Give David Morris and Salon credit: they certainly do their best to cram into a single sentence as much of the progressive narrative orthodoxy as they can before certain inconvenient facts (which themselves seem to take on a greater urgency somehow when surrounded by Marines) compel them to veer a bit toward the optimistic center:
Despite Bush’s deceptive rhetoric and mishandling of the war, the Marines I rode with here [in Fallujah] have won a delicate peace in this once-deadly city.
As Karl quips over at the Pub:
Thank goodness the Iraqi government hasn’t turned itself into the Mayberry Town Council in less than a year, or someone and his sock-puppets would be jumping out a window.
Of course, in that event, I should hope the nation’s profound sadness at losing one of its 3 or 4 remaining true conservatives would be read into the Congressional Record.
****
related . Better hurry up, Harry. We don’t seem to be surrendering fast enough.
Time for my jump training.
Makes me all sweaty, which I hear is a sign of masculinity, provided it doesn’t come from gay sex.
-unless you jump naked. Then all bets are off mister prissy pants.
All logic and expectations, brought to you by the community-based reality. Silly milbloggers need not apply.
Nice to see some good news penetrate the hive though.
Might want to recheck your conclusions there, Dave. Could be that they were right and you just had a hard time believing that.
Naked jumping jacks are tough on the unit … and the jewels. Just sayin’ …
“The Bush administration and the senior military leadership in Iraq have obfuscated and dissembled for so long about so many things to so many people (even themselves)…”
Wow, those Salon guys are good. Mind-readers, no less. I can only guess what a burden it must be for Dave to be such an intellecual giant among mortals.
If Iraq does become Mayberry, does that make Muqtada al-Sadr Floyd the Barber? Or Otis the town drunk? Or maybe a confusing combination of the two.
Heh. And as the Gateway Pundit points out, we are going to pick up the training end of things (see TF Phoenix in Afghanistan for an example) – I will be part of that effort in a couple of months. Which is a good thing, I think. I’m getting too old to kick in doors…
Al-Sadr is quite obviously Earnest T. Bass.
Odd, whenever I go look at primary sources, like, oh interview transcripts, documents, etc., it’s usually the icky evil Bush Administration that’s right and the folks like Dave here who have deliberately quoted out of context while screeching about obfuscation and dissembling.
Which makes me wonder if I use the word “projection” too much or if it’s people like Dave projecting so much it seems excessive.
In retrospect, this narrative shift should have been predictable – although I must admit I didn’t forsee it. In order to defeat Bush and those connected with him, the possible future victory in Iraq must be disconnected from him as much as is possible, and attached to those on the ground there.
Not that I’m saying that mistakes weren’t made at the top, nor that the troops in Iraq haven’t done great – I’m just commenting on thethe reframing.
I agree Marco. The anti-war (wtf does that even mean?) types had to know, in the darkest recesses of their souls, that eventually Bush would not REALLY be emperor for life. They see an election is going to happen in 2008 and President Bush isn’t an option. Now, it is time to re-dress the narrative. Now, of course things are looking better because of their ankle biting and second guessing all these 4 years. Come election time, they will be the recipients of the good news in Iraq (so the hope goes). The war went ok, despite Chimpy McHaliburtonwarforoilandanexcusetokillbrownpeopleotherthandrowningthemviahurricaines. Of course if it slides back into total chaos, than just re-animate the blame Bush game.
And the reframing will be seamless after awhile. Just watch: Reid and Pelosi will start saying that they knew all along that things would get better. If they hadn’t kept harping on about getting rid of Rumsfeld, adding more troops, and changing strategy, thing would never have improved.
But yeah, Morris’s inability to question his premises is remarkable. Remember: people can usually forgive you for being wrong, but they’ll never forgive you for being right.
Well, I’m not sure if Rumsfeld had to go or not for a different approach, but for whatever reason the change was made has been for the better I think. And it did start after the November 2006 elections, so I guessing Bush anticipated the additional pressure and tried to act pre-emptively. Too bad it wasn’t done a year earlier.
And for cramming a lot into one sentence, I prefer:
Despite the media’s desire to pin defeat on Bush and the left’s bad faith arguments against the war, the Marines I rode with here [in Fallujah] have won a delicate peace in this once-deadly city.
I’m nodding in agreement with Marco, Infidel, and particularly dicentra.
I’ve said it before, and I expect to keep saying it with increasing frequency:
We’re seeing a shift in the narrative that will eventually end with Democrats and the left in general claiming credit for the victory in Iraq and against jihadism in general, while reviling Republicans and other Nazis for their traitorous strangling of liberty at home and abroad.
Yes, folks, it’s true: if it weren’t for militant patriots like Pelosi and Murtha, lily-livered appeasers like Bush would have sold America to the sheiks for oil profits.
We were too easy going in. Should have kept pounding the Iraqi Army and the Republican Guards until we got a surrender, rather than letting them all just walk.
Ah. The Cold War all over again.
I would think some Republicans are going to have an even more difficult time than Dems explaining success to their constituents. I seriously doubt Hagel will run again. For anything. Ever.
If it weren’t for the need to get out ahead of the Petraeus Report, I doubt we’d be hearing even grudging admission of success on the military front.
The 400-pound But Monkey is the political situation, which, as Refugee alluded in #14, will be hung all over Bush. And Bush, being Above The Fray, will allow it to happen. (Actually that’s a bit unfair: GWB’s stated perspective is historical, as in “The historians will get it right and by then we’ll all be dead anyway”.) Did I hear Senator Granny-glasses (D-Michigan) call for a vote of no-confidence in al-Maliki? (Is that even possible under the current Iraqi Constitution?)
It was really quite a good article, once you got past the credential-burnishing with the Leftish readership and the ritual Bush-bashing, it appeared to be a good report. Not quite up to Yon’s standards, but an interesting read on Fallujah.
Major John, I am glad that your experience is going into training. In my uneducated opinion the US Army has to pass from expecting the Red Army to roll through the Fulda Gap into planning and preparing for all kinds of wars – heavy divisions vs a tank army, and light infantry vs an insurgency. It is a big world and all types of enemy forces are on the table, and the US Army (as the primary ground fighters) has to be ready to face all types.
N.B.: This is not to denigrate the US Army – it has the core right: discipline, training, control. It just (in my opinion) has to break an institutional bent towards heavy main battles as the primary mission. All types of battle is the primary mission – any foe, any where, any time, any way.
Mikey,
As I recall that’s what The Donald was doing at DOD, rewriting the mission of the military, and how it accomplished it. That’s the primary reason all the old fart brass hats hated his guts, he stripped their premises out from under them and made them work for a living again.
RC:
I recall that he killed Crusader in order to have the Army concentrate on lighter, faster, stronger. Both sides, I think were right. There is a need for heavy units and a need for light units (whether the division should be the largest permanent structure or whether a smaller unti, such as a brigade, should be I’ll leave to the experts). But neither heavy nor light should take an institutional priority – all are necessary, and I think a general officer should be aware and able to employ any type of unit depending on the situation.
That, I think, is why that officer is called a general and not a specific – colonels deal with specific types of units, generals have to be able to effectively use all types of units.
Again, I am not a soldier, though I know some very well.
[…] Note his insistence that “he’s not a left-wing guy,” too. Yet another perverse example of a liberal denying that a liberal agenda is liberal. See also Ellensburg, Rick. […]
I didn’t know all that much about Rumsfeld when he took over – but killing that Cold War monstrosity, the Crusader, really perked me up. I knew that we were heading in the right direction – adapt to a new world boys, no more two corps on line and charging into Kuwait.