Hot air in the winds of war
By Libby
Talk about your misleading ledes, this one is in the top ten. LAT trumpets, Top general may propose pullbacks. It's not difficult to call bullshit on this since buried in the piece is the news that Petreaus isn't going to be proposing anything to us. His vaunted report in September isn't even going to written by him. It's going to be written by the White House, based on his report to them. I'm sure you don't need my help to predict the report will indicate progress and the need to continue the escalation.
And in any event, what our lauded General is proposing is, for the purposes of this article, not so much a pullback as a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. He's reportedly considering moving troops out of Anbar now that we bought the Sunnis' allegiance. Apparently he thinks the insurgents will stay bought.
Me, I can't help but remember a profile piece I read years ago, about a unit of Marines in Afghanistan. It was long piece that chronicled the difficulty of chasing insurgents in the mountains and they were also making alliances with the various factions. One quote from the commander of the unit stuck with me for all these years. He said that you can't buy an Afghani, but you surely can rent one. One suspects we'll find that to be true with our new allies in Iraq as well.
For Bush, this is win-win strategy. If it works, he can demand we stay in Iraq because we're making progress. If it doesn't, and the Sunnis end up turning those guns we gave them against us, he can point out we have to stay because the "peace" fell apart when we withdrew our force.
For our troops, all scenarios clearly lead to more lost lives for an occupation whose purpose has never been more muddy.
Talk about your misleading ledes, this one is in the top ten. LAT trumpets, Top general may propose pullbacks. It's not difficult to call bullshit on this since buried in the piece is the news that Petreaus isn't going to be proposing anything to us. His vaunted report in September isn't even going to written by him. It's going to be written by the White House, based on his report to them. I'm sure you don't need my help to predict the report will indicate progress and the need to continue the escalation.
And in any event, what our lauded General is proposing is, for the purposes of this article, not so much a pullback as a rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. He's reportedly considering moving troops out of Anbar now that we bought the Sunnis' allegiance. Apparently he thinks the insurgents will stay bought.
Me, I can't help but remember a profile piece I read years ago, about a unit of Marines in Afghanistan. It was long piece that chronicled the difficulty of chasing insurgents in the mountains and they were also making alliances with the various factions. One quote from the commander of the unit stuck with me for all these years. He said that you can't buy an Afghani, but you surely can rent one. One suspects we'll find that to be true with our new allies in Iraq as well.
For Bush, this is win-win strategy. If it works, he can demand we stay in Iraq because we're making progress. If it doesn't, and the Sunnis end up turning those guns we gave them against us, he can point out we have to stay because the "peace" fell apart when we withdrew our force.
For our troops, all scenarios clearly lead to more lost lives for an occupation whose purpose has never been more muddy.
posted by Libby Spencer at 3:43 PM
2 Comments:
I would be very interested in the facts pertaining to the white house story. I have read this news on various sites like rawstory, and crooksandliars, but no one is showing where they are getting their facts from. IF this is true then the ramifications will be disastrous for the Republican party and Bush. If this turns out to be false, I am afraid that the Democrats will be in for a hard election year.
Mike, I don't think that's true that the critics aren't showing their sources. If you follow the links embedded in the posts, I've seen plenty of corroborating information.
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