A Day Of Surprises
This is very interesting, indeed. The Washington Post has an editorial which, while taking every opportunity to bash the administration, still comes down - forcefully - against a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. They flat demolish the "Bush Lied!" meme as well.
Clearly we were insufficiently skeptical of intelligence reports. It would almost be comforting if Mr. Bush had "lied the nation into war," as is frequently charged. The best postwar journalism instead suggests that the president and his administration exaggerated, cherry-picked and simplified but fundamentally believed — as did the CIA — the catastrophically wrong case that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented to the United Nations.
The question that Gen. David H. Petraeus posed (as recounted in Rick Atkinson's history, "In the Company of Soldiers") as he led the troops of his 101st Airborne Division from Kuwait across the Iraq border, "Tell me how this ends?" — that question must be the first to be asked, not the last. The answer won't always be knowable. But the discussion must never lose sight of the inevitable horrors of war. It must not be left to the generals in the field. And it must assume, based on experience from Germany to Korea to Afghanistan, that a U.S. commitment, once embarked upon, will not soon be over.
We raised such issues in our prewar editorials but with insufficient force. In February 2003, for example, we wrote that "the president [must] finally address, squarely and in public, the question of how Iraq will be secured and governed after a war that removes Saddam Hussein, and what the U.S. commitment to that effort will be. . . . Who will rule Iraq, and how? Who will provide security? How long will U.S. troops remain? . . . Many of these questions appear not to have been answered even inside the administration. . . ." They were still unanswered when the war, which we nevertheless supported, began. That should never happen again.
Even now, though, many of the lessons that others draw from Iraq do not strike us as obvious.
Unquestionably, for example, the experience has shown the risks of preemptive war. Yet it remains true in an era of ruthless, suicidal terrorists and easily smuggled weapons of unimaginable destructive power that not acting also can be dangerous. The risks of war with North Korea or Iran are evident; but the cost of leaving nuclear weapons in the hands of a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or a Kim Jong Il may not become evident until the price has been paid. And while Iraq illustrates the importance of challenging intelligence estimates, there will also be risks in waiting for certainty that may never be achievable.
Please read the whole thing. I do not agree with everything they write, but they may be sending a signal here, I think. The signal is to the cut and run crowd. The media cover they have enjoyed up until now may be eroding as responsible media (is there such a thing?) looks at the implications of a rapid withdrawal and do not like what they see. It may get a bit harder for the anti-war crowd in the near future as a result.
By crosspatch, Sunday, 18 March , 2007 @ 10:37 pm
“The media cover they have enjoyed up until now may be eroding”
I think that erosion started when the President announced a surge in troops and then politicians that were only two weeks before demanding more troops were suddenly against the idea. While it had been obvious for some time that the Democrats were simply arguing for the opposite of whatever Bush proposed, this made it blatant and it was also obvious that the people weren’t buying it.
Yes, I think we would all like to see our troops home but very few believe we are losers and want to see us declare defeat. Many voted against the Republicans because they wanted to see a change and many of those wanted to see exactly the kind of change we are now seeing.
In fact, what the Democrats were doing was so blatant that for the media to go along with it would expose them for carrying the water of the DNC. If they showed the opposition to the surge in a good light after having already shown the opposition for a smaller force in a good light, then it would be perfectly clear that they are simply cheerleaders for the Democrats.
Basically, the Democrats switching directions to oppose the President simply for the sake of opposition caused them to leave the “responsible” media behind. They are responsible in that they apparently are beginning to worry about their own reputation if they stay behind the Democrats.