Gallows humor in Iraq

August 31, 2007

To be absolutely clear, there is nothing funny about attacks on Americans. Ever.

That said, this has a certain gallows-humor quality to it. First the set-up…

A military cargo plane carrying four members of Congress took evasive action and dispatched flares to avoid ground fire Thursday night after taking off from Baghdad.

The lawmakers said three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at their plane, a C-130, over the course of several minutes as they left for Jordan.

“It was a scary moment,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who reported seeing a bright flash outside the window just after he took off his body armor. “Our pilots were terrific. . . . They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares.”

…and then the punch-line.

Despite the scare, Shelby, Martinez and Cramer said they believed the recent troop buildup had helped stabilize parts of the country.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and the plane was able to reach its destination without further incident.

But c’mon. Despite an attempt on their lives, these Republican lawmakers still believe the surge is producing encouraging results?

I’ve noticed a handful of Bush acolytes, including Lieberman and McCain, use the drive from the airport to the Green Zone as a metric of the success of the Bush policy. If Lieberman has to take a helicopter, he says conditions on the ground are bad. If he can take a well-armed caravan with air support, then conditions must be on the upswing.

But if that’s the case, how should we interpret last night’s incident? Ordinarily, Iraqis aren’t trying to assassinate our elected officials upon their departure. Now, they are, with rocket-propelled grenades. Might this kinda sorta reflect deteriorating conditions? Maybe?

Brian Beutler had a couple of additional observations worth noting.

One, that whatever the situation on the ground, the surge isn’t helping the situation in the sky; two, that the surge isn’t working on the ground in those portions of Iraq where militants shoot rockets at airplanes; and three, that the situation in Iraq is such that, in the best case scenario, planes are rocketed out of the sky only when organized fighters get word that foreign officials are on board. It’s perfectly possible, though, that planes over Iraq are rocketed without particular passenger targets in mind.

I suppose that’s true, but either way, it doesn’t speak to “increased stability” on the ground in Iraq.

I think if that plane went down, the Republicans would have to face reality that Iraq is currently ungovernable.

  • I have more sympathy for everyone and thing on that plane including their urine soaked underwear than the four Congress boobs.

    The way they talk about the surge working is a salesman telling a car buyer that a car has a great safety record as they claw their way out of the car wreck.

  • I think if that plane went down, the Republicans would have to face reality

    Careful here Lloyd. That argument sounds like “If we had another terror attack in the US, the Democrats would have to face reality” meme.

    Neither school of thought is helpful. Terror attacks in America and planes getting shot down in Iraq are both terrible things.

  • It is amazing how people who are too stupid to live just keep on living despite the best efforts of RPGs.

  • It does make me wonder if one of those idiots took a non-fatal round to the shoulder whether they would say that was “progress” in Iraq and proof that the insurgents are “on the run”.

    I would challenge any of those doughy pantloads to go ride with some of their constituents for just a few days through the streets of Baghdad, and tell them how stable things are getting.

    “Despite the scare, Shelby, Martinez and Cramer said they believed the recent troop buildup had helped stabilize parts of the country.”

    Parts of Iraq are stable! Amazing! Maybe they should show us which parts are “stabilized” by going there and walking around without a McCain size guard detail.

    Show us. Or shut the hell up.

  • Correction :
    To be absolutely clear, there is nothing funny about attacks on Americans anyone. Ever.

    If a foreigner walked into your living room, threw your stuff around, lined you and your family up outside against a wall with your hands on your head and a gun at your back, chances are you’d feel pretty sore about it. So, just because the foreigner happens to be an American does that make it any less abhorrent?

    For a people obsessed with National Security and Defense, it’s strange to be so uncomprehending of other people’s resistance to American intrusion. I’d have thought Americans of all people would be the first to recognize and applaud the right of a country to defend itself against foreign interference. Apparently, like so much else in the current American mind-set, it’s “one rule for us and another rule for them”. Shameful.

    Anyway, the rest of the story has a certain redemptive piquancy.

  • I see that Petraus isn’t just trying to screw with American heads, he’s going for the Australians too…

    The White House appears to be using Gen. David Petraeus as a PR flack to assist Howard’s reelection effort. Petraeus offered a one-on-one interview with The Australian, timed to coincide with Bush’s visit. In the interview, Petraeus said Bush’s Iraq strategy is working:

    General Petraeus told The Australian during a face-to-face interview at his Baghdad headquarters there had been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year.

    The Australian reports, “In a general sense, this success will help the Howard Government.” But as numerous reports have indicated, these claims of success are specious. Sectarian and ethnic killings remain very high, running at almost double the rate of last year.…

    http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/31/petraeus-john-howard/

    Woo Hoo! Killings are down 75%! Or maybe I’m just playing games with numbers, and killings are really double!

    What a tool.

  • Tailor made military tours are confirmation the surge is working? If that’s all these dupes see, why even go to Iraq when they could watch it on TV along with the power point presentations complete with audio interviews of soldiers. They are not allowed to see anything different and yet they are willing to accept this as confirmation of success. And we have to pay for these trips. Really, why do they have to be there in person? And when they are shot at and almost killed they cannot see this as conflicting with what they have been shown in the tour. It’s a waste of money to travel there when they ignore evidence to the contrary, which is the only thing they wouldn’t have seen by staying at home and watching the tour on TV.

  • Something about this seems a little fishy to me. A standard RPG is a short-range, unguided anti-tank weapon that would have little chance of hitting a plane once it had gotten any altitude. The pilot’s tactics suggest it might have been more of a Stinger surface-to-air missile which is a much more sophisticated weapon.

    I’m just speculating here, and it may well be that the plane was still close enough to the ground for an RPG to be a credible threat. But if the bad guys have gotten their hands on actual Stingers then trips to and from Baghdad are going to get a whole lot more interesting from now on.

  • I remember an account once told of when the the US gave Stinger missiles to the mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. The story said that when the first Stinger took down a Soviet chopper, that was the day the Soviets officially lost the war.

    If this attack was a some sort of shoulder-fired rocket capable of surface-to-air action, then this little incident may loom large for the US military presence in Iraq. if so, I can’t help wonder if Putin is returning the.

  • calvin is distressed that all commenters seem to be focussing on what they believe to be the obvious. Namely, that whatever was fired at that C-130 was from the so-called insurgents.

    Haven’t any of you considered the possibility of “friendly fire”?

  • Re: possible friendly fire @12, all I can say is that if Bush or Cheney were known to be on the plane, there’s a definite ‘maybe’ factor there. But for three C-list politicians, probably not. 😉

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