What did they say and when did they say it - Iraq version
Don't you sometimes have a vague memory of the stipendiary punditry bloviating about the war over the last four years and consistently being wrong? But then when you catch the same guys talking now, they seems so reasonable? Willing to admit a few errors in judgement, while still insisting that their judgement now is 20/20 is the American public would just continue to show common sense by listening to them? Your memory must be playing tricks on you.
Check out Tom Tomorrow's retrospective right here.
Labels: American public, Iraq, MSM, political class
posted by Clemens @ 9:55 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Curious. Calling Morton Kondracke, Dick Morris, and Howard Fineman right-wingers is nothing short of dishonest, and Mona Charen's statement was in fact true. Did Tom Tomorrow not watch television after the fall of Hussein's regime? I remember quite vividly the rejoicing and grateful Iraqis that were broadcast on TV (but not on many other nations' state-controlled televisions).
For that matter, I remember an Arab newspaper at the time lamenting that the American victory in Iraq proved without question that Americans now ruled the world. I laughed at that opinion then just as much as I do now.
By my reckoning there have been four wars in Iraq, not two, and the mismanagement of each led to another. The first was Operation Desert Storm under Bush, which ended with a premature withdrawal, and American soldiers stationed in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
This inflamed Osama bin-Laden, leading to the formation of al-Qaeda, but that's a different story. It also led to the declaration of no-fly zones because, gosh darn it, we couldn't actually support the Kurds and Shia who listened to President Bush and rose up against Hussein. That might have offended the Turks and the Saudis, after all.
So during the 90s, we carried on a low-grade war with Hussein's regime, exemplified by Clinton's Operation Desert Fox, which was carried out under exactly the same auspices as the second Bush's war, and accomplished far less. "Clinton lied, no one died"—yeah, right.
So, Bush the second decided to depose Hussein, based on whatever reason sounds good, and succeeds. And in fact Iraq enjoyed a few weeks of peace.
But, then we decided to occupy the country, disband the military, etc. Hence the insurgency: war 4.
But, mine is a minority reckoning. In fact, I don't know anyone who shares this point of view, which merely proves me right! ;-)
I don't know Jack. I just checked and I don't believe Tom T. actually calls them right-wingers. The title indicates he is going after 'punditry' - which I think is fair game for this type of hit. It also seems to be the point of Bill Moyers show the other night.
I will now destroy your faith in your reckoning of the war count - I agree with it wholeheartedly. So it must be wrong!
And you are right that this sometimes lead to Americans talking past each other. In the 'War to Get Rid of Saddam' the mission was accomplished and the Iraqis were happy to be liberated.
For a moment people like me, who hopped for the best, could breathe a sigh of relief even though it was clear the inevitalbe NEXT 'mission' was not only not over, it wasn't even defined.
From there we have slid into several wars and we talk past each other because we speak as if it were all one war. There is the war against al-Qaeda in Iraq; the war against the more or less pro-Baathist Insurgency; the war against Moqtadr al-Sadr (and the more general war against Shia death squads, Iranian backed militia, etc). Success in one or more is not success in the others, and what works for one might actually work against the others.
My feelings about this bundle of wars are complex, and more than a little frustrated. We are now in a position where almost any option, especially the Demo one, is fraught with failure, bad consequences for almost all concerned, and great moral ambiguity. And I resent the people who let it come to this, including the stipendiary punditry Tom Tomorrow sends up. I admit he uses a broad brush and is not particularly fair, but he is making a valid point and one we should not forget.
About the time I quit watching most TV I realized that 99% of air time TV and radio news was simply opinions spouted off by people who had no great expertise in anything. And that's why I like the cartoon.
In the note below the cartoon, the artist writes, In compiling these quotes, I relied heavily on the excellent work of my friends at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, who have been tracking right-wing and corporate bias in the media since long before it ever occurred to anyone to coin a word as ungainly as "blog." This is why I made that remark about right-wingers. Perhaps he meant that they were "corporate" media, but it's odd that he doesn't mention "left-wing". Apparently there aren't any corporate left-wingers? :-)
I will now destroy your faith in your reckoning of the war count - I agree with it wholeheartedly. So it must be wrong!
Well, I just can't get anything right lately. :-)
I personally don't like the cartoon, because Mr. Tomorrow doesn't mention any of his own gross mistakes. (I've read him before I came across this one.)
Jack - yes, I saw that line and wondered if that was what you thought justified calling the cartoon dishonest. I still don't see it. Like a footnote, it alludes to a source for the quotes, it doesn't take credit for the ideas there. Nowhere does the cartoon itself call any of them anything except pundits. You have supplied the 'right-winger' apparently from watching other work Tom Tomorrow has done.
Nor does the fact that Tom Tomorrow has been wrong on things himself mar the impact of the cartoon, as far as I can tell. I still think it makes a good and valid point. A LOT of self-assured blather went on out their from the pundits that now looks like so much hot air.
I will grant that Mona Charon's statement was true - partly the result of the situation you touch on with your various phases. A lot of what was said about the war did seem to be true for a short period. But, as "Cobra II" and other books detail, field commanders were seeing signs that something else might be going on out there, and were roundly ignored by the high command, the media, and politicians.
And you could do a cartoon just as funny and just as valid with anti-war predictions on the Afghan War - the ones along the lines of, 'Hey, the RUSSIANS failed to defeat these guys, how do you think WE can?' or 'the mountains are too tall and too call for Americans to fight there!' or some other nonsense. They discredited themselves thoroughly, and to our great cost.
But a deeper question is: why divide up the pundits/talking heads into two teams, the Rightwingers and the Leftwingers? The pro-war crowd was not uniformaly the one and the anti-war crowd the other. Christopher Hitchens and Paul Berman were for the war; Pat Buchanan and other commentators of the right were against it.
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