Foxfyre wrote:October 14, 2005
An American "Debacle"?
More unjustified negativity on the war in Iraq.
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Thanks for the article by Victor Davis Hanson, Foxfyre. However, Mr Hanson's predictions and analyses have proven less than accurate in the past. Just ask Jude Wanniski, (which I admit is not nearly as Hollywood a name as Victor Davis Hanson):
Jude Wanniski wrote:
Victor Davis Hanson: The Analogist Apologist
Hanson has been called President Bush's favorite historian, and for good reason. Soon after 9-11, the San Joaquin Valley classics professor began writing regularly for The National Review, demanding we go into Iraq, imparting martial lessons from Greece and Rome to an America abruptly at war. In short order, Hanson became a fellow at Palo Alto's Hoover Institute, a dinner companion of Bush and Dick Cheney, and the most unswerving defender of administration policies - even the ones the administration barely bothers to defend.
Hanson, you see, knows things you and I don't. His considerable certainty as to the strategic soundness of the war has been rooted not just in supposition but in historical analogy. "In the same way as the death of Hitler ended the Nazi Party and the ruin of the Third Reich finished the advance of fascist power in Europe," he predicted in 2002, "so the defeat of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi dictatorship will erode both clandestine support for terrorism and murderous tyranny well beyond Iraq." Oops.
On his second try, Hanson foresaw an end to the strife once Hussein was killed or captured. "The Romans realized this," he wrote, "and thus understood that Gallic liberation, Numidian resistance, or Hellenic nationalism would melt away when a Vercingetorix, Jugurtha, or Mithradites all were collared, dead, or allowed suicide." Hanson is living proof that you can't take historical analogies to the bank.
In August of 2002, as Cheney raised the idea of taking the war to Iraq in a major speech to a Veteran of Foreign Wars assemblage, Hanson not only endorsed the idea but proposed that the government place "as many as 250,000 [troops] in immediate readiness" (to his credit, that number suggested he was an abler military strategist than anyone in Rumsfeld's shop). And yet, somehow, when his quarter-million soldiers failed to materialize, he managed to decide that 150,000 (the actual number) was just fine - even writing, as the occupation descended into bloody hell, that more troops might have meant more casualties in the war's opening days.
As anti-war sentiment began to mount, Hanson dismissed it. "We are told," he wrote contemptuously in February 2002, "an attack against Iraq will supposedly inflame the Muslim world. Toppling Saddam Hussein will cause irreparable rifts with Europeans and our moderate allies, and turn world opinion against America." What to Hanson was nonsense looks like pretty fair prophecy today.
It was Abu Ghraib, though, that tested Hanson's true mettle as supreme apologist, and he rose to the occasion. "We do not know how many of the abused, tortured, and humiliated prisoners in the war's aftermath either belonged to the cohort of 100,000 felons let lose by Saddam on the eve of the war or were part of the Hussein death machine or themselves were recent killers who had assassinated and blown apart Americans," he wrote.
To Hanson, what Abu Ghraib imperiled wasn't America's honor or reputation for decency; after all, what dishonor attended the torture of prisoners suspected to be Hussein's thugs? No, the danger was that even conservatives had begun to call for Rumsfeld's scalp, threatening the architect of the war and the occupation that Hanson had defended with every analogy he could adduce. Desperate times require desperate measures, and it was not until Abu Ghraib that Hanson termed Rumsfeld "America's finest secretary of defense in a half-century."
Our failures in Iraq, Hanson now insists, are failures not of planning but of will. Though there are no anti-war demonstrations to speak of, [this was written before Cindy sheehan] and though hardly any political leaders are demanding withdrawal, Hanson smells a fifth column. "Whether this influential, snarling minority - so prominent in the media, on campuses, in government, and in the arts - succeeds in turning victory into defeat is open to question," he laments. He's counting on Bush - bolstered by his references to Churchill - to stay the course.
Source.
Well KW, I read the Wanniski piece and re-read the Hanson piece. Hanson cites verifiable circumstances and facts and those he assumes, he makes clear are an assumption. He uses a good mix of praise and criticism, fairly distributed, typical of an objective reporter.
Wanniski seems intent on discrediting Hanson not with verifiable circumstances and facts but with some pretty ambitious assumptions and personal prejudices. He ignored all the good that has happened while showing how claims of success are not all emcompassing as that somehow discredits Hanson. (Of course Hanson didn't claim that they were.)
Putting the two articles side by side, Hanson wins that debate hands down. Come back with more Wanniski when it is less partisan, less personally directed, and has more substance.
I hope the armchair patriots will read this.Frank
Mesopotomac (Daniel Goetz)
Seven months ago, my service in the army was to have terminated. Instead, I am in Iraq for the second time. I sit next to a DOD contractor whose job is identical to mine. Except he makes $120,000 more, works four hours less, and visits home four times more often than I do.
Daniel Goetz is currently serving in Samarra, Iraq. Read his blog here.
I am not alone in my anger and humiliation. When we were here in 2003, there was anger, but there is a difference between anger and bitter hatred. The atmosphere of discontent is thick and contagious. Even soldiers not stop-lossed feel The Betrayal. They know it might be them next time. Dissent will not change anything for us now because our voices are muted. Still, there is hope. It is that in twenty years, it will be these men and women in office. Perhaps, that alone should make me feel better. I don't think it is enough, though, for our wounded and fallen. I can't speak for them, of course. Not yet, at least.
I joined the army soon after I finished college; the decision was an amalgamation of desire to serve, to belong, and to repay student loans. I wanted the challenge to see if I really could be all I could be. Our country was a vastly different place then; one in which policemen, firemen, and servicemembers were no different than any other American. I had almost completed my two years of training to become an Arabic linguist when September Eleventh dramatically changed the nation's climate. I knew my own role would be pivotal, and was eager to see our country avenged on the battlefield.
Until then, I had a rather dim view of the army. Their promise to repay my college loans turned out to be false, and I was left to shoulder the massive burden of debt alone. My dismay melted away in the patriotic euphoria that enveloped the country in the run-up to our invasion of Iraq. Like the rest of the America, I clung fervently to the justifications for it. The underlying righteousness was my source of motivation when we crossed the Kuwait-Iraq border in March of 2003.
In the months that were to follow, those justifications collapsed - and with them, my confidence in a nation. In those days, my colleagues and I would often patrol the streets of Baghdad with the infantry in a bid to quell boredom. We were also looking for hope among the Iraqi people; we could live vicariously through their optimism, and perhaps therein find meaning for our occupation. But hope betrayed us as the insurgency swelled. It was when the fighting began again in earnest that we left Iraq. By the end of August, I was back in The United States, free to pretend Iraq never happened.
But it had. And nothing could wrench the darkest memories from repression like the knowledge that we were to return. Worse, our year in America was wasted. Almost every week, CSPAN would feature one committee or another complaining that our armed forces hadn't enough servicemembers in critical jobs like intelligence and military police. I wanted them to know how poorly we were thought of in our own units, and how little job-specific training we received before we left. At one point, we were told to study Arabic only on our own time. That was hardly possible when we were kept late every night, sometimes doing only menial tasks like weapons-cleaning until three in the morning.
The last straw was "stop loss". My enlistment contract ended in March of this year. It is seven months hence, and I am still in Iraq. I propose that, in order for me to respect my commitment, the army ought to respect the contract we agreed upon. It was for five years, not six. Proponents of this form of conscription argue that I signed it nonetheless, fully aware of possible outcomes. True, I ought to have prepared myself better. But to remain bound to an expired commitment - exposed to prolonged peril in support of an unjustifiable cause - was beyond my expectations.
Today, I find the greatest challenge of the army is to find honor in service. I don't ever regret having joined because I've learned so much about myself and about America. I have faith in both, but yearn for hope to become reality. I want to go home as badly as I want to be proud of my country again.
Foxfyre wrote: Hanson cites verifiable circumstances and facts and those he assumes, he makes clear are an assumption.
I am not sure what you mean by verifiable circumstances, whatever they are. And keeping facts and assumptions separate is nice, if Hanson actually does that, but Wanniski still demonstrates Hanson reaches utterly wrong conclusions.
Foxfyre wrote:He [Hanson}uses a good mix of praise and criticism, fairly distributed, typical of an objective reporter.
Hanson is not an objective reporter, I he is a historian who tirelessly defends the Iraq war in The National Review, among other places. I see little praise or criticism evenly distributed.
Foxfyre wrote:Wanniski seems intent on discrediting Hanson not with verifiable circumstances and facts but with some pretty ambitious assumptions and personal prejudices.
Actually, Wanniski points out the outrageous statements Hanson makes.
A) Hanson foresaw an end to the strife once Saddam Husseinn was cpatured-how wrong can somebody be?
B) Hanson predicted 150,000 troops would be enough-we now know that wasn't true.
C) Hanson dismissed the idea that the Iraq invasion will inflame the Muslim world. Yet if it has not radicalized it, why are foreign terrorists coming in to aid the insurgency? Something had to radicalize them.
Add this to the fact that Hanson continuously dismisses criticism of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. While this is not a provable or unprovable thing, it is difficult to admire a man who defends torture or the circumventing of Constitutional laws against it.
Foxfyre wrote:Putting the two articles side by side, Hanson wins that debate hands down.
On the contrary, Wanniski exposes Hanson as a lightweight popinjay, willing to mouth the most absurd things.
All probably in the eyes of the beholder, KW. You have typically wanted to see the events in the worst possible light--I haven't seen you be positive about much of anything related to anything that has happened during the current administration. Thus Wanniski probably reinforces your opinion and sounds good to you.
I am a conservative who is able to see the good with the bad and can appreciate small steps of progress, encouraging developments, and indicators of hope. Hanson is a conservative who can see this also. Neither of us ignores the problems, the fubars, the setbacks, the problems, the obstacles. We just don't see them as permanent failures.
Some people sit down and cry and wail or become angry and condemn when there is a problem. Some even hope for and delight in failure that seems to justify their own negative feelings.
Some people believe the way to success is to meeth the problems head on, solve them, and move on. When it is something important, failure is not an option for them.
Wanniski is the first kind of person in the same vein as a Frank Rich or a Paul Krugman.
Hanson is in the second group.
I prefer Hanson.
Foxfyre wrote:Come back with more Wanniski....
Heavens, Hanson can't stand up to even this one examination by Wanniski. And you want him to come back and lacerate him some more?
Foxfyre wrote:when it is less partisan,
when has Hanson written anythign about Iraq that is not partisan?
Foxfyre wrote: less personally directed...
A) Hanson's own article is an examination of the shortcomings of one of his critics, Brzezinki. Why is Wanniski wrong when he examines Hanson't own statements?
Foxfyre wrote:...and has more substance.
Substance? Hanson made the statements. If they don't bear up under examination, whose fault is that? Not Wanniski's.
Foxfyre wrote:Come back with more Wanniski....
Heavens, Hanson can't stand up to even this one examination by Wanniski. And you want him to come back and lacerate him some more?
Foxfyre wrote:when it is less partisan,
when has Hanson written anythign about Iraq that is not partisan?
Foxfyre wrote: less personally directed...
A) Hanson's own article is an examination of the shortcomings of one of his critics, Brzezinki. Why is Wanniski wrong when he examines Hanson't own statements?
Foxfyre wrote:...and has more substance.
Substance? Hanson made the statements. If they don't bear up under examination, whose fault is that? Not Wanniski's.
So much for that new "Double Post Prevention" feature.
Foxfyre wrote:All probably in the eyes of the beholder, KW.
No, it was actually an examination of the things Hanson has said which turned out to be simply nonsense.
Or do you think that when Saddam was captured, the resistance weakened?
Foxfyre wrote:You have typically wanted to see the events in the worst possible light--I haven't seen you be positive about much of anything related to anything that has happened during the current administration. Thus Wanniski probably reinforces your opinion and sounds good to you.
Foxfyre, you have to stop this habit of yours of attacking the poster.
I don't have to justify my general philosophy to criticise the great and mighty Victor Davis Hanson. I am simply pointing out that his conclusions have turned out to be wrong in some cases and difficult to defend in others.
Foxfyre wrote:I am a conservative who is able to see the good with the bad and can appreciate small steps of progress, encouraging developments, and indicators of hope. Hanson is a conservative who can see this also.
"Small steps of progress" mostly being defined as elections, while the situation worsens. As Seymour Hersh said, everytime they have one of these so-called key elections, we are told that things will get better. We have had several of these elections, and it only gets worse after. At some point it should be recognized that holding elections is not going to get it done.
Foxfyre wrote: Neither of us [Foxfyre and Hanson] ignores the problems, the fubars, the setbacks, the problems, the obstacles. We just don't see them as permanent failures.
I would say you both profoundly ignore the problems. The country is more fractured, not less. The insurgency is more active, not less. This has been going on for quite awhile.
Foxfyre wrote:Some people sit down and cry and wail or become angry and condemn when there is a problem. Some even hope for and delight in failure that seems to justify their own negative feelings.
If the Emporer is not wearing any clothes, is it being negative to point out that he is not wearing any clothes? Or are we obligated to be "positive" and emphasize that since his path will take him past a haberdashery, that it is probably a sure thing that he soon will have clothes on?
Overall, Foxfyre, I would just say that you really haven't taken on any of Wanniski's specific points, while Wanniski does take on Hanson's specific points. So I think that Wanniski's article stands unrebutted.
You are entitled to your opinion(s) KW. And I do apologize for commenting on your negativity re the current administration. I used it as illutrastion for why you are probably attracted to Wanniski, but it was personally directed, unnecessary, and inappropriately speculative.
There were no points of Wanniski's to analyze other than his opinion of Hanson, such opinion with which I disagree. So what is there to comment on point by point other than to list them and say I don't see it the way he does?
Wanniski doesn't offer anything substantive to debate. He says what he thinks Hanson said, but given Wanniski's general gloom and doom outlook, I don't trust him to see Hanson's words or intent accurately. And I frankly don't care enough to go hunt up all the unlinked content referenced to check each point.
I accept that Wanniski doesn't like Hanson. I do.
Foxfyre wrote: Wanniski doesn't offer anything substantive to debate. He says what he thinks Hanson said, but given Wanniski's general gloom and doom outlook, I don't trust him to see Hanson's words or intent accurately. And I frankly don't care enough to go hunt up all the unlinked content referenced to check each point.
Basically, what you are saying boils down to the idea that since Wanniski did not give direct quotes from Hanson, everything he says is essentially worthless. Plus Wanniski's not conservative, so that doubles the likelihood of worthlessness.
I certainly hope that we have not reached the point where only direct quotes are acceptable before we analyze what people say.
Now, if someone who likes Hanson digs up some of his quotes and can show that Wanniski has twisted them around....well, that would be a powerful argument in defense of Hanson.
But until that happens, I think that Wanniski's article essentially remains unrebutted.
KW writes
Quote:Basically, what you are saying boils down to the idea that since Wanniski did not give direct quotes from Hanson, everything he says is essentially worthless. Plus Wanniski's not conservative, so that doubles the likelihood of worthlessness.
What I am saying is that I do not consider Wanniski reliable to provide an objective analysis of Hanson.
Quote:I certainly hope that we have not reached the point where only direct quotes are acceptable before we analyze what people say.
I certainly hope we have. I get very tired of seeing people erroneously quoted out of context with words paraphrased and twisted to imply something very different than what was said. For instance, I do not consider those who are consistently anti-George Bush and have absolutely nothing good to say about him or anything he does to be reliable in their reporting of what GWB says, thinks, or intends, and they generally get it wrong.
If Wanniski had given Hanson any credit whatsoever on any point, he would have more credibility. I think 100% negativity on anything significantly ups the chances of being wrong on perception and interpretation.
Quote:Now, if someone who likes Hanson digs up some of his quotes and can show that Wanniski has twisted them around....well, that would be a powerful argument in defense of Hanson.
But until that happens, I think that Wanniski's article essentially remains unrebutted.
I provided an article written by Hanson in his own words. You provided an article by Wanniski that provided no direct quotes or context but declares Hanson to be essentially all wet.
If you want to call that a rebuttal, your standards for rebuttal are significantly lower than mine are on that point.
Hypothetical:
How do you think this story would have been written if it had been a member of the Bush administration or a reporter from Fox News in the canoe?
Quote:If Michelle Kosinski's canoe had sprung a leak on NBC's "Today" show Friday, she didn't have much to worry about.
In one of television's inadvertently funny moments, the NBC News correspondent was paddling in a canoe during a live report about flooding in Wayne, N.J. While she talked, two men walked between her and the camera _ making it apparent that the water where she was floating was barely ankle-deep.
Matt Lauer struggled to keep a straight face, joking about the "holy men" who were walking on water.
"Have you run aground yet?" Katie Couric asked.
"Why walk when you can ride?" Kosinski replied.
Later, an NBC News spokeswoman explained that Kosinski had been riding in deeper water near an overflowing river down the street, but there were concerns that the current was too strong for her.
"It's not like we were trying to pass it off as something it wasn't," spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said.
SOURCE
You can watch the whole "staged" scene here:
http://newsbusters.org/node/2199
Great site you found there too, JW.
Foxfyre wrote:Great site you found there too, JW.
Hmm, the "Conservative Victory Committee" might be very helpfull.
From the NYT:
October 16, 2005
Plenty of Praise for a Nominee, but Few Details
By TODD S. PURDUM
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 - Ask any of Harriet E. Miers's typically press-shy White House colleagues what she has been like in her years as a top Bush administration staff member, and the praise pours out. She is intelligent. Meticulous. Selfless. Insightful. But when it comes down to cases, they have a harder time.
"You know, she's a very gracious and funny person," said Joshua B. Bolten, the director of the Office of Management and Budget whom Ms. Miers succeeded as deputy White House chief of staff in 2003. "I was racking my brain trying to think of something specific."
In the next breath, Mr. Bolten recalled relaxing with her at Camp David. "She is a very good bowler," he said. "For someone her size, she actually gets a lot of action out of the pins."
What The New York Herald Tribune once wrote about her earliest predecessor as White House staff secretary - Andrew Jackson Goodpaster, who created the job under Dwight D. Eisenhower - could also apply to Ms. Miers: her influence in the White House has often seemed hidden "behind a quiet facade that lends itself neither to anecdotes nor stuffiness."
Ms. Miers's admirers say that she has brought diligence and determination to every task, and that her fingerprints are all over Mr. Bush's record in office. Finding her footprints is much harder. When colleagues are asked to cite an example of her influence on a particular policy or program, the invariable answer is that she affected them all.
That lack of specificity has compounded the White House's difficulties in selling Ms. Miers's nomination to the Supreme Court, and opened the field to her harshest critics.
For nearly five years, Ms. Miers has been among the least visible and voluble figures in a White House where even the most prominent and public staff members tend to be seen and not heard. The one policy dispute in which she is known to have taken a stand was her failed opposition to the Bush administration's early decision to stop cooperating with the American Bar Association in rating judicial nominees.
As staff secretary for the first two and a half years of the Bush administration, Ms. Miers was the last person to see every scrap of paper headed for the Oval Office, colleagues say.
"You might think anybody who was preparing something to go to the president would already have taken care to see that it was perfect," said David G. Leitch, a former deputy White House counsel who is now general counsel to the Ford Motor Company. "But Harriet always scrubbed them one more time, and managed to come up with things that people hadn't seen or thought of before, from the broad wording of an issue to errors in punctuation."
Some who have worked with her say that the same punctiliousness that made her a sterling steward of the White House paper flow sometimes made her an impediment in her policy jobs, and that her focus on process bodes ill for her work as a justice.
"It wasn't that she didn't do the job right," said David Frum, who was a White House speechwriter when Ms. Miers was staff secretary and has been one of her sharpest critics, "but the way she did the job rules her out of being a person you would think of as capable of handling this enormous responsibility."
Mr. Bolten acknowledged that he was somewhat surprised when Ms. Miers was chosen as staff secretary, because the job had often been filled by more politically minded operatives, including Richard G. Darman in the Reagan administration.
But he added, "What I think made Harriet so successful as staff secretary was that she was a diligent and honest broker, able to digest very complicated material rapidly, and produce a fair resolution for the president, so that the advice that was going in to the president was fully and fairly presented."
Ms. Miers's friends in and out of government express disappointment that her nomination has not been greeted in a similar spirit and say they do not recognize her critics' descriptions of her as an unqualified presidential crony.
"Harriet is a person who is incredibly capable and hard-working and fair and honest," said Susan L. Karamanian, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School and a Democrat who was mentored by Ms. Miers as a young lawyer in her Dallas firm nearly 20 years ago.
"When I practiced with Harriet, I never once heard her make a serious negative comment about anyone," Ms. Karamanian said. "And now for someone who's dedicated her life to working so hard in the profession, and treating everyone so fairly, to be the object of these statements is just incomprehensible to me."
Kristen Silverberg, a former White House official who is now an assistant secretary of state, spent part of 2003 in Baghdad as an aide to L. Paul Bremer, the presidential envoy to Iraq, and recalled that "Harriet was always the first one on the phone to say, 'Is everything O.K.?' " when there was bad news.
"When the Al Rashid Hotel was bombed," Ms. Silverberg said, "the first e-mail I got was from her."
Ms. Silverberg, who was a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, said that Ms. Miers's work at the highest levels of the White House had exposed her thoroughly to the many "monumental, life-changing issues" that come before the court, and that she would be well-suited to grappling with them.
"She's very meticulous," Ms. Silverberg said. "She has a lot of humility in the way she approaches her job. It's never about Harriet. It's always about making sure that everything is perfect and that the president gets the best advice."
When Jeanette Reilly, a highly regarded research director in the White House speechwriting office, was stricken with terminal cancer in her 20's, colleagues said Ms. Miers not only made a special point of looking after her, but also drafted her will.
"Jen and Harriet had what seemed to me a special friendship," said Matthew Scully, a White House speechwriter from 2001 until last year, "and really seemed to understand and respect each other, as I thought, because they recognized the same high standard in each other. Sometimes when you're doing these speeches, you sort of think, 'This can slide, nobody is going to challenge this,' but that was not a high enough standard for Harriet."
Brett M. Kavanaugh, Ms. Miers's successor as staff secretary, said that her critics had overlooked the breadth of issues she had addressed in the White House.
"For any lawyer in the country to be called upon by the president over the course of the past five years to provide advice on a full range of subjects," Mr. Kavanaugh said, "from national security law, to the Patriot Act, to any issue that may cross his desk, is a very significant role for any lawyer to play."
Mr. Kavanaugh's own nomination for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has been stalled in the Senate for more than two years, in the face of sharp Democratic questioning of his qualifications.
Asked if Ms. Miers had sought his advice, he responded indirectly. "Her process will move more quickly," he said. "That's one thing that's sure."
Foxfyre wrote:Hypothetical:
How do you think this story would have been written if it had been a member of the Bush administration or a reporter from Fox News in the canoe?
I think about the same. I think there is little doubt that Wayne NJ was flooded, several feet deep in places. It wasn't right for the Today crew to put the canoe in the shallowest part of flooding, (no doubt to prevent the chance of the reporter's designer clothes getting dunked0, and then trying to pass it off as deep water. But Wayne, NJ was indeed flooded deeply, probably down the street from where the canoe scene was filmed. The basic theme of the piece remained accurate-Wayne NJ was flooded.
Foxfyre wrote: For instance, I do not consider those who are consistently anti-George Bush and have absolutely nothing good to say about him or anything he does to be reliable in their reporting of what GWB says, thinks, or intends, and they generally get it wrong.
Ah, but those who consistently support George Bush and the Iraq war, you would presume to be reliable in their reporting? Because if you wouldn't, then why did you single out the people who oppose George Bush as being unreliable?
Seems to me you just admitted that you operate on a double standard.
Foxfyre wrote:If Wanniski had given Hanson any credit whatsoever on any point, he would have more credibility.
In the article you provided by Victor Davis Hanson, please show me someplace where Hanson gives
his critics any credit. Indeed, he spent much of the article attacking Brzezinski's record as national security advisor-fair enough-but Brzezinski is just one person among many who have raised the same points.
Foxfyre wrote:I provided an article written by Hanson in his own words.
And I provided an article by Wanniski in his own words.
Foxfyre wrote:You provided an article by Wanniski that provided no direct quotes or context but declares Hanson to be essentially all wet.
Save for a single seven word quote from Tony Blair-hardly a Bush critic-the only quotes in Hanson's article are by Brzezinski. From there, Hanson spends most of the article stating that all critics of the Iraq war are all wet. So I provided an article by Wanniski proving that when it comes to his predictions of this war all along, Hanson is all wet.
How is that unfair?
