George Packer was a liberal hawk before the war but has written very critically about it over the years, not least in his 2005 book, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq.
Now, I've thought some of Packer's writing was a bit odd before. But in this piece, Obama’s Iraq Problem New Yorker 07/07/08, he makes two arguments that combine to be remarkable weird.
One is that The Surge (aka, the McCain escalation) has succeeded wonderfully. The other is that because The Surge has succeeded wonderfully, that removes the need to get American troops out of Iraq on the timetable Obama has proposed.
Only with a press corps so dysfunctional as ours in the US could such Bizarro logic take hold. The Surge is succeeding, so we have to leave the troops in Iraq. The Surge hasn't succeeded and there's still lots of violence and instability, so we have to leave the troops in Iraq. And Great American McCain has a magic plan to end all attacks on Americans in Iraq so that we can then leave the troops in Iraq for 100, years, or 1,000, or whatever.
For the sake at least of clearing my own head, the notion that The Surge has succeeded in creating an acceptable military or political solution is just wishful thinking. The US is not going to be able to leave American troops in Iraq indefinitely. And the polls are showing no evidence that the alleged success of The Surge has diminished the public's opposition to the Iraq War, even though Packer has somehow persuaded himself by one of those marvels of thought which only Big Pundits and major journalists seem capable of producing that Obama opposition to the Iraq War is somehow going to hurt him in the general election.
Doesn't it bother any of our Establishment journalists that their conventional wisdom is so often wrong? Apparently not. One hint of the problem in this thinking about the Iraq War as a campaign issue is that McCain's campaign has been trying to say that Obama's position on the war is pretty much the same as McCain's now. That's not because McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq position is wildly popular. It's because he wants people to think his own position is closer to Obama's antiwar stance.
Tags: george packer, iraq war
3 comments:
Sunday, at 12:30 and 5:30 pm Atlanta radio's 920 WGKA is interviewing some soldiers who were in Iraq, two have turned against the war, one still thinks the war is just.
I'm just letting interested parties know.
Here's the link:
http://920wgka.townhall.com/
there is a listen live button in the upper left corner of the web page.
Cheers !!
Thanks, Roy.
Bruce,
Once again, you are correct: the liberal hawks cluster around a point in intellectual space that can only be described as bizarro.
My belief is that Ken Pollack will be consigned to the deepest level of Hell when he passes on, for the eagerness with which he sacrificed innocent lives to build up his tough-guy cred amongst the chattering classes. His continuing appearances on the teevee, as an alleged expert, are a collective offense that stinks in the nostrils of the Lord.
Alain
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