A Plague Of Boyles
My gosh, what’s that sour smell? Ah, it’s only the NRO’s Media Blog again.
As clear as a glass of water from the Tigris.
[Denis Boyles]Here’s how US News is headlining its advance coverage of the interim Iraq progress report:
At Least Half Of Iraq Benchmarks Unmet
That “half-empty” take will be repeated ad infinitum over the next 48 hours or so. The Iraqi glass can never be half-full, of course. Something about the water in Baghdad.
Somewhere along the line — and I wish I’d been paying more attention — the NRO Media Blog developed a collective authorial voice that suggests an undershirted grouch chain-smoking Kents and muttering at the TV set. It isn’t just the codgers like Denis Boyles, either: When Stephen “Little Horseshoes” Spruiell, age roughly twelve, manned the operation, his idea of kritik was to quote a news reporter saying something at odds with the current Republican dogma, and to cackle out a rejoinder like, “Gee, no liberal bias here! What a bunch of liberals!” During his training, they must’ve put Spruiell in a heavily-farted La-Z-Boy recliner in a stuffy airshaft-view apartment, and clamped a can of Miller in his hand.
To his credit though, even when the Media Blog’s elderly wirehair terrier chewed up his New York Post, even when the antenna on his old Motorola set hit the fritz, and with all that racket from 4B — jeez, whattathey doin’ up there, fercryingoutloud? — Spruiell never did anything as lame as attending upon a report from the White House that gives a failing grade to the Iraq effort, and carping about (of all the enfeebled clichés in the world) a glass-half-empty.
If these standards keep up, the NRO’s Bench Memos blog will soon discover that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and Jonah Goldberg will find that on the road less-traveled, some march to the beat of a different drummer.
Actually, according to a five-minute review of the report (.pdf) — which of course would’ve taken five minutes out of Denis Boyles’s day, crammed as it is with fact-based debunkings of the media, as it were — it’s nine ‘unsatisfactories,’ two mixed reports, and seven ‘satisfactories.’ Other independent analyses (.pdf) naturally give a worse picture, but that’s what the White House has managed to come up with — and bully for them! So let’s rewrite that US News headline for ol’ Deeb, which is evidently all he read of the story before deciding it was at variance with the real story as momentarily invented by himself, as he set back to work filling the room with acrid stocking-feet aroma and halitosis amid a blare from the AM band of the Philco radio, comme il faut.
Almost Half Of Iraq Benchmarks Met
Nope, not yet good enough. Let’s try harder.
Seven Iraq Benchmarks Met
Better, but still not upbeat enough.
Iraq Benchmarks Met
There; perfect. No wait, almost perfect.
Hero Cop Bush Wins Big In Wacko Iraqo Lotto
Ahh. Now if the NRO only had They’ll Do It Every Time, not to mention the whattayacall, not the crossword but the Jumble, they’d have a nice little paper there.
That “half-empty” take will be repeated ad infinitum over the next 48 hours or so.
While they also comment that the other half contains bloated bodies flowing down the Tigris.
Could they have chosen a worse title?
When I think clear water, I don’t think of the Tigris. (Though, I don’t think of any river when I think of clear water)
Is it me or is there a live comment preview thing at the bottom of the screen. Teh awesome!
wha…..? THERE IS!!
Look we have had what 7 friedmans of war about now? And now in the fourth year of the occupation the best the White House can do on its own self evaluation is half full/half empty. Something tells me that the NRO should direct its anger at the people who keep promising “it’ll get better.”
Gosh! Seven satisfactories, nine unsatisfactories and two incompletes. Still, pretty good compared to that last one Snow was trying to pull where nothing had been met.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that when I was in school, if I did that poorly on a test I had struggles not to cut myself. Maybe I was a perfectionist.
Well first, check out this Think Progress article fact checking the report. Then, once you understand that the last thing they probably ought to be doing is calling attention to this flawed and disingenuous spin, then you’ll understand that I really had nothing to say but I wanted to play with the shiny new auto-preview before it gets tired of working for illegal immigrant wages and once again returns to it’s home country…
mikey
How about this for a headline:
Iraq Report: We didn’t do half the things we were supposed to do half as well as we should have, but we did do almost half the things we were supposed to do more than half as well as we thought we would.
Still too pessimistic?
You Americans are so funny. The nation of ‘can-do’ and organizational genius[1] goes to Iraq and demonstrates they couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery[2]. But then, America, the world’s greatest sales machine, the planet’s best exponent of spin and bunkum, can’t even ‘sex up’ a progress report to look favourable?
Methinks America is losing its touch.
——
[1] The Ford motor company until the 1950s; World Wars I and II; the Marshall Plan; NATO.
[2] Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
I know it’s fun to look down on people, but really, do you think that only conservatives drink MIller or live in crappy apartments? Or fart? Does your shit not stink or something?
Much as it may enable a condescending air of superiority to think of the NRO people as “lower-class” uneducated slobs, it’s not like Archie Bunker actually ran things. There are plenty of people who are smart who had crappy educations, work dead-end jobs, or live in near-poverty. Hell, one thing most of the great writers of the 20th century seem to have in common is long, miserable periods of penury.
I mean, look at Bush, ferChrissake. He went to Yale and harvard, his Daddy was the President of the United States, and he’s still an uneducated, ignorant bastard. Why choose your Archie-types from the people who don’t have any power?
Two things, Percy of the dried plum.
First, Iraq would have been an utter disaster if Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Patton teamed up on it. It simply was not something that was possible. So the bushies incompetence was not in the execution, they fucked it up but so would everybody. Their incompetence was in deciding to try it in the first place.
Second, what is a “piss-up”? Is it fun? Is it something I’d want to do? Are there girls there?
mikey
“Hero Cop Bush Wins Big In Wacko Iraqo Lotto”
I prefer Giant Badgers Terrorise Iraqi Port City, myself.
Bad choice of examples, given that Alex did actually succeed in Iraq.
Iraq was not an impossible task, just an extremely difficult one. What it required was a colonial-style administration with sound political objectives and an Army indoctrinated in fighting a counterinsurgency war, neither of which America possessed. For examples of it being done correctly I recommend a study of Britain in Cyprus, Kenya and Malaya, and Portugal in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau [1].
The answer to all your questions is ‘yes’:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/piss-up
——
[1] Particularly recommended is Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portugese Way of War by John P. Cann, which outlines how a lid was successfully kept on insurgency in an operation run on a shoestring. This in spite of structural and strategic hurdles greater than anything Britain, France or America faced in their brushfire wars.
That’s it. The piss up’s at my place!
I don’t have your apparent level of expertise, Percy, as I am not familiar in detail with the conflicts you mention. But I’d still question whether Iraq could truly be successfully occupied and pacified given not just it’s inherent sectarian divides, but the larger issue of the decades-long brutal suppression of not just one but TWO majority populations inside their homelands by an elite minority population. When suddenly freed from decades of vicious oppression and given the vote, the good old “Tyranny of the Majority” took over and peace was simply not an available option. In fear of not just marginalization, but eradication, and lavishly funded by the Arab community, the Sunni minority does not believe there is an alternative to fighting to regain at least enough power to protect themselves.
Any population that goes directly from the battlefield to the ballot box without developing a tradition of the rule of law will end up in conflict with itself. The US was simply the trigger, and of course as a Christian occupier in the Arabian heartland a lot of historical baggage came with them…
mikey
No Mikey,
You misunderstand TEH prune. All he’s saying is that we need some ancient/colonialist style war. Y’know, we crucify every Iraqi aged 14 to 54 and stick the crosses along every main highway. Then it’s ponies and “jolly good show all round”.
Unfortunately, the tech has changed. In the Nineteenth C., there weren’t AK’s and Semtex. What could an insurgent do in the past without assault rifles and high explosives?
For examples of it being done correctly I recommend a study of Britain in Cyprus, Kenya and Malaya, and Portugal in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau
Do realize at one point and time the Brits imprisoned the entire native population of Kenya? What kind of manpower do you think would make that possible in Iraq?
Percyprune, I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt just long enough to ask one question: Do you endorse those historical colonialist acts or the modern hypothetical of Iraq under “proper colonial rule” as moral? or even ,in the case of Iraq, necessary?
OK, so that was two. Shoot me already
OT, but worth a visit: Schlussel posts her victim’s statement in the case against a guy who sent her anti-semitic hate emails.
Highlights include:
Then it turns into one of her spittle-flecked blog posts (still in the guise of a victim’s statement delivered to a judge, remember) against the “politically correct” prosecuter who wouldn’t go after the perp.
&c.
First of all, how freaking narcissistic is it to post your victim’s statement online? (As well as posting the pictures of Daniel Pearl that she said have destroyed her life–now she’s shown them to me; do I get to take her to court and prepare my own victim’s statement?)
Second, how the hell did she make it through law school?
Third through infinity: “AARRGHGHGHH! DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL!!!!”
Iraq of Alexander’s time…not quite the same as Iraq of 2003.
For instance, there wasn’t this Shiite-Sunni thing going on.
Because Alexander conquered Iraq in 331 B.C.
And that’s just for starters.
I am in a constant state of fear. My residence, which has several windows, has the shades drawn, day and night. I never get to see the sun shine in because I am afraid of snipers shooting at me.
Man, that’s a sad case of paranoia. When I got home in December of 1970, I couldn’t sleep. I bought a little chromed .32 H&R Mag revolver, and I’d sleep on the floor (bed? Hah. That’s crazy talk. Who can sleep in that thang?) with that little gun in my hand. And that was solution number one. Pretty good night’s sleep. Debbie, take a little responsibility for your own mental illness. Fer cryin out loud. And oh, by the way, they have drugs for that…
mikey
Ms. Schlussel’s entire freaking site is anti-Muslim hate mail. What the hell is she complaining about?
“…the rare occasions that I travel in and out of my residence.”
Would that be trips to the local beauty supply for grosses of that lovely lip-gloss she sports? Not to mention bottle after bottle of hair color. Guess she doesn’t have to go to the law offices of Schlussel, Cheatem & Howe much any more, she can file those eviction notices on-line now. Modern technology rules!!
That “half-empty” take will be repeated ad infinitum over the next 48 hours or so. The Iraqi glass can never be half-full, of course. Something about the water in Baghdad.
Hey!! There may be an increase in civilian deaths, but look on the bright side!! The Iraqi government has formed a committee on the oil legislation!
The best part of Debbie’s victim letter is where she talks about how hard it was for her to get the FBI to take her seriously.
One hate email, sent 4 years ago, from someone whose religion she’s made it her life’s crusade to slander, has led to her spending her life in terror.
Frankly, if the threat hadn’t been so over the top I’d say this guy deserves a medal for finding a way to make Debbie a shut-in.
The fact is NONE of the objectives have been met. The *best* objectives are the ones we made good “progress” on, where good progress was not measured in any objective way.
“Good progress” on the objectives.
Is that like – my objective is to get a job, and yesterday I checked the phone book to find out where to buy a bus pass so I could start going out and applying?
The Iraqi glass can never be half-full, of course. Something about the water in Baghdad.
Um, actually, isn’t there a problem getting rsafe and potable unning water in Baghdad? The Iraqi glass is more often than not ACTUALLY EMPTY.
Hey Denis!
You know that guy that stands at the podium at the Whitehouse press briefings? The one in the orange hair and throwing glitter?
He really shouldn’t be your ONLY source of information.
Just sayin,…
Next NRO headline: “The American people still have two of the three branches of the government working for them. Sources claim, ‘That ain’t bad!’ “
Two out of four, but yeah.
Angola had multiple sectarian divides, with a racial/ethnic mix thrown in–from the white settler elites to their mulatto successors to the various tribal groupings. It was every bit as bad a problem, as the civil war following the Portugese withdrawal proved.
I’d opine that the destruction of many Iraqi institutions, particularly the Baath party and the Army, was the primary factor that opened the Pandora’s Box of Iraqi sectarianism. The loss of those stabilizing influences fed fear and opportunism in the various communities. If the Army’s integrity had been maintained, and the Baath co-opted into more Western-friendly posture, the situation may have been controllable.
I say ‘may’ as these things are never certain and I’d agree that handing the keys of the country over to a fractionally less bloodthirsty gang of generals is morally dubious. But let’s face it, Shrub’s plan to de-Baathify Iraq and parachute democracy directly into the country has proven a clusterfuck.
Just saying.
That assumes that the only solution was to democratise Iraq. It wasn’t. At least, not immediately. Better to hand the nation to the Generals and encourage a Taiwanese GMD-style transition to democracy. Ugly, yes. But less costly in havoc and lives also.
Not entirely, as ancient and colonial wars are two different things. There’s no doubt that levelling the cities and salting the land has proven remarkably effective as an ancient form of subjugation. But in the modern era this is the sort of thing that gets you into world wars, and so is counterproductive.
Colonial wars have worked–not always, but sometimes. Generally, these require the setting of sound political objectives. In the case of Malaya and Kenya, it was the preparation of the nation for independence. In the case of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea, it was the unification of the ultramar with the metropole.
In the latter case this meant that Portugal viewed the native peoples as Portugese. The indoctrination of troops in-theatre emphasized their role was to protect and serve the people. THEIR people. This colonial mindset, working hand-in-hand with an intimate knowledge of the region, led the Portugese toward some imaginative solutions. Take one example: to resolve the problem of troop manpower the Portugese recruited local levies, then then paid them the same rates as whites. Imagine how such a simple act can take the wind out of the sails of nationalists. Not for nothing did Portugal, as resource and manpower-poor as it was, spend the majority of its military budget on social programs. This was, as David Galula maintained in his seminal work on counterinsurgency, a war in which the clerk, the road-building military engineer and the sergeant-medic was worth ten riflemen.
Not really. Unless you are salting the land, that sort of tactic tends to be counterproductive.
Ponies are good, though. In the late ’60s the Portugese revived horse-mounted dragoons in Angola and they were very effective, at least in those savannah areas not infested by tsetse. They were highly mobile, permitted off-road patrolling (so less vulnerable to mines and IEDs), difficult to ambush, and kept the troops in touch with the population for the purposes of policing and humint. Far superior to zipping everywhere in helicopters.
Given that the Mau Mau and Malaysian Communists both had explosives and automatic weapons, this is less of an issue than you suppose.
I’d say that the bigger difference between then and now is communications. Satellite phone networks and access to alternative information distribution via the internet changes the game profoundly. These are, after all, primarily wars of ideology rather than force. It’s not clear yet how these make an insurgency more powerful, though it’s apparent that they do.
Do I endorse colonialism? No. The evils of colonial rule are well documented.
However, if you are stupid enough to invade a nation like Iraq, there are some colonial strategies that are of proven effectiveness. For example: co-opting the local regime to rule by proxy rather than, as Shrub ordered, dismantling it and trying to impose an alien form of government.
I’m responding to Mikey’s claim that controlling Iraq was not possible. I think it was. The strategies you’d need to employ would not have been moral, but would likely have led to less death and chaos than has actually resulted. However, I don’t deny that a lesser evil is still, y’know, evil.
Of course, even these unpalatable tactics would not have been necessary had the Coalition not invaded in the first place.
there’s a pretty major difference between the colonial wars you mention and Iraq, the European powers had been occupying their respective colonies for many decades before the rebellions broke out. Britain had occupied Cyprus since 1878 and Kenya from the 1890s. the Portuguese had controlled parts of Mozambique and Angola for centuries and had succeeded in conquering the last of it by the 1910s. In each case they had several generations to shape the countries and societies to their own advantage, creating elite native groups who identified with the occupying power and had a stake in maintaining colonial rule, buying off or accommodating with traditional elites and power structures, tying the economy to the metropolis, creating/exploiting ethnic or sectarian divisions to divide and rule, moving entire groups to hostile/dangerous areas to enforce reliance on the colonial authorities, as well as knowing the land very well (always a plus in Co-In) and (in most of these cases) having a fairly large settler population. On top of that, the portuguese didnt actually win any of their wars. They may not have lost militarily when they finally withdrew troops, but they hadn’t beaten the rebels either. It’s not a worthwhile analogy to an immediate post-invasion Iraq. A better analogy might be the Portuguese conquest of inner mozambique 1890-1915, but in those wars the portuguese did have overwhelming technological superiority and it still took them a quarter of a century (and not a little bloodshed) to subdue the country.
personally I reckon it would have been very difficult to set up even a Ba’athist quisling government under military occupation without the whole thing going to shit. and of course if one was going to set up a militarized police state similar to the one that already existed there, why bother in the first place? why not just accommodate with the existing regime and cut out all the potential disasters an invasion might bring? If your plan (a la Taiwan) is “set up a military dictatorship then wait 40-odd years before ushering in some stymied form of democracy, you’d be as well letting the iraqis get on with it themselves. they could have overthrown saddam in far less time than that.
Mikey, I have to throw some tepid support behind The Prune, countryman that he seems to be (yes, Australia is The Land Of The Pissup. Brewery Not Compulsory).
I actually think that, aside from the obvious war crime of attacking an invading an inoffensive country, there were a succession of really dumb decisions made (and implemented with gusto) that contributed to the full and rich catastrophe that is Iraq today.
Or, to put it another way, the war crime was compounded by incompetence to turn what might have been a mere tragedy into a clusterfuck of Wagnerian proportions. Yes, horned sopranos and all.
One thing that always stuck in my mind was a story from Riverbend in the early months. She told of a middling-level US officer who tried to organise some sort of citizen rubbish collection and safety patrols. Locals discussed it, nominated others or themselves, and turned up at the appointed hour to find themselves shut out: apparently the officer had been informed that his initiative was not an option.
Imagine that: early in the occupation, one officer trying to make the best of a complete cock-up, and takes steps to (a) get some basic services going, (b) get the locals involved, and (c) develop some social cohesiveness and security. Imagine what could have happened if that had been policy, if all throughout Iraq the invasion forces had been involving actual Iraqis, consulting with them, supporting them as they organised themselves to maintain order and some degree of sanitation.
But it was not to be: having the Iraqis actually taking control of their own country would have been such a mistake. Probably would have stopped their March Toward Democracy And Ponies dead in its tracks.
That’s the icing on the atrocity cake of this appalling war: that it seems as though the degree of fuck-up-ed-ness was deliberate. It seems so much as though just an unjust war wasn’t enough: the tragedy had to be augmented and amplified by stupidity upon arrogance upon stupidity. They seemed to strive to make the place as bad as possible.
And it really upsets me that people don’t seem to see that. It upsets me even more to hear stupid people (and politicians) mewling about how the Iraqis “have to get their act together”, as though it’s their fault the fucking US bombed the bejeezus out of their country then stamped on the ashes.
Sorry, I get a bit cranky about crimes against humanity. Well, we all have our little foibles, don’t we?
it seems as though the degree of fuck-up-ed-ness was deliberate.
I remember the story from the book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” about the Bush appointee kid who put the kibosh on some well-meaning initiative, because speculating out, he figured it would lead to the possibility of a legislative code that would allow abortion.
Too lazy to look it up. But I think a lot of what happened was ideology driven. Iraq had a lot of nationalized institutions, and that was considered a No-No by those vlaue the God of Free Market Capitalizm, so they destroyed public institutions that had been the foundation of Iraqi society.
I’m a Pom, not some Ocker bludger.
Oh, Stewardess, do you speak whatever that is…
mikey