Letters to the Editor
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Anonymous idiot & WT
Anonymous idiot
"His background is in the CIA and NSC, where they've found satellite photos work best for getting an accurate picture of things."
Stunningly ignorant.
-- Jim Montague
I believe Anonymous was being sarcastic.
and WT, re Hillary vs. Ron Paul. I'd disagree with you there. Hill likes war, so long as it plays in Hill's favor -- i.e., I don't think she'd object to bombing Teheran, so long as she thought it help her in the polls. If it comes down to Hillary vs. Rudy/Mitt/Fred, etc., I think I might just have to bail.
Oddly enough, my NY Times Liberal Friend (who endorses the draft for other people's children and votes Dem all the way) likes Hillary quite a bit -- for her "centrist" and "rational" positions -- but just recently donated to the Ron Paul campaign. The woild's a strange place, innit?
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Why Immediately Jump? (AKA: If It Smells Like Concerns Troll...)
EDL:
I'm perfectly open to (if not yet convinced of) the possibilty that my reasoning is flawed. But let's say that so; why do you immediately jump to the ad hominem attack? Why cast it in terms of my being a "dishonest dipshit" rather than my being, say, "mistaken"?
Glenn wrote:
Worse, they announce that "the Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility," as though they have not. But let us look at Michael O'Hanlon, and review just a fraction of the endless string of false and misleading statements he made about Iraq and ask why anyone would possibly listen to him about anything, let alone consider him an "expert" of any kind:
And then presented a mind-numbingly long sampling of O'Hanlon's blather. Some of it came from before the war, some of it from after, but all of it represented "the endless string of false and misleading statements he made about Iraq," just as Glenn had promised.
Then you wrote:
Mr. Greenwald used quotes that are more than four years old to discredit O'Hanlon's assesment of what's happened *within the last four years.*
But that's not what Glenn did at all. He did just what he promised in the passage I quoted above. He highlighted statements by O'Hanlon that have been discredited over the past four years, every bit as much as the Bush Administration's various "Oceana has always been at war with Bumfuck, Egypt" lines have been discredited.
As for the rest, smells like concern troll to me. So why not say so?
Prove me wrong.
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What Wabanatta_3 Said
You learn far more reading Juan Cole than going on propaganda tours. That these clowns even use all the approved lingo shows they either haven't got a clue or know who butters their bread. At this point it doesn't matter which one is true.
And NPR is much better off when they stick to hilariously misinterpreting pop culture. It's not nearly so funny when they misinterpret stuff that gets millions of people killed.
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The most damning thing in the piece
Is his formula that showed we were about to win.
There are 3000-5000 insurgents, we kill 50 a day. That means in 100 days they'll all be dead and we'll have won!
Anyone who engages in that logic above is a fool, a complete fool. It's evidence that O'Hanlon is monumentally stupid. And monumentally stupid people are not experts.
If there were only 5000 insurgents and we killed 50 a day then what happened? Oopsy.
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Anonymous
Please accept my apology for jumping to conclusions about your post. I have a bad habit of speed reading through articles and posts, I'll learn to slow down.
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@Paul Rosenberg:
You might be right that working in academia creates social pressures to conform, but the institute where I worked was hardly a plush Versailles-esque existence and (unlike O’Hanlon) most of my colleagues at the time were opposed to the war.
While he was wrong in many respects, I think the fact that O’Hanlon was measured in his initial advocacy of war and balanced in his subsequent assessments distinguishes him from the Bush administration or other right wing cheerleaders. O’Hanlon favored a war with a broad credible international presence supported by a robust force that could credibly secure the peace. This was not the war Rumsfeld imposed on the generals. O’Hanlon’s plan might not have worked, but it was certainly different from the Administration’s.
Throughout late 2003 and 2004, O’Hanlon tried to measure progress in Iraq based on a set of objective indicators (still maintained as part of the Brooking’s Iraq Index). He may have interpreted these figures optimistically (this is my opinion, by the way, despite our shared “social milieu”), but he certainly did not simply parrot back the Administration line of “everything is improving.” Anyone who looked at the data could quickly identify the continuing problems in electricity, water and oil production, issues O’Hanlon highlighted in various op-eds (including the on-going “op-chart” feature in the Times).
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Not Necessarily
Jim Montague:
Anonymous idiot
"His background is in the CIA and NSC, where they've found satellite photos work best for getting an accurate picture of things."
Stunningly ignorant.
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, "It's more important for an idea to be interesting, than for it to be true."
As a corollary, it's more important for intelligence to be relevant than for it to be accurate.
Human intelligence is always a bit fuzzy, never as sharp as satellite photos are, and generally requires considerable skill to sift through and properly evaluate.
The problem lies with a political leadership that doesn't realize such an obvious point, otherwise made through the story of the drunk, looking for his car keys under the steetlight, because the light was so much better there than where he had dropped them.
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Going to Iraq makes them more serious, I suppose
But really, they could have saved themselves the trip.
Iraqi Officials say Civilian Deaths Down a Third in June - The figures, compiled by the interior, health, and defense ministries show 1,241 civilians died in June, compared with 1,951 during May.
U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver says the coalition also keeps track of civilian deaths.
"We have seen a downward trend just as the Iraqi Ministry of Interior put out today. We have seen this trend, but as the surge of operations, Operation Phantom Thunder, just started two weeks ago, we are not yet sure whether our operations are the cause of the decline. We are looking at that very carefully," said Garver. http://voanews.com/english/2007-07-01-voa14.cfm
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The sense that I got from them was I couldn't be more impressed or more proud. And you know the conditions we're under now. This is just beginning to be the hottest part of the year. They're out there operating and frequently billeting, quartering themselves in these JSSs, some of which are pretty rudimentary. And these guys were all over it. They've got tremendous morale. http://www.defendamerica.mil/specials/2007/blog/docs/Bergner_Transcript.pdf
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The Iraqi army is making progress obtaining good leaders and rank-and-file soldiers, as well as developing a more efficient logistics system, a senior U.S. officer serving in Iraq said today.
Senior Iraqi officers visiting training bases report that Iraqi recruits display exuberance and a desire to serve the nation of Iraq, rather than just their tribe or ethnic group, Navy Capt. David Pine, chief of staff for the Joint Headquarters Transition Team Iraq, said today during a teleconference with online journalists and “bloggers.” ...
Members of the Iraqi army “are probably the most professional and disciplined of all the (Iraqi military) organizations,” Pine said. “And, they are all about being Iraqi, not being Sunni or Shiia or Kurd.” http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46706
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Bush cited progress in Anbar province, al Qaeda’s former base in Iraq that was written off by many as lost. “Since then, U.S. and Iraqi forces have teamed with Sunni sheiks who have turned against al Qaeda,” he said. “Hundreds have been killed or captured. Terrorists have been driven from most of the population centers.” http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46827
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Just a few months ago, the idea that Americans could walk around the center of the city would have been unthinkable. U.S. personnel could not move from one heavily fortified area to another without receiving small-arms fire or an improvised explosive device attack.
Times change. A striking illustration of the changing fortunes of Ramadi took place today, when Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took a walk around downtown. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46756
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Embedded provincial reconstruction teams, known as EPRTs, are helping teach Iraqi businessmen and local officials how to better function as part of a democratic government.
...One of the primary responsibilities of these teams is refining plans the brigades already have, Lantner said. For example, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team already had planned a micro-loan clinic in Mahmudiyah. The reconstruction team helped make it functional. They also assist Iraqi businesspeople who take advantage of the micro-loans. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46854
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“Much of the progress we are seeing is the result of the work of our Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance.” President George W. Bush http://tinyurl.com/2yje7r