Letters to the Editor
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What do you expect?
Did anybody really expect that they wouldn't ratchet up the arguments in favor of "staying the course"? Even if the counterinsurgency strategy is working perfectly and has enough people to succeed, such strategies are the work of decades, not months, so if they wanted to continue it, they would need to change the public mood.
What was interesting to me was that it was more optimistic than the interview I heard on NPR with Petraeus, which was actually quite guarded, and in which he, like Odierno had before Congress, hinted that the success they think they've seen so far might be a blip and they might be misinterpreting it, because they don't have the data to conclude otherwise yet. [Note that it didn't stop him from doing the usual management peacock dance of pushing the mission statement, highlighting successes, and referring to all problems and failures as "challenges". When this crap finishes taking over all 300 million people's vocabulary, will the country grind to a complete halt?]
So you have the odd situation in which O'Hanlon and Pollack are sure of permanent gains of which that Petraeus and Odierno are not sure, while the latter get all the blame for all the over-optimism. What I would conclude from this is that the Administration and Petraeus' agendas are different, but that it is convenient to each to go along with that of the other, right now. There is really only one way that this ends -- the Administration will pursue its bullheaded imperial agenda (barring congressional vertebral coagulation), and Petraeus will perform the scapegoat duties for which he was really hired -- allowing Bush to claim he fixed all the stuff the cowardly Shinsekiite military were complaining about, and that it just goes to show the military naysayers don't know strategy like the Cheneys and Feiths and Perles. Awesome. No wonder Cheney can't run the country into the ground without Rove.
My biggest question is if Cheney thinks the military are cowards for insisting on plans, the CIA lack the necessary guts to break the law, the Congress is irrelevant, the public lacks the will to survive, the courts should not interfere with interpreting the law, the president can't govern without the vice, the press should take dictation better, the constitution is outdated and the Geneva conventions are quaint, and the other countries in the world should just back off, submit, or accept destruction as part of the ritual flogging of small countries to maintain the brand, why doesn't that sound like the resume of a full-blown traitor to more people?
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Ah sysprog! The Dean of Comment Linkers!
You have surely unearthed to support the claim that O'Hanlon and Pollack are "two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq."
New York Times; July 1, 2005
Five Ways to Win Back Iraq
By KENNETH M. POLLACKWow! The title itself admits we've lost Iraq! That's harsh! And, no doubt, O'Hanlon nodded his approval when he read it. So there, Glen!
But it gets better!
. . . Achieving these goals will require more than the 155,000 troops in the country, and it is time for the Bush administration to bite the bullet, whether by deploying additional standing forces, calling up reserves, or spurring recruitment by increasing pay and benefits (and maybe even providing a rationale that the American people would buy).
Wow! Send more troops! Again, harsh.
Still, you'd think that a super-duper expert like Pollack would realize that we had already called up the reserves long ago?
Through late 2004, it was part of my job at Random Lengths News to download and reformat information about coalition casualties in Iraq, including a listing of all those reported killed. I just picked one at random, from 09/13-10/11. The following were guard and reserve casualties from that period:
9/13: Specialist Benjamin W. Isenberg, 27 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Sheridan, Oregon; Staff Sergeant David J. Weisenburg, 26 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Portland, Oregon.
9/22: Staff Sergeant Lance J. Koenig, 33 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Fargo, North Dakota;
9/25: Specialist David W. Johnson, 37 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Portland, Oregon; Specialist Clifford L. Moxley Jr., 51 (U.S. Army National Guard), of New Castle, Pennsylvania
9/30: Specialist Allen Nolan, 38 (U.S. Army Reserve), of Marietta, Ohio.
10/1: Sergeant Michael A. Uvanni, 27 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Rome, New York.
10/3: Sergeant Russell L. Collier, 48 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Harrison, Arkansas; Staff Sergeant James L. Pettaway Jr., 37 (U.S. Army Reserve), of Baltimore, Maryland; Sergeant Christopher S. Potts, 38 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Tiverton, Rhode Island.10/4: Staff Sergeant Richard L. Morgan Jr., 38 (U.S. Army Reserve), of St. Clairsville, Ohio.
10/6: Specialist Jessica L. Cawvey, 21 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Normal, Illinois;
10/8: Staff Sergeant Michael S. Voss, 35 (U.S. Army National Guard), of Aberdeen, North Carolina.Yeah, Pollack. That's why we were losing in Iraq. Cause none of those guys and gals died there. They hadn't been called up. And Bush was to blame for not getting them killed.
Wow! Harsh!
Except, of course, Bush did get them killed. And you didn't even have the slightest idea.
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Serious People Who Like the Arts
....just to blather on a bit more.
A friend of ours is one of those lefty members of the War Party. He lives in an expensive brownstone in NY, has a high level job in Wall Street, has the right nanny for his children who are attending the Right School (Packer, in this case), reads the Times, supports the ballet, vacations in a summer home in Normandy and disdains George Bush for his crudeness. He has always voted pretty much a straight Democratic ticket. He recently said the only way to "save" Iraq (for us) would be to send 500-750K troops, which would of course require a draft. When we expressed horror at the idea of a draft he said, "Why? OUR kids won't get drafted."
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The Republican cormorant
Shooter dives six miles down in GWB's vast vat of blood and horseshit, and returns to the surface with good news.
No one throws him a fish.
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O'Hanlon
glen: your exposure of O'Hanlon's hypocrisy, while appreciated, would be much more effective if you carried out your journalistic obligations by asking him to explain his inconsistencies. perhaps it's not the duty of a columnist to do so, but it sure would add some teeth to your informative, albeit rather dry, piece.