[Dean's World] Dave Price: Maybe "Hooked on Phonics" Could Help

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Posted by Dave Price:
Maybe "Hooked on Phonics" Could Help
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1178042654.shtml


   Lawrence Kaplan [1]tackles Democratic illiteracy on Iraq.

     Maybe it was a slip of the tongue. But, when Nancy Pelosi confessed
     last year that she felt "sad" about President Bush's claims that Al
     Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every
     American soldier in Iraq, every Al Qaeda operative, and anyone who
     reads a newspaper already knew to be true. (When I questioned him
     about Pelosi's assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded,
     incredulously, that Al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.)
     ...
     Still, the idea dovetails neatly with Reid's insistence that it is
     "the specter of U.S. occupation [that] gives fuel to the
     insurgency"--and that, absent this specter, the violence will
     magically subside. But just the reverse has been true. Falluja and
     Tal Afar in 2004, Ramadi in 2005, Western Baghdad in 2006--these
     places became charnel houses when U.S. forces pulled back. The
     suggestion, moreover, that American forces ought to confine
     themselves to "targeted counter-terror operations" rather than
     trying to sort "friend from foe" misunderstands the most basic
     tenets of counterinsurgency, ignores the lessons of the past four
     years, and purposefully slights the testimony of Petraeus and his
     fellow experts. Living among the population and sorting "friend
     from foe" is precisely how the military generates intelligence
     tips, which, in turn, provide the key to "targeted counter-terror
     operations." It can't be done from Kuwait, and it can't be done
     from Okinawa.
     ....
     Where all this leads is clear. Piece together a string of
     demonstrably false "facts on the ground" from a suitably safe
     remove, and you're left with a scenario where we can walk away from
     Iraq without condition and regardless of consequence. You don't
     need to watch terrified Iraqis pleading for American forces to stay
     put in their neighborhoods. You don't need to read the latest
     National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which anticipates that a
     precipitous U.S. withdrawal will end in catastrophe. Why, in the
     serene conviction that things are the other way around, you don't
     even need to read at all. Chances are, your congressman doesn't
     either.

   This is why, as Save Schuler has argued, we won't be abandoning Iraq
   anytime soon. Reasonable people can perhaps disagree about whether we
   were better off leaving Saddam in charge, but not over whether we can
   allow AQ to create a Qaedist ministate in Iraq.
   On the other hand, the level of ignorance Dem leaders display on Iraq
   makes me wonder just how isolated they are from the actual facts on
   the ground, and I can't help noting the the irony that these are the
   same people who keep accusing Bush of being out of touch with reality
   and ignoring the military.

References

   1. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070430&s=kaplan050107