Narcissists

The leading voices of the right generally think that they are the great wise ones, and pontificate with endless certainty on the issue du juor. There are so certain because when they go to look upon the world, the only gaze on a mirror. They only see themselves. Reassured that others will act pretty much like they will (if they are good people), they bloviate without hesitation or doubt.

Here is the latest, from Charlie Krauthammer, titled "It's the Iraqis' fault." Shorter version? We are wonderful and gave the gift of democracy to Iraq, but I was shocked to learn that they weren't prepared to radically alter their society at the insistence of the US military. Those ungrateful wretches! He starts:

We have given the Iraqis a republic, and they do not appear able to keep it. (snip)

I think we made several serious mistakes -- not shooting looters, not installing an Iraqi exile government right away, and not taking out Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in its infancy in 2004 -- that greatly compromised the occupation. Nonetheless, the root problem lies with Iraqis and their political culture. (snip)

I'm sure our invasion, disbanding of their army and police force, and forcing the entire elite out of the power structure and leaving them at the mercy of militias had nothing to do with it. I'm sure our only fault was not leaving cities in the south while attacking a popular Shite religious figure.

Are the Arabs intrinsically incapable of democracy, as the "realists" imply? True, there are political, historical, even religious reasons why Arabs are less prepared for democracy than, say, East Asians and Latin Americans who successfully democratized over the past several decades. But the problem here is Iraq's particular political culture, raped and ruined by 30 years of Hussein's totalitarianism.

Why, who could have ever predicted that? Oh wait. Everyone with a brain before the election. In cultures that have faced 30 years of chaos and violence, political power doesn't grow out of the ballot box. It comes from the barrel of the gun. They understand that. And if we are trying to force them to use the ballot box, they will use their guns when we aren't around to intimidate and assassinate. You can't push democracy out of the barrel of a gun. A people have to choose that for themselves. So quit faulting them for our incompetent occupation that let anarchy bloom, for bringing the whirlwind of violence into the heart of Baghdad.

Oh, STFU too.

The Simpson Factor: As goes Springfield, goes America

The last two Simpsons have both critiqued the Iraq war. The first in the Halloween special, with Kang and Kodos stuck in "Operation Enduring Occupation," complaining about how they were not greeted as liberators (well, one complained, the other insisted that the invasion was necessary because of the weapons of mass disintegration the earthlings were building). This was just a quick gag, though.

The Simpsons with Homer in the Army was a far more brutal critique. It stated at the the end that a determined local populace will always be able to defeat an occupying army. Essentially, that we will be unable to impose our will on the local populace in Iraq. Which is about right, especially when we've let Iraq boil over into anarchy and a low-grade civil war over the last two years.

It may mean nothing. But maybe our President watches the Simpsons, and is mulling over the lessons of last Sunday. Is Homer Simpson the Walter Cronkite of our generation?

No. But hell, the whole Fox animated line-up has been ragging on the war lately. The atmosphere of relentless cheerleading for the war and assertions that any realistic assessment of our progress only helps the insurgents has evaporated, suddenly replaced with a general consensus that we are in a quagmire and things aint good. Hopefully, we can stop digging that hole, now.

Why Does Bush Lie? Becuase it is Convenient.

A huge problem with our Washington press corps? There are too concerned with the 'winger accusation of "liberal bias" to do their job, so they hide behind their stenography reporting. They won't call a Republican out, and will report spin as worthy and meaningful statements.

George Bush on why he lied to the country about Rumsfeld's tenure as Secretary of Defense before the election.

The only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to
give you that answer.

In essence? I had to feed you something to get you to shut up. So I gave you a lie. It worked. My image as a strong and resolute decider remained.

This pretty clearly implies that he's used this tactic before and he will use it again. He wasn't even sheepish about being exposed as an empty political liar. Just a bit of a nod and a wink, since the press corps knows he lies all the time, but they are afraid to say so to America. So Bush even openly admits that he is a liar, because he knows it won't be reported. To report that simple truth would be unpardonable liberal bias, after all.

Sure enough, on Meet the Press, David Gregory (who actually can ask some pretty probing questions in a press conference), proves that in front of the public eye the Washington press can't admit to basic facts about the President:

MR. GREGORY: Right, well, he deliberately misled those reporters, and he said he
did it because he didn’t want to inject politics in the campaign. You have to
wonder why–how he could–was there a way to, to get around that question in some
fashion so he didn’t have to give that ammunition to people who thought the
policy was a failure. And that’s what he did right at the end.
(snip)
MR. RUSSERT: Does that hurt his credibility with you and the press
corps?
MR. GREGORY: Well, I–look, you know, you like to get a straight answer
out of the president. He laid out his case for, for why he did it, and there’s
no question that would’ve injected politics. So I think people see it different
ways.

Translation: I wish he wouldn't lie, but some people say the lie was OK, so who am I to question the credibility of a liar? That would be partisan.

It is unfathomable why he didn't answer that question like a normal human being. That answer should have gone "Absolutely, Tim. The President admitted lying to our face for partisan political reasons, and without shame. Whenever he opens his mouth, how do we know he isn't playing the same game? He is clearly willing to lie to the American Public about our military situation, and frankly has lost credibility on that count." Is that a radical response? No. It is the response of a normal human being when he finds out someone lied to his face. A person loses credibility when they are caught in a lie. That's kina of how credibility works, you know?

Different people see it like this: normal people see what happened as brazen, bald-faced lying. Bush partisans think Bush should do whatever Bush feels is best, and if Bush felt it to be the right choice, then it was. So by the act of Bush choosing to lie, it is justifed. They will even applaud Bush for admitting it (Good for Bush for fooling those pesky reporters!). But unprincipled 'wingers schooled in newspeak should not control the definition of what is acceptable.

The Empty Rhetoric of the Pundit Class

It is fair to say that the punditry class and journalism in general has failed America. At the dawn of the new century, we face a myriad of daunting problems and complexities, but the our press does not want to help the people deal with these issues. They want to obscure the consequences of policy and turn everything into a contest, a horse-race. They do this through dis-information and stenography reporting.

A great example of this is Greenwald's recent post on the media treatment of Feingold. He notes

...when Feingold stood up and advocated censure -- based on the truly radical and crazy, far leftist premise that when the President is caught red-handed breaking the law, the Congress should actually do something about that -- the soul-less, oh-so-sophisticated Beltway geniuses could not even contemplate the possibility that he was doing that because he believed what he was saying. Beltway pundits and the leaders of the Beltway political and consulting classes all, in unison, immediately began casting aspersions on Feingold's motives and laughed away -- really never considered -- the idea that he was motivated by actual belief, let alone the merits of his proposal.

They felt it reflected his desire to run for president. That's all they seem to care about: elections. Not who gets elected, but how. Dirty tricks? Exciting! Lying about their opponent? Just part of the game. However, it seems impolite to bring up the substance of someone's policies. For example, I never heard it mentioned by the MSM that Bush radically lightened the tax load and ran up massive deficits, a grave threat to the country, and only the democrats offered to right this problem. Instead, they wanted to talk about a Kerry joke, or how the latest dirty trick du jour showed how tough the Republicans were, how admirable it is that they are so committed to winning. Victory above all (if its Republican).

When the President was caught breaking the law, they decided this was good for him, because he was strong in national security. Nothing about how it violates the 4th amendment to the Bill of Rights. You know, our Constitution. They would let partisans (as in those with an articulated agenda) bring it up, like Feingold. But they would only do it stenographically, and would always post such a comment next to a Republican hack saying there is nothing wrong with this, and you can't enjoy your rights under the Constitution after a scary terrorists kills you and your whole family. Instead of clearly identifying the issue (President determined to violate the Constitution and your rights), the press would just shrug it off as a political dispute with two sides and no answer. They would then cite some polls and note since this was about national security, it helps the GOP and Republicans will use this to attack Democrats as weak, and they will win the election.

The stenography of two positions as equal combined with a horse-race mentality, trumpeting electoral tactics over policy substance, is corrosive to our democracy. When people lie to the press, the press needs to either not print it, or call the liar out. Editors get paid to make these judgment calls. If they could call Clinton a liar, they should be able to call anyone else a liar too. When Bush was on the trail demonizing the Democratic Party, the lead line before any of his quotes should have been "grossly mischaracterizing and at time outright lying about the Democratic position, the President said X before a partisan audience. The carefully screened audience, whom the President forced to take loyalty pledges, cheered on these distortions. The actual position of the candidate Bush disparaged is Y." There are plenty of smart, honest experts out there who don't have a dog in certain political fights. Get their opinion on paper about what it all means. But the press needs to quit going to the well of empty partisanship to pad their reporting.

A national election will roll around every two years. Focus on policy proposals combined with the facts on the ground, and how the two could interact. Honest reporting will create its own dynamic of a more informed electorate that votes based on policy and ideas, not campaign tactics. In the last Presidential election, the press devoted more stories to the meta aspects of the campaign (election strategy) than to actual policy. False narratives were peddled with a straight face (Karl Rove said it, so it must be true!). The pundits only amplified those types of empty discussions.

There should be a real story on the Feingold attempt to censure the President. It should truly examine all the actions taken by the President inconsistent with the Constitution. It should talk about how Republican corruption and acquiescence in the House and Senate helped abet these failures. It should talk about how our forefathers fought and died to prevent these various abuses, like arbitrary and indefinite detentions, torture, and suspension of habeas Corpus. Then, it can talk about the current levels of support in the Senate for such a motion. But no meta talk about this potentially affecting elections, or that national security is a GOP strong spot without any evidence of GOP competence in the field. Reporting the facts in their proper historical context creates changes of opinion. That's what is supposed to happen when new information comes to light. The current punditry merely seeks to perpetuate tired political stereotypes, regardless of the changing reality.

GOP Pundits: Trying to make Iraq like the American Civil War

I was perusing right blogistan, and found this highly recommended article in the Weekly Standard from the ole perfesser on what to do in Iraq (he actually liked it so much he recomended it twice). It says, in part:

A seemingly quick and easy military victory has turned sour. The costs, in blood and treasure, have escalated. Victory looks uncertain and distant. It seems the time has come, if not to cut and run, then surely to cut our losses. If ever the principle of sunk cost applied to warfare, it would seem to apply here.

But that instinct is wrong. Warfare is not like investment banking. At precisely the moment an economist might say to stop throwing good money after bad, a wise military strategist might say to double the bet.

Why might that be so? For one thing, willingness to raise the stakes often wins the game. Why do insurgent gangs, who have vastly smaller resources and manpower than the American soldiers they fight, continue to try to kill those soldiers? The answer is, because they believe they only have to kill a few more, and the soldiers will leave. They need not inflict a military defeat (which would be impossible, given the strength of the American military)--all they need to do is survive until American voters decide to throw in the towel, which might happen at any moment.

The proper response to that calculation is to make emphatically clear that the fight will not end until one side or the other wins, decisively. That kind of battle can only have one ending, as Abraham Lincoln understood. In a speech delivered a month after his reelection, Lincoln carefully surveyed the North's resources and manpower and concluded that the nation's wealth was "unexhausted and, as we believe, inexhaustible." Southern soldiers be gan to desert in droves. Through the long, bloody summer and fall of 1864, the South had hung on only because of the belief that the North might tire of the conflict. But Lincoln did not tire. Instead, he doubled the bet--and won the war.

First of all, this is ridiculous. How exactly is our fight in Iraq like the Civil War? Where is the Confederate Army? What provinces does this army hold? What is the analog for IEDs?

We are fighting an insurgency, made up of both locals and jihadists. We can add another 150,000 troops (that we don't have) and neither of these two will stop fighting. The locals who resent us aren't going anywhere. They live there. And the jihadists think it is a divine duty to fight against foreigners. They will continue to flock to Iraq as long as we are there. They will fight us if we are there. Period. Maybe they think if they kill a few more people, we will leave. But even if they don't, they would continue to fight.

The Union won the Civil War through a long, bloody slog. It gradually destroyed the South's armies and conquered its territory, first by taking the Mississippi river, then with Sherman marching to Atlanta. They took Richmond in the last days of the war, and an outmanueverd Lee, trapped between Grant's army from the North and Sherman's from the South, surrendered. When conventional combat ended, so did the war.

We beat the conventional Iraqi army in a few weeks. Resenting our occupation, the sunnis started an insurgency. Then Al-Queda type jihadists moved in. They are our counterpart. The yin to our yang. They will remain as long as we do, no matter how many people we add. Our very presence creates a destabalizing dynamic, since our presence draws conflict from both the nationalists in Iraq who resent our presence (mainly Sunni, but some Shiite like Al-Sadr) and the foreign Arabs who come only to fight the US. We cannot provide stability the way we do in Kosovo or the Balkans, becuase there are too many who are comitted explictly to attacking American troops through snipers, IEDs, RPG attacks, and the like. People who think they will become martyrs for Allah are not disuaded when you promise to double your resources.

The failure to grasp this basic issue on the part of many conservative commentators is staggering. They still believe that willpower is the most important tool in winning a battle. That if we clap our hands enough and believe, it will all work out. Do they honestly believe that if the US poured more troops into Iraq, the guerillas would say "gee, looks like they are serious. I guess I will lay down my arms?" It shows a fundamental failure to even understand our enemy and their motivations. It violates some of the oldest dictates of warfare: to know thine enemey.
Later on in the article, the author notes:

Iraq is not an unwinnable war: Rather, as the data just cited show, it is a war we have chosen not to win. And the difference between success and failure is not 300,000 more soldiers, as some would have it. One-tenth that number would make a large difference, and has done so in the past. One-sixth would likely prove decisive.

This shows the conventional warfare mindset of the author. What is winning? How will these troops create a "win?" There is no army facing off against the Iraqi government. There are just gurellias fighting a US occupation, terrorists bent on havoc, and competing sectarian death squads. More troops doesn't change any of these. It might lower the amount of death squad violence, since we'd have more eyes to police the area. But it would just create more targets for those who wish to attack US forces. They attack American troops to satisfy their manhood, to stand up to the perceived oppressor. We can't conventionally win against that kind of mindset. Al-Queda is there to kill Ameicans, no more, no less. More troops = more targets.

These morons want us to play right into the hands of our enemies. They want us to waste our resources in Iraq like the Russians did in Afghanistan. We already won the conventional war. It is up to the Iraqis to win the peace. And they can't do it while we are there. Our presence distorts the entire process. Less is more (less troops, a less visible presence, and less of a target) in Iraq. We are the outsider. Once we are out of the picture, the Al-Queda types will become the hated outsider, and they will be dealt with by the Iraqis at that time.

Reflections on Saftey after 9-11

Are we safer today? Some say yes, some say no. 3000 people died in 9-11. There has been no major terrorist attack on American soil since then. But there was no major attack on our soil the five years before. And many Americans have died since then. According to the official statistics from the Department of Defense, 2,669 American solidiers have died in Iraq. 19910 have been wounded. Also, this war has been fought with mercenaries, CIA operatives, and American contractors. Their casulties I do not know, although I'm sure the numbers are out there.

Not counting respiratory illness and other lingering chronic problems from 9/11, there were a total of 5367 casualties (adding dead and wounded) as a result of that terrible day.
As a response, we went into Afghanistan. To be frank, we appeared to score a quick victory, and then the political leadership lost interest. Troops began to leave the country before we even had a chance to catch Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Since we entered that country, we have lost approximately 336 soldiers killed and 901 wounded, a total of 1237 casualties.
Imagine if that was the final number. Just 1237. Instead, our total casualties from the war on terror after 9-11 is 23,816 American soldiers, and probably a few thousand more government civil servants, contractors, and U.S. mercenaries.

So has the president kept Americans safe? Or did his actions lead to the death or maiming of about 30,000 Americans since 9-11?

As usual, the only ones asked to sacrifice by the President are the military. Their deaths are not honored by acknowledging this grim toll, but instead, they are hidden. The administration has censored their pictures and downplayed the cold facts.

The administration did not keep these young men and women safe. That’s a fact. So since we have had a bit less than 10 times the casualties of 9-11, of Americans hurt in our “war on terror,” does it matter if a shopping mall in Topeka is “safe,” when it never was going to be a target anyway? Does the life of civilians now matter more than a soldier? What kind of respect is that for our military?These casualties are a cost of our struggle. I believe the enemy is Al Queda and Bin Laden. He is the one who struck on 9-11. And yes, he has an ideology. But you can’t kill an ideology with bombs. Nor can you do it by invading Iraq and then managing an incompetent occupation. So if you ask are Americans safer, remember that our military consists of Americans too, and the policies of the Bush administration did not make them safe.