Spinning toward September

Published: August 10, 2007, 1:15 pm

With magical September approaching, the administration is spinning wildly to get the word out that progress is being made in Iraq. And the traditional media is scrambling to keep up--increasingly sending out the story not only that progress is being made, but that "war critics" are coming around to the idea that progress is being made. Which is out and out false. It all started with the ridiculous Times op-ed by the Brookings Institute's Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, who positioned themselves as "harsh critics" of Bush's war and the escalation, despite their long and wrong history of support for it (see Glenn Greenwald, Think Progress, and Greg Sargent for the gory details). See, they're war critics, but they spent 8 days in a few areas of Iraq, talking with the troops that O'Hanlon's long-time friend Gen. Petraeus had ready to meet them. Credible? Not when you hear their third traveling companion talk. Anthony Cordesman was on the trip as well, and his assessment is quite

[ Full article ]

Blog link

Comments