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2004-05-04 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by tipper 2004-05-04 12:03:21 PM|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11128 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Blah blah blah 'quagmire' blah blah blah 'neocons'...blah blah. What tripe. The Post would love nothing better than to see the US pullout of Iraq, and they have been doing their best to undermine any good news coming from there. They might as well change their name to the Washington Post-Jazeera.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2004-05-04 12:28:47 PM|| 2004-05-04 12:28:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Wow. Once again, in the classic double-speak so prevalent in the press, WaPo plays up what it reports as fact, poses shooting-gallery bear questions, oredicts without any sense of irony future negative reporting, and editorializes answers that pose more questions, for tomorrow's editorializing - especially the Big Doubts that anyone knows anything. Manufactured Big Doubts serve one purpose when posed by these cretins: to reflect negatively on those in authority. Remarkably, and this is the real magic of their craft, Big Doubts never harm the press or the opposition - no, of course not... it seeds the next round.

A wordsmithing thing of beauty. Self-contained, neatly bundled in the middle but with messy skeery pointy things - things meant to undermine confidence - poking out of both ends. That they miss the boat and get their reporting wrong an amazingly high percentage of the time doesn't phase them, doesn't invoke the shame that comes for the Avg Joe when he screws up. No, indeed, they project their errors onto authority and call it confusion and mixed messages. Truly artful-dodger stuff.

Bravo, WaPo! You have "elevated" disingenuos agenda-mongering to a new low. Now FOAD - the filtering process needed to glean the facts and toss the agenda is just not worth the effort required of your drivel anymore.

"I think calls for ignoring WaPo and its ilk are starting to pop up all over the place now and will proliferate in the coming days and weeks. I find even the professionâs strongest supporters, including fervent advocates of the J-School model a year ago and even some who could be labeled "subscribers," now despairing and looking for an exit."

Me? I'm outta here.

Posted by .com 2004-05-04 12:34:04 PM|| 2004-05-04 12:34:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Strategy and tactics. Never confuse one with the other.

We have two minor problems in Iraq, both fully contained at this time, Fallujah and Sadr.

As has been noted here before, the enemy in Fallujah is confined to the northwest quarter of the city and is surrounded by our Marines.. It will occur to these guys very shortly that they have gained nothing. Iraqis taking over for Marines just means more Marines available for combat. We are in no hurry. Classic seiges have taken years. This one won't take that long, and every day that our Marines aren't dying in house to house combat is a good day.

Sadr continues to throw men against our forces in Najef and they keep dying for no purpose. Reports from inside the city show increased impatience with his thugs. Again, time is on our side.

Bremer continues to roll out Iraqi government ministries, utilities and infrastructure repairs continue nationwide, and nearly all of the 23 million Iraqis are day by day seeing a better life. Most Iraqis want us to leave, and that is both understandable and our strategy. Most Iraiqs want us to help them become safer, and that is both understandable and our strategy, as well. These things take time.

Conservatives are beginning to sound like libs in one respect. Refusing to engage in fighting on the enemy's terms is being seen as lack of planning and failure of will. What has actually been happening is an adaptive strategy, based on making changes as the situation demands. Strategy dictates tactics, not the other way around. Our primary goal is to return Fallujah and Najef to the control of the central government. We are, slowly but surely, doing so. We are not in Iraq to kill Iraqis, nor to take some sort of revenge, nor to profit from a conquest. We make mistakes, and adapt because of them.

The world, Rantburg included, is watching all this in real time. Life doesn't operate in real time. Everything we do plays out and the results are not immediately seen. Many people seem to expect results in days that will take months or years. Lack of immediate results does not indicate the lack of a plan, nor the failure of a plan.

The President has been clear that this process will take time, an undetermined amount of time. The military has always said that they expected our losses to mount as June 30 approached. The Liberation of Iraq is an on-going strategy that is proceeding in stages and will continue in that manner.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-05-04 12:36:45 PM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-05-04 12:36:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 With American forces in an independent Kurdisylvania would a war with Turkey really be in the making?

I'm thinking not.

But I agree with most of the post. I also think that Americans are not cowed by the bad press regarding the prison soft porn show. As compared to what they know about the barbarity of the enemy. G43, take out the guys standing up to you. Do it now. A new news cycle will put it as past history in days! And Americans, regular Joes and Janes, will be happy to see it. Lets go for the win.

Thinking about tieing a stray cat, thats been hanging around lately, to the bumper of my car and drag the evil thing around the block. Would that be a hoot? Shouting God is great!

Posted by Lucky 2004-05-04 12:40:16 PM|| 2004-05-04 12:40:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 We're nowhere near losing on the ground. At home is a bit more precarious, but only because of alarmist editorials like this. But WaPo is right to criticize those on the right who are already jumping the shark (Pipes, NRO, etc.).

Posted by someone 2004-05-04 12:59:53 PM|| 2004-05-04 12:59:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 someone: But WaPo is right to criticize those on the right who are already jumping the shark (Pipes, NRO, etc.).

Something less than full democracy is acceptable, as long as the new government is pro-American. This is a lot like what happened in Korea, Taiwan and a host of other countries during the Cold War. If full democracy isn't practical initially, we can wait for a few decades. The alternative to full democracy isn't necessarily the kleptocracies of the Mid East. With continuous pressure applied by the US to an Iraqi who is essentially pro-American, Iraq could take putter along as an authoritarian state for decades (like Korea and Taiwan) until it becomes a full democracy. The vital objective shouldn't be democratic rule - it should be selecting a ruler who is capable *and* pro-American to administer Iraq until democratic rule becomes possible.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-05-04 2:14:59 PM|| 2004-05-04 2:14:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I'm 'membered of a phrase I read in a book about the other quagmire.

To paraphrase, the war was not lost in the air over North Vietnam nor in by the grunts in the jungles in the south. The war was lost in the hearts and minds of the American people. It was their choice.

Posted by Michael 2004-05-04 4:12:22 PM|| 2004-05-04 4:12:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Chuck, great comment. I could not agree more. The micro-level of information that we receive is getting too many people to focus only on the negative. Yes, there are stumbles, and yes there are costs. But that has been the case in all of the conflicts we have engaged in. GW needs to kick a few State Dept butts, cut some red tape and make it clear to the American people that Iraq has not stopped because of isolated situations in Fallujah and Najaf. Remember, it is always darkest before the dawn and dawn is not coming for a while yet.

Posted by remote man 2004-05-04 4:14:16 PM|| 2004-05-04 4:14:16 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 The choice in Iraq is not between democracy and stability. It is between democratic stability, on the one hand, and civil conflict, chaos or brutal, totalitarian dictatorship and terrorism, on the other.

This is largely a reply to George Wills running series of columns. And I think it may well be true. Leaving aside the very different global political situations, I dont know that theres anyone in Iraq who could do what Chiang did in Taiwan. Who is the Chiang of Iraq, and what organization in Iraq is the KMT?

Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-05-04 4:16:41 PM|| 2004-05-04 4:16:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Liberalhawk -
George Will is usually pretty good, but I found the column today linked on realclearpolitics.com somewhat disjointed. Will is not like himself recently. I don't understand it.

Posted by BigEd 2004-05-04 4:39:03 PM|| 2004-05-04 4:39:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Biged - From my point of view GW makes sense. See ive always agreed with Paul Berman and Chris Hitchens that spreading democracy in the Mideast IS at bottom a liberal policy. Even if I have to keep hitting my head against the wall with radicals who cant see it cause they hate the US, and more moderate liberals who cant see it cause they hate Bush, and dislike the neocons for other reasons. In the same way I think there are a lot of paleoconservatives who wont see the same thing, out of their love for Dubya, or out of their visceral hatred for the left, the UN, the Euros, etc. Will is just calling it as he sees it. I think hes wrong, but its in charecter - hes never really been a neocon, though hes closer to them than alot of other paleocons - and its not inconsistent with what hes said since the Iraq debate began - or for that matter with what he said about Kosovo, or about nation building in general during the Clinton years.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-05-04 4:52:23 PM|| 2004-05-04 4:52:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Kurdisylvania

Trust me, this is the country you want in Risk and Dipomacy.

Posted by Shipman 2004-05-04 6:13:08 PM|| 2004-05-04 6:13:08 PM|| Front Page Top

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