{"id":12803,"date":"2007-09-07T13:45:37","date_gmt":"2007-09-07T17:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12803.html"},"modified":"2007-09-07T13:45:37","modified_gmt":"2007-09-07T17:45:37","slug":"time-to-take-a-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/time-to-take-a-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Time to take a stand’"},"content":{"rendered":"

I suppose it would be blogging malpractice if I let Paul Krugman’s latest gem<\/a> go by without mentioning it.<\/p>\n

Here’s what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he’ll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq — as long as you don’t count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs and people shot in the front of the head.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I’m afraid will happen: Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus’s uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won’t ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they’ll desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops, if he feels like it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That sounds about right, particularly the expected kid-glove treatment Petraeus is likely to receive. War supporters have created an environment in which the General is practically sacrosanct. To question his conclusions, whether they’re supported by evidence or not, is to question the military. A couple of months ago, Harry Reid alluded to some skepticism about Petraeus in passing during a conference call — and the right is still talking about it as if Reid had committed a crime. (I did a post in July with a mild question about Petraeus’ credibility, and Hugh Hewitt responded<\/a> that my concerns made me an “anti-intellectual screamer,” which may very well be the most projection-like insult I’ve ever received.)<\/p>\n

Indeed, I saw a fascinating conservative post<\/a> this week that argued Petraeus will “speak for the American military” next week, so criticism should effectively be off limits: “When General Petreaus [sic<\/i>] comes back to the United States to brief the President and Congress, he will not do so as a partisan. He promises that, “The Ambassador and I are going to give it to them straight and then allow the folks at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue make what clearly is a national decision.'”<\/p>\n

And if Petreaus says his assessment will be neutral, it has to be neutral. After all, he “promised.”
\n
\nAs such, I suppose this observation<\/a> from Krugman should be considered beyond-the-pale.<\/p>\n

Gen. Petraeus has a history of making wildly overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be convenient for his political masters.<\/p>\n

I’ve written before about the op-ed article Gen. Petraeus published six weeks before the 2004 election, claiming “tangible progress” in Iraq. Specifically, he declared that “Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt,” that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward” and that “there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security.” A year later, he declared that “there has been enormous progress with the Iraqi security forces.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The assessment wasn’t true, and it was obviously intended to have a specific political effect. It’s the kind of decision that leads to some legitimate skepticism about Petraeus’ independence.<\/p>\n

To question Petraeus is simply to challenge dubious conclusions. On the one hand we have ample evidence from Iraq that shows no evidence of the “surge’s” success, and on the other we have Petraeus arguing that violence is down in Iraq just so long as you don’t include much of the violence.<\/p>\n

As Ezra put it<\/a>, “Next week, Petraeus will not be acting as a general and he will not be acting as a soldier; he will be acting as a media campaign. He is the White House’s press strategy, and the degree to which the press and the Democrats internalize this will largely dictate how the testimony is received.”<\/p>\n

That point about the press is particularly significant. As Steve M. noted<\/a>, if Dems are assertive in challenging Petraeus’ report<\/strike><\/a> assessment, conservative war supporters will go apoplectic, but mainstream reporters might do the same thing: “[T]he tough questioner or questioners will be tried in the media and found guilty of unspeakable decorum breaches as well as treason. And that will be the story: Dirty hippie Democrats still hate the military, just like in the old days.”<\/p>\n

Dems better be ready for all of this.<\/p>\n

Update<\/i>: W.B. alerted me to this interview<\/a> with Petraeus in the Boston Globe, in which he says that “what our troopers have achieved is measurable and important.” Call me overly sensitive, but I think there’s an implication there — to question the success of the “surge” is necessarily to question what “our troopers have achieved.” In other words, to support the troops is to support Petraeus’ version of their mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I suppose it would be blogging malpractice if I let Paul Krugman’s latest gem go by without mentioning it. Here’s what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he’ll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq — as long as you don’t count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}