Selective Release

Clearly the big news in this story relates to the bombings, but an interesting B plot begins here:

Officials released two seized documents they said were handwritten by members of the group, in despair about defections and decreasing popular support.

The article then goes on to describe the contents of those documents as supporting that official interpretation and then notes that:

The military, citing security concerns, released only excerpts of the two documents.

Of course they are. It couldn't be that the documents were released primarily for domestic propaganda purposes but that making them effective propaganda required some editing, thus leading to the excerpts only policy.

I will say, though, that there does seem to be a ray of genuinely good news lurking about. The anti-"Awakening" forces appear to have decided that operations resulting in large numbers of Sunni Arab civilian casualties are counterproductive and have focused on attacking Awakening fighters and police instead. That should make continued combat somewhat less deadly, which counts as a small mercy.

Comments

So, I read this quote -- Officials released two seized documents they said were handwritten by members of the group, in despair about defections and decreasing popular support. -- and I was sure this was going to be a post about internal dissension in the Clintons campaign team.

Posted by The Confidence Man | February 10, 2008 9:01 PM

Let's keep the players identified correctly.

Sunni insurgents aren't going to be targeting Sunni civilians in any case - except by accident, see below..

Al Qaeda types are to some degree from other countries and won't care that much if they target Sunnis or Shia.

However, it is clear the Al Qaeda types have decided that previous tactics have been counterproductive and need to be modified (to the degree these fanatics can do so, anyway.)

However, if you're using suicide bombers and car bombs, even if you're attacking Awakening members and cops, you're going to be hitting quite a few civilians anyway. So I think Matt is optimistic that such casualties are going to get significantly better.

Most of the civilian casualties came during the Sunni-Shia ethnic cleansing period anyway, and probably still do.

Much of the Awakening groups complaints to the US today have to do with allegedly corrupt or anti-Sunni Shia members of the government police forces fighting their members.

Which of course means that there is no "reconciliation" going on here, despite the fantasies of the right wing nuts.

The important news yesterday is that one of the Kurdish leaders met with Sistani and the other clerics, as part of a current process where the Iraqi government formation is being juggled in an attempt to gain some stability and avoid having to dump Maliki. It's not clear how this is going to turn out.

The Kurds in particular are attempting to pressure Maliki into allowing them to hold their referendum on being autonomous as well as pressuring him to stop supporting the US and Turkey against the PKK. Thus this visit to Sistani and the idea to "bribe" Maliki with the notion that he can stay in power if he goes along with the Kurds.

It's like the comment on the Clinton campaign reorganization: "re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 10, 2008 9:54 PM

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Posted by JA | February 10, 2008 11:27 PM

Now's the time to introduce my favorite idea from the crack wars: marksmanship training for gang members. Let's cut down on that collateral damage.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 11, 2008 7:10 AM

"small mercy"

But you should note 1) that at the very least the US presence is irrelevant to the delivery of this small mercy. and 2) that the US presence almost certainly makes it less likely that it will come about, and that it will come about later in time.

This is another plank in the argument that the US presence is worsening, not suppressing the conflict.

Posted by jayAckroyd | February 11, 2008 11:00 AM

"small mercy"

But you should note 1) that at the very least the US presence is irrelevant to the delivery of this small mercy. and 2) that the US presence almost certainly makes it less likely that it will come about, and that it will come about later in time.

This is another plank in the argument that the US presence is worsening, not suppressing the conflict.

Posted by jayAckroyd | February 11, 2008 11:01 AM

I was going to write something snarky, like Matthew would prefer the Army release something that will get some of our soldiers killed. But, actually, if Matthew had just done a little research, he would have seen that his post is complete BS (albeit, BS based on NYTimes BS).

At least as regards the Abu Tariq letter, the military didn't release "excerpts". You can read the entire letter, as released, here. As you can plainly see, the redacted parts are basically names and other identifying info (e.g., phone numbers) of the terrorists. There isn't anything deleted that "required some editing" in order to make them "effective propaganda" for the Army.

This is the type of superficial and misleading post that makes Matthew's Iraq-related commentary utterly unconvincing. He's willing to slander the Army without even putting in 5 seconds of research on a topic - 5 seconds of research that would have shown his post to be worthless.

Typical, complete BS from Matthew on Iraq.

Posted by Al | February 11, 2008 11:04 AM

Al's surprised that Matt doesn't do research.

That should have been obvious from day one.

Matt's a wannabe pundit. They don't do "research", they issue Opinions From On High based on nothing but their own biases.

Look at Matt's Afghanistan posts - based on absolutely nothing. No evidence Matt knows anything at all about what's going on over there.

That said, it was obvious to me that the important point of the story was not the alleged "editing" that Matt dreamed up, but the AQI tactic modifications. But this is old news from several days - if not months - ago. Zawahiri was bitching to that AQI leader we killed last year about this.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 11, 2008 6:14 PM