Like Anthony Cordesman, my representative Rep. Jan Schakowsky is just back from Iraq with a view that does not fit the administration’s propaganda offensive about "progress." Indeed, she even makes clear that she understands that there is a major public relations effort to turn opinion in this country. One based on wishful thinking, rather than facts on the ground. She says:

What I feel is going on right now is that there’s a major PR effort going on to convince the Congress and the media and the public that just enough progress has been made to justify staying. A little more, and then maybe a little more, and a little more — perhaps to where Petraeus has said 9 or 10 years have elapsed. Calling for patience is not at this point going to work with the American people, and I’m hoping…are just too smart to be fooled again.

Obviously, with those views we won’t be seeing her all the networks like O’Hanlon and Pollack because her views automatically designate her a very “unserious” person. She is so unserious that she’s concerned how the media is “buying in” to people like O’Hanlon.

She also reiterated a quote from Petraeus that we would need to be in Iraq for 9-10 years if we want to win. So, forget September. Talk to him in a decade.

Petreaus just saw your “Friedman unit” (FU) and raised it substantially. We’ll now talk in units of 10 years. It’s called the Petreaus Unit (PU), and people in my neighbor don’t like the smell of it.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/10/schakowsky-iraq/

Yet for all that chest thumping, it’s too bad that our trolls (not the best and brightest), can’t come up with a strategy any better than let’s stay in Iraq and watch our troops die in the middle of a religious and tribal civil war, while they pretend that the vast majority of Americans who don’t want to continue this tragedy can’t remember 9/11 and hate America. Tsk.

In his Aug 5 column, Frank Rich (after citing Glenn about O’Hanlon’s and Pollack’s pro-war, pro-surge, pro-progress views) says this:

That think-tank pundits with this track record would try to pass themselves off as harsh war critics in 2007 shows how desperate they are to preserve their status as Beltway “experts” now that the political winds have shifted. Such blatant careerism would be less offensive if they didn’t do so on the backs of the additional American troops they ask to be sacrificed to the doomed mission of providing security for an Iraqi government that is both on vacation and on the verge of collapse.

Let’s not forget that.

Impressions are great for essays and paintings ... for reporting ... give me metrics.

For war supporters, O’Hanlon’s and Pollack’s excellent adventure in Iraq was an unqualified success, and their “metric” was the rise in the most recent USA Today poll for those who think the surge is going well. That was the goal – not real reporting – so, in pure propaganda terms, it was, they say, “mission accomplished.”

Right wing bloggers (e.g. Captain Ed, Sister Toldjah) are now using this poll to warn the Democrats against continuing to advocate an early withdrawal. They echo Pollack’s advise for the Dems to “cool it” on criticizing the surge.

If you read such blogs, you’d get the impression that Democrats are now in serious trouble on the issue of the war in Iraq. But even the poll they herald as their “victory” shows that 41% say the surge isn’t doing any good, with another 24% saying it’s making things worse.

When you add those two numbers together you get 65% against the surge, as opposed to 31% who thinks the surge is making progress.

Now why is it again that Democrats have to be afraid of criticizing the surge when more than twice as many Americans agree with them over the surge supporters?

Now the original USA Today poll taken when Bush announced the surge was that the public opposed the surge by a 61% to 36% margin. And now, eight months later, we have only 31% saying the surge is showing progress and 65% saying it isn’t, and somehow, in the fevered minds of war-supporting bloggers the Democrats are on the run.

Even by their own metrics – “propaganda is everything” – the surge is complete failure. Somebody explain to me again why the Democrats need to stop opposing the surge?

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2007/08/06/bad-news-for-democrats-poll-numbers-show-support-for-surge-growing/

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=26080

from the beginning he interrupted every question, screaming about how sick he was of all the people trying to suggest he has a different view than O'Hanlon/Pollack

That is a rather bizarre statement coming from someone who started out his article by writing this:

"It is scarcely surprising that my perceptions of a recent trip to Iraq are different from that of two of my traveling companions,"

Cordesman himself admits that in his article, and now he’s denying it?

I have no idea what’s going on here, but could it be that’s he’s gotten a ear full from those in the military who set up this little propaganda adventure for him about going off message?

He is “on message” for the long term in terms of the surge, but the whole point of this propaganda exercise was short term, and on that, he definitely had a different message than O’Hanlon – whether he wants to admit that now is entirely irrelevant.

Has someone lost his next “field trip” invitation? He sure is cranky about something.