Rumsfeld Says Election May Embolden Iraqis

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq&cid=540&ncid=1480


"I expect that level of violence and the insurgency to continue," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon (news - web sites) news conference. But at the same time, the voting may have marked a "tipping point" at which Iraqis who had been intimidated by the insurgents decide to step forward and join the army or other security force or provide useful information to U.S. forces, he said.


"I think it means that intelligence is going to improve, I think that it means that there will be more people who will be willing to provide information ... about people who were trying to intimidate them and control their cities, and over time" support for the government will grow, he said.


Rumsfeld also said U.S. forces are making good progress in training Iraqi security forces, but he cautioned that it was a gradual process.


"Nobody should expect that Iraqi security forces are going to come out of some pipeline," he said.

[Cocoa]

1. headline assumes insurgents aren't Iraqis

bad headline.

[Disturbed]

3. In the meantime...

a busload of fresh Iraqi recruits were assasinated. This is the 2nd time this has happened. The U.S. line from now on will be that any "Insurgents" are Terrorists, not Iraqi resistence to the U.S. Colonization.

[Sen. Brown]

4. well

zarqawi isnt iraqi...

[Cocoa]

5. lol

and Zarqawi is doing all, or even a significant number of, the attacks. hahahaha, good one!

[leftchick]

6. hysterical isn't it?

[Sen. Brown]

11. ?

He's claimed responsibility for very large number of attacks and beheadings. OBL named him the chief of Al Queda operations in iraq. What is so funny about that?

[Kinkistyle]

8. Embolden Iraqi INSURGENCY that is...

Thats exactly what I was thinking. The elections may have emboldened the Iraqi INSURGENTS now that they believe the U.S. is officially an occupational force in an "democratically independent nation", its time to step up the killing of U.S. soldiers. (and anybody elsewho's not in your religious group).

[louis-t]

2. "willing to provide information"

Yep, all you gotta do is torture a little more Rummy, and I'm sure they'll give up plenty of actionable intellig-huh? You don't get useful information from torture? The dickens, you say!

[Demeter]

7. Election Emboldens Bushites

Because they believe their own lies.

[On Par]

9. Rummy Needs To Review Vietnam History....

On September 4,1967 the New York Times published an upbeat story on presidential elections held by the South Vietnamese puppet regime at the height of the Vietnam war. Under the heading "US encouraged by Vietnam vote: Officials cite 83% turnout despite Vietcong terror", the paper reported that the Americans had been "surprised and heartened" by the size of the turnout "despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting". A successful election, it went on, "has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam".

The echoes of this weekend's propaganda about Iraq's elections are so close as to be uncanny.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/2335/87390

Confirmation:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/vietnam.asp

OP

[cosmicdot]

10. there they go with that 'embolden' word again

:puke:

I don't think that word was around between 1993 and 2000 to praise and support President Clinton.

[car54whereareyou]

12. "Embolden"

is the latest bushspeech twaddle. Any news source that uses the word is a propoganda organ, not a news source.

[daleo]

13. There was a story about "villagers fighting back" yesterday

Plenty of us thought it might just be propaganda, as details were scant and it fit within this meme Rumsfeld was propagating today. I still haven't seen it picked up by the majority of the media, or any more details printed that could be verified.

But I imagine the occupation authorities will want to push this angle of Iraqis resisting the resistance. There are lots of acts left in this drama, I guess.