Could this be a really bad April Fool’s Joke?

I am not being a wise guy. The following post, expressing some reality about Iraq appeared on Power Line. Have they really taken a change from their usual, bizarre stuff? (These are the guys, who, in mid 2004, in listing ways in which the Iraq situation had exceeded critics’ expectations, offered the observation that our forces had not suffered large casualties from WMDs!)

I cannot imagine that this is a joke; it wouldn’t be funny or remotely appropriate, from any perspective (unless their site was hacked?). But if, this is sincerely from Power Line, I am shocked:

Power Line: Iraq: A pessimistic assessment

One of our hometown heroes serving in Iraq has written to provide his assessment of the situation there. He writes by way of preface:

It’s not pretty but it is reality. My job as a Human Intelligence collector provides me with uncommon situational awareness regarding, not Iraq as a whole, but much of southern Iraq. I meet with chiefs of police, I have been to the Provincial Security meetings, I have questioned terrorists of all stripes, I run sources, and collect the information to put bad guys in jail. I also read a lot of classified reporting from all over the country. What I say I don’t say lightly and I say with regret. But as someone who has been separated from my wife, friends, and family for 20 months already (with four months to go thanks to the surge) and as service members continue to lose life and limb I feel that I can no longer hold my tongue.

That’s just the intro. Read the rest at Powerline; he doesn’t hold back.

It’s been up for 12 hours, with a discussion on their forum; it must be legit.

Comments

  1. jfxgillis wrote:

    Commie:

    Not impressed. Read through the post you linked and the “See more”s at the bottom of the PL post.

    A bunch of literate and well-educated gung-ho types laying the groundwork for the ol’ “Stab in the Back.”

    That’s actually smarter and more realistic than the loyal-Bushie dead-enders like McCain and Lieberman, but really, so what? In terms of the objective reporting, they’re merely catching to what people who aren’t delusional knew a couple or more years ago. In terms of analytic content, it’s tediously predictable.

    Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 7:43 am

  2. commissar wrote:

    they’re merely catching to what people who aren’t delusional knew a couple or more years ago.

    Exactly my point. This is Powerline, (which I nicknamed “Powder Line”) we’re talking about. Just getting away from the hallucinations would be a big step for them.

    Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 9:09 am

  3. jfxgillis wrote:

    Point taken. Granted. Touche.

    As in “Doh.”

    Like of course.

    What was I thinking?

    That is a big step, yeah. I don’t read PL enough for it to have seeped it.

    Nevertheless, I really wanna smack that idiot at the link whining about the Democrats.

    Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 12:00 pm

  4. Bill from INDC wrote:

    jfxgillis -

    I’m trying to think of a way to characterize and initially respond to your comments without just throwing out an insult. I have to admit, it’s tough.

    Let me try:

    In terms of the objective reporting, they’re merely catching to what people who aren’t delusional knew a couple or more years ago.

    Really? For one thing, penetration of militias into the security forces is a regional situation. In some regions, it’s massive, in others negliegible, unless by “militias” you mean “tribes.” Of course all militias really are tribes, so the terms without clarifying descriptions are meaningless. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll say that “bad militia” = “sectarian group of armed murdering thugs beholden to radical clerics and/or neighboring governments.”

    By that defiintion, the south and capital are bad to really bad, the rest of the country - to varying degrees - not bad at all to not so bad.

    As far as your dismissive characterization of the rather frank published comment as a “gung ho type” setting up for the “stab in the back” argument, I’d encourage you to drop the partisan prism for half a second to acknowledge - whatever one’s assessment of initial or continuing troop involvement - the objective reality that domestic politics have an impact on the success of a mission.

    The mission might utterly fail regardless of the timetables of democratic politicians, because of a legion of strategic errors, fundamental cultural difficulties, etc., but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard to inspire local trust when Iraqis aren’t sure you’ll stay long, or outmaneuver an insurgent strategy centered around causing bloodshed to expedite withdrawal within the framework of a modern democracy waging war.

    Despite your own domestic political inclinations, these are rational factors in the war, whether they are subjectively considered the pivotal factors or not.

    That said, the rest of the comment is very accurate (with the exception that he doesn’t make geographic distinctions about infiltration levels), and is not “merely catching up to what people who aren’t delusional knew a couple or more years ago.”

    Much of the changing degree of militia infiltration wasn’t in existence “a couple years ago,” having gained momentum after the bombing of the Golden Samarra mosque and a string of regional elections and turnover in the Iraqi Police.

    In addition, even the author of this blog who shares your views didn’t come to this conclusion a couple of years ago, and he wasn’t exactly “delusional,” that I’m aware.

    Finally: the biggest problem with any Iraq discussion is smug partisan vitriol parading as wisdom or analysis.

    People -left and right - filter analysis of Iraq through this prism of domestic political warfare, equating the two conflicts.

    To put it more simply: let’s say that you’re right, and you had all the answers two years ago; I wouldn’t have listened to a thing you had to say, because you’re hubristic enough to snidely denigrate the assessment of a HUMINT officer in Iraq because one part of his analysis conflicts with your political sensibilities.

    With all of your ostensible wisdom, you torpedo your own credibility. No one is listening to you who doesn’t already agree.

    This attitude, which comes in shades of left and right, is part of the problem.

    Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 3:01 pm

  5. commissar wrote:

    Bill, jfx,

    I’m reasonably sure that jfx’ snark applied to the “additional, more” links, not to HUMINT’s main report.

    Finally: the biggest problem with any Iraq discussion is smug partisan vitriol parading as wisdom or analysis.

    People -left and right - filter analysis of Iraq through this prism of domestic political warfare, equating the two conflicts.

    Amen, Bill. One can hardly read anything, without the author’s filter overwhleming whatever facts lie beneath it.

    Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 4:47 pm

  6. jfxgillis wrote:

    BillfromINDC and Commissar:

    In general, Yes, the snark was directed at the set of all the posts, apparently three writers either on active duty or very recently on active duty. Actually, more, since I surfed through multiple posts on the linked sites.

    Specifically, though, commie, I was indeed directing ire at Humint for this passage:

    Then there’s the domestic political situation which I won’t rehash except to say that it’s crippling to the war effort. We’ve been in country over a year and there have been Democratic calls for timetables and withdraws the entire time. Would, should, any rational person bet his life helping CF when you’re expecting them to leave at any time?

    And I’ll defend the snark on at least three grounds if I can remember them all.

    1. To add snark to the snark, it may very well be that he’s correct–that the domestic political situation is “crippling” the war effort. Got a problem with that? That’s the point of the domestic opponents of the war effort. They don’t want to cripple it, actually–they want to put it out of its misery.

    2. So he doesn’t feel like Iraqis should bet their lives because the Democrats might infulence war policy? Tough noogies. We wanted to bring democracy to the Iraqis, didn’t we? That’s the way it works. Consent of the governed and all that.

    3. Humint is a soldier in the army of a democratic republic. If he does like the fact that the workings of a democratic republic might have a profound effect on the manner in which he is employed and deployed, there are lots of other countries in the world whose army he can join where he won’t have that problem. He should go join one of those armies. I think Russia would be great. And Lord Yes that’s snark.

    Finally, Bill, you can condemn me for being “partisan” all you want, but I did NOT raise the issue, I was responding to the excerpt quoted by Commie. If Humint doesn’t make it partisan, I won’t. If he does, I can go toe-to-toe.

    Posted 02 Apr 2007 at 6:01 pm

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