Update on ‘Your Cold Shower Is Ready’
I did a pretty fair job yesterday of trashing Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack for their myopic New York Times op-ed on military progress in Iraq, but another journo puts the firestorm over the piece in a must-read perspective after actually interviewing one of the authors.
Money graf from a post at Interesting Times by George Packer:
“[The interview] was a step back from the almost definitive tone of “A War We Just Might Win†(a bad headline, and not the authors’). That tone was misplaced, and it is already being used by an Administration that has always thought tactically and will grasp any shred of support, regardless of the facts, to win the short-term argument. But look at this little tempest outside of politics, in the context of the war: Pollack and O’Hanlon were genuinely surprised by the changes they saw and heard about in Iraq, and they considered those changes significant enough to tell war critics here—in the overconfident shorthand of an Op-Ed—not to pull the plug just yet. Whatever you think of their past mistakes and present methods, it’s a case that shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.â€
opinions powered by SendLove.to
6 Responses to “Update on ‘Your Cold Shower Is Ready’”
After my read, I think this quote is worth highlighting, too…..
I’m sorry, but the New Yorker comment makes almost as little sense as the original column.
Packer writes that O’Hanlon:
1.) spoke with very few Iraqis
2.) spent little time anywhere in Iraq
3.) could independently confirm very little of what he heard
4.) gauged reliability based on the tone of official answers
5.) wrote an overly optimistic column that was seized as propaganda by the Bush administration
And concludes:
What case? What’s left after all that has been stripped away from the original article?
Mikef,
That’s exactly what I’ve been struggling with. It’s a mind-boggling conclusion.
Either way, I’m not sure I get Shaun’s point…
Shaun is not making a point. Shaun is providing a follow-up post regarding a journo who spoke to one of the op-ed authors and provides a big more shading to the story.
I saw one of the authors on Hardball, and he repeated Packer’s point about not choosing the headline. He also said that they still had plenty of doubts about Iraq due to the dismal record made on political progress, Basically, they saw reconciliation on a local level, with some reduction of the violence in some areas that had been violent before. Its one small sign for hope.
This story by HuffPo’s Chris Durang adds some interesting information to the O’Hanlon/Pollack story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/war-correspondent-respond_b_58769.html
Especially the first-hand observations of Michael Ware, a war correspondent who hasn’t been mere 8 days, but continously for years in Iraq, gives some desperately needed background:
“Ware: Well, Anderson, there is progress. And that’s indisputable. Sectarian violence is down in certain pockets. There are areas of great instability in this country. They’re at last finding some stability.
The point, though, is, at what price? What we’re seeing is — is, to a degree, some sleight of hand. What America needs to come clean about is that it’s achieving these successes by cutting deals primarily with its enemies. We have all heard the administration praise the work of the tribal sheiks in turning against al Qaeda. Well, this is just a euphemism for the Sunni insurgency. That’s who has turned against al Qaeda.
And why? Because they offered America terms in 2003 to do this. And it’s taken America four years of war to come round to the Sunnis’ terms. And, principally, that means cutting the Iraqi government out of the loop. By achieving these successes, America is building Sunni militias. Yes, they’re targeting al Qaeda, but these are also anti- government forces opposed to the very government that America created.”
So, here we get an explanation on why the US casualties are slightly down while at the same time Iraqi deathquote rose 33%: The job of US forces is now done by Sunni insurgents, who are on the rampage without anybody controlling their actions.
{ironic}Yup, this sure will lead to peace in our times in Iraq.{/ironic}