EFFin’ Unsound

– posted by thehim

Oh my.  Eric Earling is still pretending that he has a clue about what’s happening in the Middle East.  And even worse, he’s trying to accuse war opponents of “being (dis)honest about who we fight.” 

A few days back the Seattle Times offered several laments about the current situation in Iraq, among them, the complaint that current efforts in Iraq are “too much a case of American troops standing amid civil conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.”

This is most certainly true, as those who are actually there covering the war will tell you. 

Eric, now give me your best non-sequitur:

Interesting then that besides the veto news of the last twenty-four hours also related to Iraq, the other top story from that land involved al-Qaeda, specifically whether its commander in Iraq was finally getting his due chance to consult closely with Allah, or someone else.

Yes, there are groups in Iraq who are part of al-Qaeda.  If Eric thinks that this disproves the fact that there’s a civil war raging between Sunnis and Shiites, I have some doubts about his analytical skills.

Either way, the details surrounding his possible demise serve as a reminder of a helpful trend, so compelling it earned serious coverage from the New York Times: the notable shift of Sunni tribes in the restive Anbar province to work with the Iraqi government and US forces to smash the Al Qaeda forces they’ve learned to hate.

This is neither surprising nor new.  The Sunnis in Iraq, especially under Saddam, never liked religious fanatics like al-Qaeda.  However, since the invasion, the popularity of al-Qaeda has grown.  There’s been resentment over this phenomenon since the beginning of our involvement there, and it continues to escalate as al-Qaeda gets stronger.

Certainly, Shiite and Sunnni tensions do exist in Iraq and are a source of serious sectarian violence.

Uh, yeah. 

Yet Iraq war opponents, including the Seattle Times, have become quite skilled as of late in ignoring the fact Al Qaeda has turned Iraq into its cause celebre.

Of course it has.  Al-Qaeda, as people who understand this region have written numerous times, thrives when it can convince people that America is an evil hegemon bent on subjugating the Middle East.  They point to Iraq because what we’re doing there is convincing people in the Middle East that part of our plan is to cause civil strife between Muslims.  As a result, the civil war is a big part of what convinces people to join al-Qaeda right now.  People opposed to the continuation of the Iraq War are not focusing on the civil war and our inability to stop it because we want to ignore the problem with al-Qaeda, we’re focusing on the civil war and our inability to stop it because it’s helping al-Qaeda.

During his recent trip to the Capital, General Petraeus said, “Iraq is, in fact, the central front of al Qaeda’s global campaign.” This the same Petraeus confirmed unanimously by the Democratic Senate.

And he’s right.  But the reason that it’s become the central front of al-Qaeda’s campaign is because we stubbornly refuse to begin the process of giving control of the country back to the Iraqis.

Bluntly, the factual correctness of many war objectors is becoming a serious issue, whether in glossing over the current Al Qaeda focus on Iraq or in continuing, like the Times, to ignore the dramatic changes undertaken in Iraq strategy since last fall.

What changes?  What are we doing that’s dramatically differently?  The results are still the same.  If anything, Iraq has gotten much worse since last fall, as a number of people in the government have resigned, or even killed.  We can’t even turn the Green Zone over to the Iraqis and we’re building walls in Baghdad, which the Iraqi government and over 90% of the area’s residents don’t even want.  Is doing whatever we want and telling the Iraqis to go fuck themselves the great new strategy you’re talking about?

Since such opponents still don’t like it, they demand something new under the false pretense that nothing has changed…or at least not to the course they prefer.

What the hell kind of course do you prefer?  Does this look like the road to success to you?  The “surge” has done nothing to stop the violence and you know that.  It’s time for the people in charge to start acting like adults and figure out a way to extract ourselves from this mess.

The disconnect is so acute it recently made the pages of a significant left-of-center publication, the New Republic [Note: the link may require free registration, which is well worth it for this read].

Lawrence Kaplan?  You mean one of the laughingstocks of the reality-based community for being incredibly wrong about the war. 

Some key excerpts:

Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. But, when Nancy Pelosi confessed last year that she felt “sad” about President Bush’s claims that Al Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every American soldier in Iraq, every Al Qaeda operative, and anyone who reads a newspaper already knew to be true.

Why wouldn’t she be sad about those claims?  The fact that al-Qaeda operates in Iraq at the level that they do is a testament to how much of a failure Iraq has been.   

(When I questioned him about Pelosi’s assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded, incredulously, that Al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.)…

How is this not evidence that Iraq has been an utter disaster?  Under Saddam’s rule, if al-Qaeda would have tried to have a parade through Ramadi, they would have been slaughtered.  And now we’re in a situation where the longer we stay, the stronger al-Qaeda keeps getting.  What on earth could possibly be good about this?  How does any of this show a lack of honesty from the people who were smart enough to predict this outcome in the first place?

What is going on here? There are two possibilities: First, Reid and Pelosi could be purposefully minimizing the stakes in Iraq. Or, second, they don’t know what they’re talking about. My guess is some combination of the two.

No, what they’re saying is that our presence in Iraq is only strengthening al-Qaeda at this point. 

…

Speaking of “where things stand on the ground in Iraq,” Reid insisted that the role of U.S. forces is to train Iraqi security forces, protect U.S. troops, and conduct targeted counterterrorism operations.

OK.

This transitions our mission to one that is aligned with U.S. strategic interests, while at the same time reducing our combat footprint.

Sure. 

U.S. troops should not be interjecting themselves between warring factions, kicking down doors, trying to sort Shia from Sunni, friend from foe.

Makes sense.

There are several problems with this formulation, not the least of which is that, far from being a “new strategy,” it mirrors exactly the approach that was tested and found wanting when Donald Rumsfeld was presiding over the war and “reducing our combat footprint” was a raison d’etre. Chaos, not stability, was the result.

Uh, what war has Kaplan been following all this time?  American troops haven’t been kicking down doors and interjecting themselves between warring factions?

…

Where all this leads is clear. Piece together a string of demonstrably false “facts on the ground” from a suitably safe remove, and you’re left with a scenario where we can walk away from Iraq without condition and regardless of consequence.

We’re way past the point of that being an issue.  Pretty soon, we’re going to have to deal with whether or not we leave Iraq on our own terms or on someone else’s.   

You don’t need to watch terrified Iraqis pleading for American forces to stay put in their neighborhoods.

But we’re not even doing that right now.  We’re building walls instead. 

You don’t need to read the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which anticipates that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal will end in catastrophe.

Whenever we leave, it will be a catastrophe.  That’s why we were telling you idiots in 2003 not to support this.  And there’s nothing we can do while we’re there to change it at this point.  Why don’t we start working on the best political solution we can find along a clear timetable to get out?  Postponing the inevitable will only make it worse. 

Why, in the serene conviction that things are the other way around, you don’t even need to read at all. Chances are, your congressman doesn’t either.

Excuse me, but my Congressman happened to be one of the smart one’s who was trying to stop this train wreck back in early 2003.

Good people can and most certainly do disagree about Iraq and our future course there. Nonetheless, is a little intellectual honesty in the discussion too much to ask?

No, it’s not, Eric.  Whenever you’re ready to start displaying some, I’m listening.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 7:25 pm and is filed under TheHim. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.