansing In Iraq Is A ‘Magnificent Myth’
On the PBS NewsHour last night, AEI scholar Fred Kagan (one of the main architects of the surge strategy, though he was not identified as such by host Jim Lehrer) made a startling assertion about the situation on the ground in Iraq:
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that there are no mixed areas in Iraq anymore and that the cleansing is completed. … Now, [these neighborhoods] are more consolidated than they had been before, certainly.
In August 2007, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization indicated that “the total number of internally displaced Iraqis [had] more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000″ since the surge started in February. Center for American Progress Iraq analyst Brian Katulis estimated that Baghdad, which once used to be a 65 percent Sunni majority city, “is now 75 percent Shia.”
In December, the Washington Post published a map comparing the sectarian distribution of Baghdad’s neighborhoods in April 2006 and November 2007, showing the transformation of the city that has resulted from Iraq’s civil war.
In an article challenging the claims of “success” that flow incessantly from war supporters like Fred Kagan, journalist Patrick Cockburn writes that “for millions of Iraqis…the war has robbed them of their homes, their jobs and often their lives. It has brought them nothing but misery and ended their hopes of happiness. It has destroyed Iraq.”
But surely those Iraqis who have lost homes and loved ones to the sectarian violence will be happy to know that they haven’t been “cleansed,” but only “consolidated.”
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Crackpot realism at its finest.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pmWhat is the connection with the war-mongerer and the wattle?
March 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pmRobert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Yet a founding member of PNAC and a cheerleader for eternal peace. When Kagan says peace he really means war.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:34 pmIt has destroyed Iraq
This is true, and it is something that we should be deeply ashamed about. Hopefully when Obama is President, he will be able to do something to make it up to the people of Iraq. A few billion poured into the country to really fix their infrastructure (making sure to hire Iraqi’s to do the work) would be a good start.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pmYet a founding member of PNAC and a cheerleader for eternal peace. When Kagan says peace he really means war.
Comment by Xisithrus — March 12, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
It’s the definition of peace that involves annihilating anyone who could possibly be an enemy.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:35 pmI wonder if its a requirement to either ignore inconvenient facts or just make up things to suit your purposes and call those facts in order to be called a neo-con?
March 12th, 2008 at 12:37 pm“The Magnificent Myth” Wow. He sold his soul a long time ago and will push this til his death.
The bigger the lie……….
March 12th, 2008 at 12:37 pmSo the Sunni Salafaist are not at war with the Mahdi Army? And the Mahdi Army isn’t tossing bodies from the Islamic State of Iraq daily into the Malhallah? And the PKK isn’t running massive incursions against the Badr Corps? And the Sahwa councils aren’t playing highest bidder mercenary for hire to every Sunni insurgent group in the region? This is great news. Too bad all of our MI guys in the IZ didn’t get the memo.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:41 pmI can’t beleive TP has the audacity to discuss ethnic cleansing when there is a sex scandal involving a Democrat.
I’m sure Fox “News” and all the rest of the MSM are properly ignoring petty issues like the election and the Iraq war to discuss the sordid details of Spitzer’s sex life.
Where are your morals TP?
March 12th, 2008 at 12:41 pmThis guy is the typical Neocon working in Washington these days playing both side of the ball while working for the PNAC which wants to expand our military in the middle east and is a member Carnegie endowment for peace.This is the usual contradiction from a warmongering and fearmongering Neocon. McCain wants more of the same.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:43 pm“I think what’s very important to understand is that this is a very local phenomenon. People have decided to join these movements because of local conditions on the whole and not because of some big pan-Sunni “Well, you know, now this is how we’re going to get them this time” plan, because you have to keep in mind people also forget the sequence of how these guys become concerned local citizens.
The first reason why they become concerned local citizens is because they don’t want to be killed, because they’re in a middle of a war that they’re losing. And so the first and only deal that we give them is we will agree not to kill them.
We aren’t paying these guys to come over to our side; we certainly aren’t arming them. What we’re doing is promising not to kill them in the first instance. Now, that happens on a local basis.”
This is a complete lie. We ARE paying them and we ARE arming them!!
March 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pmThe Magnificent Myth is that Kagan knows what the fcuk he’s talking about.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:46 pmSo the Sunni Salafaist are not at war with the Mahdi Army? And the Mahdi Army isn’t tossing bodies from the Islamic State of Iraq daily into the Malhallah? And the PKK isn’t running massive incursions against the Badr Corps? And the Sahwa councils aren’t playing highest bidder mercenary for hire to every Sunni insurgent group in the region? This is great news. Too bad all of our MI guys in the IZ didn’t get the memo.
Comment by Chris L — March 12, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
How many of those groups are we funding? I’ve completely lost track.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:49 pmWe aren’t paying these guys to come over to our side; we certainly aren’t arming them. What we’re doing is promising not to kill them in the first instance. Now, that happens on a local basis.â€
This is a complete lie. We ARE paying them and we ARE arming them!!
Comment by impeachcheneythenbush — March 12, 2008 @ 12:46 pm
###
This is a hilarious statement. If this guy had any idea what the CLC’s actually do, he would know that we have to arm them in order for them to do the job we are paying them to do. The CLC’s are the former 1920′ Revolutionary Brigade that we were fighting against us in 2003/2004. We have been paying them (and arming them) to aid in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pmWhat is the connection with the war-mongerer and the wattle?
Comment by DieNowForPeace — March 12, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Those who don’t have to invest their bodies in warfare have no need to keep in shape, nor a need to constrain their cheerleading for other men to face battle to achieve their aims.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pmFinally, I found mention of the silly terror warning colors:
Hill roiled by aircraft incident
WASHINGTON – The threat level was briefly raised from yellow to orange and personnel in the U.S. Capitol were ordered to prepare to evacuate Wednesday after an aircraft flew too close to the restricted airspace around federal Washington.
Tourists were turned away, but the Capitol was not evacuated. The threat level was soon returned to yellow, or elevated and later, green — or low threat — according to police and other officials.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pmIf the media was really honest, all of these PNACer madmen would be outed publicly along with the insane PNAC plan to turn the middle east into part of the Pan Americana Empire wet dream the PNAC group is pushing.
I mean, for God(s) sake, its is on the freaking web for the world to see and the American MSM ignores it like it doesn’t exhist.
Absolutely Un-f-king-believable.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:52 pmI’m very disappointed in PBS, I expect a lot more from them.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:57 pmCan our esteemed press corpse stop giving these dishonest tools a bully pulpit? We’re 30 years into the lying conservative jihad. We should know better with these untrustworthy folks. It’s simply bought and paid for propaganda posing as “scholarship.”
It’s time to nail the propagandists like Kagan off into their foul corner of our discourse. Wrong on everything. Dismissed! Platform denied!
It’s an occupation. The invasion of Iraq was a betrayal of trust, not a mistake. The escalation has failed because it has not delivered on the promised political progress.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pmThose who don’t have to invest their bodies in warfare have no need to keep in shape, nor a need to constrain their cheerleading for other men to face battle to achieve their aims.
Comment by ralph the wonder llama — March 12, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
Saaaay… did you make that up, or are you quotin’ somebody?
March 12th, 2008 at 1:01 pmMedia Motto: The more wrong you were, the more right you must be after the fact.
That’s the only reason I can think of for why guys like Kagan, O’Hanlon, et. al. keep getting the media voice: the media some how things that their wrongness gives them some sort of cogent insight that people who were RIGHT ALL A-FREAKING-LONG don’t.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:03 pmWe need alot of “V’s” in this country.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:03 pmHe just said the ethnic cleansing isn’t ‘completed’…
March 12th, 2008 at 1:09 pmObviously we must remain fully committed in Iraq until the Iraqis have ‘completed’ their ethnic cleansing or until we run out of money (to funnel to KBR/Halliburton, the Sunni and Shia militias, etc.) whichever comes first… after all, America doesn’t cut and run- we cut a check and suffer…
Absolutely, Kagan. And homelessness is a vicious rumor spread by people with nowhere to live.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pmHeh. The only thing that’s “magnificent” about that fat, greasy little putz is his idiocy.
Good grief.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:11 pmWhat is the connection with the war-mongerer and the wattle?
Comment by DieNowForPeace
A karmic feed back loop of continual be-headings in past lives.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pmaka: sub-conscious scar tissue.
Semantics make everything A-okay!
March 12th, 2008 at 1:13 pmA karmic feed back loop of continual be-headings in past lives.
aka: sub-conscious scar tissue.
Comment by Nevar — March 12, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
Whoa… that… that’s… DEEP.
You need to start puttin’ a “Dr” in front of yer name… “Dr Nevar”… see?
March 12th, 2008 at 1:17 pm6 days
6 weeks
6 months
Kagan & Rove are ‘architects’, alright…they specialize in building houses of cards that collapse under any sunlight.
BTW, Kagan has a face made for radio.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pmSemantics make everything A-okay!
Comment by Zooey — March 12, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
To parse this farce one must remember that everyday is “opposite day” in the ‘Wonderful World of W and the neocons”
March 12th, 2008 at 1:21 pmBushco New Speak -
war = peace
Ethnic Cleansing = consolidated
Republican = Patriot
39 dead Iraqis a day = The surge is working
I think they just make up crap as they go, knowing that the 19%ers will believe anything they spew from their pie holes.
Buck Hussein Fush
March 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pmJust read the transcript and Kagan talks in circles and in theory. He’s a neocon’s neocon. The other gentleman in the transcript (forgot his name) talks about specifics and actuality.
It’s worth reading. Shows the delay tactics by Sadr. It talks of the real fear by the Sunnis that when we leave they will be slaughtered.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pmI saw this too and was startled by how clear it is that these folks know NOTHING about reality on the ground…
It’s obviously too much to ask to have them to come out of their bunkers/think tanks to come on a TV show AND actually go see what’s actually happening before they open their pie-holes. (and he’s eaaten a LOT of pies)…
I think the first commenter summed it up the best:
“Crackpot realism at its finest.
Comment by Xisithrus — March 12, 2008 @ 12:31 pm”
March 12th, 2008 at 1:31 pmRobert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Yet a founding member of PNAC and a cheerleader for eternal peace. When Kagan says peace he really means war.
Comment by Xisithrus — March 12, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
“I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.” -President Bush, 06-18-02
March 12th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
“Dr Nevarâ€â€¦ see?
Comment by The Republic of Stupidity
Thank you.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:38 pmYou may pay the receptionist on your way out.
See you tomorrow.
Kapgun kan’t read maps, wouldn’t know the truth if it stood directly in front of him and kapped him in the face.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:42 pmWhat an insult to our professional military guys these pasty punk wingnut welfare cases like Kagan are.
Anyone notice that, when they want to prove up one of their b.s. claims about Iraq they always have to trot out the same 2 or 3 sold-out stink-tankers who obviously have no morals, no conscience, and no real qualifications.
Those guys best stay away from the bars where the generals and admirals hang out if they want to keep their teeth.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pmKagan needs a cleansing.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:51 pm“Why don’t you guys pick on someone else. I was up all night coloring these maps to prove my point!! waah, waah, I’m a little righty, and you guys are no fair!!”
March 12th, 2008 at 1:53 pmAnd the beat goes on…
and on……..
and when the revolution starts I’ll join society again.
Until then these lying sacks are going to take us down as quickly as they can. They mean business and things are very serious.
Iraq is only their beginning. They will pull off more unless stopped.
And stop thinking Obama is going to save us. The guy is not a messiah. He and Hillary were preselected by media big business for christs sake.
Until Americans get as serious as the Kagans of the world we are just loud mouth boars like them.
March 12th, 2008 at 1:57 pmWell, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of WMD…
March 12th, 2008 at 2:21 pmWell, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that Saddam Hussein had contacted with Al-Queida…
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that the USA is in Iraq to spread “Freedom and Democracy”…
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that the USA does not torture…
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that the USA’s economy is not on recession and is strong…
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that the mission is acomplished…
Well, there’s a magnificent myth out there…that the USA has a democratic elected president…
Kagan needs a cleansing.
Comment by jb — March 12, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
A high colonic, maybe?
March 12th, 2008 at 2:39 pmA high colonic, maybe?
Comment by missmolly — March 12, 2008 @ 2:39 pm
May I suggest a barbed wire colonoscopy?
March 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pmA fire hose? Something w/ some real pressure? And volume?
March 12th, 2008 at 3:44 pmAnd that the AEI is anything but a fact-manufacturing spin machine for the wingnut right (the Scaifes, Coors, and so many others) is another magnificent myth.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:23 pmPBS did allow Mr. Kagen a platform. They were specifically addressing the Question: Is the Surge Working. Mr. Kagen claims that it is. PBS has offered balance to that position from Nir Rosen, who was very articulate in his position that the surge is really a lull.
From Mr. Rosen :
“But what’s really frightening is that, indeed, when that sectarian fighting will resume — and it will — there’s going to be nowhere to run to, because Syria and Jordan have closed their borders to Iraqi refugees; 11 of Iraq’s 18 governors have closed their borders to internally displaced Iraqis. So when the fighting resumes intensively, it’s going to be a slaughter.”
I agree with hellinabucket that the transcript is worth reading…and I applaud PBS for making it’s balanced reporting available on line in transcript form.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:27 pmWhat an insult to our professional military guys these pasty punk wingnut welfare cases like Kagan are.
Comment by tombaker — March 12, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
Typical neocon.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:29 pmHe looks like he’s spent a lot of time in his youth alone in his room fantasizing…maybe playing with his toy soldiers.
Real life experience?……….not so much
Actual military service?……You must be joking!
Put a helmet on this useless lump of flesh, give him a gun and send him to the Iraq streets to give him a taste of reality.
March 12th, 2008 at 6:31 pm49. Took the words out of my mouth. That boy’s jowls haven’t stopped wiggling since his last middle-school wedgie. Full field gear, armor, weapon and then squeeze his fat ass into an unarmored Humvee to check out just how chummy Al Sadr and the Sunni militia are getting. I haven’t seen or heard fantasy like his in years–Kagster could make a fortune writing soft porn.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:46 pmWhy would any news outlet give time to anybodt from aei? By now everybody must know it’s a collection of right wing criminals and hacks who have been wrong about everything. Anything any of them say is denial of reality or outright lies. The should be in prison, not on TV.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:37 am“I think what’s very important to understand is that this is a very local phenomenon. People have decided to join these movements because of local conditions on the whole and not because of some big pan-Sunni “Well, you know, now this is how we’re going to get them this time” plan, because you have to keep in mind people also forget the sequence of how these guys become concerned local citizens.
The first reason why they become concerned local citizens is because they don’t want to be killed, because they’re in a middle of a war that they’re losing. And so the first and only deal that we give them is we will agree not to kill them.
We aren’t paying these guys to come over dell inspiron b120 battery,dell inspiron b130 battery to our side; we certainly aren’t arming them. What we’re doing is promising not to kill them in the first instance. Now, that happens on a local basis.”
October 15th, 2008 at 4:55 am