Success should be measurable, i.e., volume of reporting, favorable Op-Ed pieces and the width and depth of support. Always make sure designated staff members, not volunteers, are availible 24/7 (if possible) to answer questions, offer additional information and just be friendly. Remember, just being there means a lot to reporters on a deadline and many times will just write what you have offered as their own copy. THIS IS A GOOD THING!
Tehran: 23:17 , 2007/04/27 Print version Email this to a friend
Tehran Times Opinion Column, April 28, By Alireza Davari
Vietnam flashback
TEHRAN, April 27 (MNA) -- The U.S. Senate recently passed a bill according to which U.S. military forces would have to leave Iraq by March 2008. However, President George W. Bush has repeatedly stated that he would veto the bill. But it appears likely the U.S. will be forced to leave Iraq in a far more humiliating way than the Soviet Union left Afghanistan.
This would be a major defeat for the United States almost as bad as the Vietnam debacle.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have cited the increasing unrest in Iraq as the main reason why U.S. forces should be withdrawn from the country.
The Democrats in Congress believe that stability can only
be established in Iraq through a political solution, although such views seem
overly optimistic, like the White House’s claim four years ago that U.S. troops
would be welcomed as liberators. However, U.S. citizens are worried about the
White House’s mismanagement of the war since it has become evident that
maintaining stability in Iraq is almost impossible.
Many U.S. officials have even admitted that the implementation of Bush’s ambitious policies in Iraq over the past four years has been a miserable failure. Iraq has become a smoldering ruin while Bush is trying to prevent a total collapse by calling for the deployment of even more troops to the region.
Yet, after a meeting with Bush, Reid told journalists that the United States had lost the war and that a troop surge would not help. He went on to say that success in
Iraq would only be possible through political and economic means, not war and
bloodshed.
Yet even this relatively honest senator did not tell the whole truth about how much the Iraqi people have suffered over the past four years of occupation.
On the other hand, the fact that the U.S. media occasionally mentions the terrible conditions the Iraqi people are experiencing indicates that U.S. citizens are apprehensively following the Iraq story.
U.S.-style democracy seems to mean only endless pain for
Iraqis. The violence that came with the occupation claims the lives of about 100
Iraqis every day, on average. Two out of three Iraqis do not have permanent
access to clean drinking water. Hundreds of thousands of children suffer from
malnutrition and many of them are dying from preventable diseases. The health
system is falling apart.
So far, four million Iraqis, or in other words, one out of every seven citizens, have felt compelled to leave their homes. Should the current trend continue, the tide of refugees will turn into a regional tsunami with significant political consequences, which, of course, would not be in the best interests of the U.S.
Despite all these problems, the Bush administration refuses to acknowledge the terrible humanitarian disaster brought on by their mistake and is pretending that they can handle all the problems in Iraq. However, the reality tells a different
story.
Half of the displaced Iraqis have fled the country. Jordan,
with a population of six million, now hosts 750,000 Iraqi refugees, and Syria,
with a population of 19 million, hosts 1.2 million refugees. Jordan has
officially declared that it will no longer allow Iraqi men between the ages of
17 and 35 to enter the country. According to the New York Times, Kuwait has
completely shut its borders to Iraqi citizens. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is
building a border barrier costing $7 billion to prevent Iraqis from entering the
country. The U.S., which is the main cause of all this misery, has accepted only
500 Iraqis, mostly just the educated asylum-seekers.
The Bush administration has lost more than the military battle because the consequences of the U.S. occupation are far-reaching.
Bush and his warmonger supporters have failed to realize that establishing stability in Iraq requires political strategies, not military ones. The new plan to increase troop levels in Iraq has met much opposition so far while there has been a rise in suicide bombings and other violence since the U.S. implemented the new Baghdad Security Operation, which is a joint effort by U.S. and Iraqi
troops.
Indeed, the recent assessment of the first months of the ongoing Baghdad Security Operation by high-ranking U.S. military officials like Peter Petraeus and William J. Fallon is vague.
It should be noted that U.S. casualties in Baghdad have increased by 21 percent since the Baghdad Security Operation was launched on February 14.
U.S. officials claim that the decline in violence in certain areas of Iraq, particularly
Baghdad, is due to the new U.S. military strategy, but the real reason is that
certain groups have chosen to take a hiatus.
As Bush and other U.S. officials are calling for a troop surge and constantly defend their new Iraq strategy, the Democrats are trying to find appropriate ways to limit Bush’s power.
Democrats in the U.S. Congress have also said that they will vote against Bush’s bill requesting an additional $93 billion for the military. This would undermine the plan to deploy another 21,500 troops to Iraq.
From a wider perspective, the miserable conditions in Iraq
and the dispute among White House official show that the U.S. will soon find
itself forced to withdraw from Iraq, just like the Soviet Union was forced to
withdraw from Afghanistan.
Thus, U.S. officials should draw up a timetable for withdrawing their forces, as Democrats in Congress are demanding, in order to end this war, which is becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States.
PA/HG
END
MNA
Remember, every vote counts. A great communications staff will always expand our base and effect a win! After all, victory is always our goal.
h/t Gateway Pundit
