There’s a lot I’m not blogging about (no, really) about the Iraq War. There’s a lot of rhetoric being tossed around as fact, a lot of speculation being tossed around as graven in stone, and a lot of bullshit that’s either horrible to contemplate or horrible to be spreading rumors about.
I don’t know what the supply lines are like. Neither do you.
I don’t know if the planners in the Pentagon are tearing up all their old plans, frantically improvising new plans, and cursing Rumsfeld under his breath. Neither do you.
I don’t know if Iraqi civilians are being (relatively) low key toward advancing Coalition forces because they’re inwardly seething at American imperialism or inwardly terrified that some Ba’ath party functionary is going to shoot them and their children if they step out of line. Neither do you.
I don’t know if there are huge fights and blame-fests going on behind closed doors at the White House. Neither do you.
I don’t know if Saddam is dead or alive. Neither do you.
I don’t know if this war is going to be over in a month, or in ten years. Neither do you.
There’s a lot (as Andrew Sullivan put it this morning) of “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” going on in the media, and elsewhere.
And, as SDB noted over the weekend, the need of networks to justify news coverage (and get big ratings), and the need of journalists to earn their keep (and maybe get a Pullitzer Prize) means that a lot of coverage about the war — particularly “It’s all going to hell in a hand-basket” sorts of stuff should be treated with the same grains of salt one would apply to early Presidential Primary coverage: tons of speculation, lots of “he didn’t beat the point spread, his candidacy is in serious trouble” nattering, and not a lot of hard information.
I’ve stopped rabidly watching the cable news, just for that reason. And I’ve seriously tapered back on the blog war news sites, too (like Command Post). There’s both too much information and not enough information. Who fired that missle? Who won what battle? How many were killed? What’s the rank of the person who was captured? There have been few of these peripheral stories that have gone without major revision or retraction over the past week-plus, and that’s a sign that leaping on any particular story here without having some feeling that the data is good, that the analysis is sound, that the bias of the reporting source (governmental or media) is taken into account, is not only of little value, it can be actually counter-productive.
Yup, there’s lots I’m not blogging about. But I’d give a pretty penny (or perhaps an internal organ) to set the Wayback Machine forward a decade or five, to see what I should have been discussing.
Bravo! I’ve so enjoyed your writings of late. Always, of course, but particularly since the war began. I come here to be reminded that some people DO still possess common sense!
Thanks, Tess.
You’re right about ‘too much/not enough’ info on the news sites.
What I want re: news coverage is a page that summarizes:
“It is Monday @ 9 am. We’ve collected all the news bits that were flying around from 12:01 am Sunday to 11:59 pm Sunday, given it time to settle down and shake out for 8 hours, and here’s our summary of everything that happened yesterday, in bullet format. Tune in the same time tomorrow for our summary of what’s going on today.”
I don’t even know that eight hours is enough for stuff to shake down. And there’s stuff we’re not being told, too, or that is getting leaked in a funny way, mixed in with stuff that’s being made up, misinterpreted, denied, hinted, not-retracted-though-it-should-be, and otherwise mangled. It’s a hell of a mess.
It’s not that the forest can’t be seen for the trees, it’s that the forest can’t be seen for the herd of mad, epileptic ents that keep jumping at us, hooming threateningly, doing mime, pretending to be dead, and whacking us upside the head when we’re not looking.
Actually, what I want to read is The Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein, by [fill in name of decent historian], (c) 2053.
And why didn’t the ents revolt, anyway? Our war plans depended on them? So, WHAT GIVES? 🙂
Rich
In Desparate Need of Humor
P.S. While waiting for the 2053, check out Asprey’s muti-volume work on Napolean.
And, of course, I’d like it to be a fifty year retrospective.
My hope is that we don’t have to go anywhere else next. There was a “poll” on Command Post on where to go next. I hope that there is no next location and that the wishful thinking is true, viz. the Iraqis want to be liberated and the extremist Islamists are not representative of the greater Islamic community. Even if the military does swimmingly we ought not get giddy about liberating people. Towards that end, I posted a tongue-in-cheek response to the poll on my site. Hopefully, the question will become as silly as the response.
Given the poltical (domestic and interational) and economic drag that held back this war, I doubt that another one will happen along soon, short of some wildly overt insanity on someone’s part (domestic or international).
On the other hand, having shown that we are willing to act where we consider our national security interests are at stake (vs just lobbing a few cruise missiles), I think diplomatic avenues will be actually more productive for a while. Particularly if we follow through on our commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Let’s hope you are right here. You mirror my judgment but there is so much irrationality out there that I distrust a rational analysis (at least for now).
Sure they’re shuffling plans. The brass knew they’d have to, even if the Prez didn’t.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
And I’ll bet they made more contingency plans than normal since the base plan depended on “Shock and Awe” — that strategic, non-nuclear bombing would break their will, something that rarely works — and on the Shi’ites trusting an American president named Bush enough to stick their necks out by rising up against Saddam…. Oh, yeah, I can see lots of our generals believing that would work.
So the plan is getting changed. Good. What would be alarming is if they weren’t willing to change it in the face of the facts.
Gen. Franks’ first press conference noted that the biggest part of the battle plans was its unprecidented flexibility. I don’t recall now who said it but they noted that Gen. Franks had better abilities to handle fluidity in the battle than other generals. The attempted “decapitation” that occured on day one shows that they are not following a “pre-ordained”, inflexible plan. So, my response to the question did they not anticipate stuff, is so what? The question should rather be asked is does the current ops plan handle the facts as they exist on the ground?