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Now about that article, we see you fully embrace the words of that darn librul media leader, the NYTimes which thanks be it to such fearless libruls like Judy Miller and Michael Gordon have successfully gotten us into this fucking fiasco, and continue with that trend still by Gordon and now various op-eds by these guys you link - O'Hanlon and Pollack from that Soros-like ultra-uber crazy Lefty institute like the Brookings Institute.
Before I begin ripping these "librul" boys from Brookings to shreds, just note a very common theme amongst all those aforementioned authors - they have quite a strange propensity to cite anonymous sources, which strangely all seem rather glowing of this Administration and/or come directly from this Administration.
But since we're talking about the fucking "librul" media like the NYTimes, I guess that's perfectly okay to do. Afterall, we wouldn't expect nor would I suggest that Administration officials would post glowing reviews of themselves and their policies to "libruls" like the NYTimes. To think of such a thing is just damnation!
But I think you need to allay your fears about how these librul "expert" commentators didn't get enough press time, especially versus Roberts' seizure. There was quite enough appearances both on the TV networks:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/30...hanlon-pollack/
Cable news channels:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/30...rical-bloggers/
And even radio programs:
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/gr...a94031303c.html
To go around for everyone.
Plus you had your favorite war cheerleaders utilize their "librul" words as gospel, like John McCain:
| quote: | I cannot guarantee success. But I do guarantee that, should Congress fail to sustain the effort, and should it pay no heed to the lessons drawn by Mr. Pollack and Mr. O’Hanlon, then America will face a historic and terrible defeat. Such a defeat, with its enormous human and strategic costs, will unfold unless we do all in our power to prevent it. I, for one, will continue to do just that.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?...2EyMjQ1N2ZmMWQ= |
And, of course, our fair-minded and true fearless leader, Dick Cheney:
| quote: | Look at the piece that appeared yesterday in The New York Times — not exactly a friendly publication — but a piece by Mr. O’Hanlon and Mr. Pollack on the situation in Iraq. They’re just back from visiting over there. They both have been strong critics of the war, both worked in the prior administration; but now saying that they think there’s a possibility, indeed, that we could be successful.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20070731-2.html |
And out of all those appearances on TV, only 1 - Hardball gave an opposing viewpoint with a debate against one of the authors, which you can watch here:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/...ust-might-lose/
Let alone the typical wingnut bloggers like Hugh Hewitt:
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/10...84-14ffcbdc5534
Powerline:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archiv...7/07/018075.php
And Malkin:
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/07/...just-might-win/
So you can calm your fears that the world did not hear our librul cheerleaders of this war effort. Those vicious boys who "opposed the war" all along who are now saying how wonderful things are going are truly getting all the attention and more they and your fearless leader deserves.
But since we're on the subject of our librul anti-war writers who seemingly had such a change of heart as of late about things in Iraq, let's do what pretty much NO ONE IN THE FUCKING LIBRUL MEDIA DOES and take a little investigative trip down memory lane. Let's take a look at these harsh critics of Bush, those two authors that ID themselves as "as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration's miserable handling of Iraq," and play a game of "Who the fuck said that?!?", shall we?
So off we go. Who the fuck said this on Sept. 28th, 2003 fresh back from a trip in Iraq?:
| quote: | LIANE HANSEN: Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He just returned from a Pentagon-sponsored visit to Iraq and he's in the studio. Welcome back, Michael. What's it like in Iraq?
MICHAEL O'HANLON: Well, it's obviously tough. It's a little better, however, than I thought for a couple of reasons. One is I think the counterinsurgency effort is going fairly well. Now obviously, you mention the number of attacks per day that continue; it's a real concern. We're still losing troops. Everyone's aware of that. The truck bombings in August were tragic. The assassination of the Governing Council member was tragic, but overall, the counterinsurgency mission seems to be going well in that we are taking out a lot more people than we're losing and I believe we're using force fairly selectively and carefully on balance.
... There is obviously violence. There was violence in some of the regions that we visited on the days we were there. But you're talking about specific, isolated acts just like you would get in an American city. I'm not trying to say that this is a country at peace, but overall, we really do run most of the country together with our Iraqi partners and the resistance forces are very small pockets who operate only at a given moment here or there. . . .
HANSEN: The Defense Department this past week announced the mobilization of 10,000 soldiers from the Army National Guard. The Bush administration has been trying to get countries—actually, mainly trying to get countries to sign up for peacekeeping responsibilities. Is the contingent, do you think, of the 160,000 American and British troops in and around Iraq sufficient?
O'HANLON: My impression is it's roughly sufficient. I would probably go a little higher. But the bigger problem is just sustaining that number is going to be very hard, and that's the reason we have to call up more National Guardsmen.
...HANSEN: Final question. Your visit was sponsored by the Defense Department. Are you concerned that you perhaps were given a rather narrow view of the country by your hosts?
O'HANLON: There's no doubt. But we only had a couple days there. We talked primarily to American officials. However, we could be quite prying and we could really push them. And I think overall, nonetheless, I was reassured. We didn't meet a lot of Iraqis who could tell us how things were going, but on balance, I think we had some access.
http://www.brook.edu/views/intervie...on/20030928.htm |
I know, the name kinda gives it away. Sorry.
Who the fuck said this in September of 2003 also?:
| quote: | How can we really determine if the Iraq mission is going well? . . . To convince a skeptical public about progress in Iraq, the Bush administration would do well to provide more systematic information on all of these and other measurable metrics routinely -- even when certain trends do not support the story it wants to sell.
The administration should want to do this, because on balance the Iraq mission is going fairly well . . . But most indicators are now favorable in Iraq . . . .
As for Baathist remnants of Saddam's regime, they are diminishing with time as coalition forces detain and arrest them. For example, in the region north of Baghdad now run by General Ray Odierno's 4th infantry division, some 600 fighters have been killed and 2,500 arrested over recent months.. . . .
Around Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, and other parts of the northern "Sunni triangle," for example, former regime loyalists have been sufficiently weakened that they need reinforcements from other parts of Iraq to continue many of their efforts. Most Baathists from the famous "deck of cards" are now off the street; many second tier loyalists of the former regime are also being arrested or killed on a daily basis. . . .
In these counterinsurgency operations, American troops are following much better practices than they did in Vietnam . . . . Coalition forces and other parties were slow at times to anticipate such tactics, resulting in excessive vulnerability to the kinds of truck bombings witnessed in August and the kinds of assassination attempts that just took the life of a member of the Governing Council, Akila al-Hashimi. But these mistakes are being corrected, and future such attacks are unlikely to be as devastating.
http://www.brook.edu/views/intervie...on/20030928.htm |
Pretty harsh critical words of our strategery in Iraq, ain't it?
Who the fuck said this in October of 2003 to the House Armed Services Committee?:
| quote: | In my judgment the administration is basically correct that the overall effort in Iraq is succeeding. By the standards of counterinsurgency warfare, most factors, though admittedly not all, appear to be working to our advantage. While one would be mistaken to assume rapid or easy victory, Mr. Rumsfeld's leaked memo last week probably had it about right when he described the war as a "long, hard slog" that we are nonetheless quite likely to win. . . .
That said, on the prognosis of Iraq's future, the Bush administration is at least partly and perhaps even mostly right. Negative headlines need to be quickly countered with good news, of which there is an abundance. . . Most of Iraq is now generally stable . . . . [T]he state of affairs in Iraq and recent trends in that country do not look so disconcerting. Things are getting gradually better even as we progress towards an exit strategy that could further diffuse extremist sentiment.
http://www.brook.edu/views/testimon...on/20031029.pdf |
Who the fuck published this piece in April of 2003 in the Brooking Daily War Report entitled, "Was the Strategy Brilliant?":
| quote: | Three weeks into the war, with the conflict's outcome increasingly clear, it is a good time to ask if General Myers was right. Will war colleges around the world be teaching the basic coalition strategy to their students decades from now, or will the conflict be seen as a case in which overwhelming military capability prevailed over a mediocre army from a mid-sized developing country?
On balance, this victory will be primarily due to the men and women and technology of today's U.S. and U.K. armed forces. Our military is so good that it probably could win this war even with a poor strategy—though many more people on all sides might die in such a hypothetical case.
That said, there have been major elements of military creativity in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Whether the overall concept deserves to be called brilliant is debatable. But it does appear to have been clever in several specific ways, most notably in the special operations campaign of the war's early days and in the recent battles for Basra, Baghdad, and other cities. . . .
None of this is to claim that the war is over just yet. And of course, victory is coming at a significant human cost; largely for that reason, the broader strategic benefits of this war may be less clear-cut than the battlefield successes. But military historians are already getting ready to put pen to paper, especially to discuss the role of coalition special forces as well as the coalition's urban-warfare techniques. On balance, Secretary Rumsfeld's description of the overall war plan may be more judicious than General Myers. But it has indeed been a very good plan.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20030409.htm |
Who the fuck said this in the Baltimore Sun about Cheney being able to mock those ex-general war critics because Cheney was just so gosh darn vindicated?:
| quote: | Much of the controversy centered on whether the Army was perhaps a division or division and a half short of the force that it should have had. In my judgment, it was a bit short -- but the problem never threatened the basic integrity of the war plan.
As such, former military officers such as retired Gen. Barry M. McCaffrey may have overstated their points when criticizing the war plan. At times they sounded as if they thought the sky was falling. . . .
Vice President Dick Cheney had a nice rebuttal to the retired officers when he understandably, and humorously, took a moment to gloat shortly after Baghdad fell.
Teasing the pundits "embedded in TV studios," he took his fair shot at them during a speech to newspaper editors and then moved on. That would have been the right thing for Mr. Rumsfeld and General Myers to do, too.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20030430.htm |
Who the fuck said this in Japan Times in June of '03?:
| quote: | Tip your cap, at least halfway, to Rumsfeld; despite his initial ideological blinders on the subject, he is keeping the postwar U.S. presence strong enough to get the job done as it becomes clear that the job will be hard.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20021231.htm |
We can even back up even further and wonder who the fuck said this in December 2002, seemingly beating the war drum just as loud as any proud neocon in the Washington Times op-ed:
| quote: | While the President decides whether to march to Baghdad, Saddam Hussein may be poised to bring the battle to American cities via terrorism. Yet Washington's focus on creating a new Department of Homeland Security has left America's cities not much better protected than they were sixteen months ago.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20021231.htm
Who the fuck continued to beat that war drum in February of '02, still in the Moonie Times?:
[QUOTE]Yet, the president was still convincing on his central point that the time for war is near. Even those of us who have questioned the case for war over the last year, and who do not buy all of the Bush administration's arguments for invasion even today, need to face the fact that there soon will be no other plausible option.
Since his U.N. speech of Sept. 12, 2002, Mr. Bush has adopted a firm but patient Iraq policy. Overruling hardliners in his administration who favored war without further inspections or U.N. debate, Mr. Bush also elected to use multilateral channels to insist that Saddam disarm or be disarmed. Alas, Saddam is not eliminating his banned weapons of mass destruction voluntarily, and hence we soon will need to lead a military coalition to do the job ourselves. The case is that simple.
In taking this basic approach, Mr. Bush heeded the counsel of multilateralists, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, the elder President Bush, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Tony Blair and many Democrats. It is now time for multilateralists to support the president.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20030205.htm |
Who the fuck said this in February of 2004:
| quote: | "Coalition and Iraqi security forces will ultimately defeat the rejectionist remnants of the Ba'ath Party, as well as foreign terrorists who have entered the country. These dead-enders are few in number and have little ability to inspire a broader following among the Iraqi people."
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20040217.htm |
Who the fuck said this in March of 2004:
| quote: | That said, there is plenty of reason for hope, and much going right today in Iraq as well. . . .
Central Command now estimates the number of hardened insurgents at 3,000 to 5,000. It has also suggested coalition forces are killing or arresting more than 50 insurgents a day, a total up considerably since Mr. Hussein's capture in December. (Indeed, only 10 individuals from the original 55 on the famous "deck of cards" remain at large).
At that pace, one might think the war should be won by summer. . . .Overall, the glass in Iraq is probably about three-fifths full. Considering the growing strength of Iraqi security services and the fact that $18 billion in American money (as well as a few billion more from other foreign donors) is beginning to flow into Iraq, it is likely to get somewhat fuller soon.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20040217.htm |
Who the fuck said this in May of 2004:
| quote: | While the overall situation is disconcerting, there is still hope -- especially if the standard for success is defined realistically as an absence of civil war, a gradually improving economy, and slowly declining rates of political and criminal violence. The scheduled transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi caretaker government on June 30 may at least begin to defuse the growing anti-American anger that is helping fuel the insurgency. And most American assistance, tied up in bureaucratic red tape until now, should begin to jump-start Iraq's economy in the coming months, with a likely beneficial effect on security as well.
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20040516.htm |
And strangely, oh so strangely, all these views by the "librul" editors in the NYTimes from the uber Lefty Brookings institution seemingly contradict their own institution's "index" for measuring success in Iraq:
http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf
Strange how such librul commentators in the librul NYTimes seemingly contradict their own librul Think Tank's assessments of measuring success.
But hey, these librul anti-war critics sure hold some serious credibility because, well, they're both so gosh darn anti-war and anti-Bush, aren't they?
(ripped almost entirely from Glenn Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenw...ings/index.html)
Added in Edit: More on how this librul commentary seemingly contradicts the index by their own institution in detail here:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/30/ohanlons-research/
Oh so strange how that happens......
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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