the devil is in the details

[winterbadger]

Success or failure of our strategy in Iraq depends on our ability to understand what is happening on the ground. But two pieces in the media suggest that the administration is once again twisting the public record to suit its policy choices, instead or looking at the facts evenhandedly and modifying its actions based on its results.

Is al-Qa'ida in Iraq really the powerful force it is made out to be? This analysis suggests not

Is there a drop in civilian violence? The MNF-I command says yes; GAO, DIA, CIA, and the AP say no

Comments

[cmlc.livejournal.com]

I haven't read your links yet (sorry, will go back when I have more time) but you've just reminded me of a William Gibson interview that I read today in the Washington Post, courtesy of Boing Boing. Relevant extract:

"Politics has, like, jacked itself up to my level of weirdness," Gibson acknowledges. "I can work with this," he says, thinking of recent turns of events. "I like the sheer sort of neo-Stalinist denial of reality. That's what makes it work. It's interesting. I'd like to see it get less interesting. But I don't know that it necessarily will."

Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/06/william-gibson-washp.html

I just love that phrase "neo-Stalinist denial of reality". It's so Bush-in-Iraq.

I'm ganting for a copy of Spook Country too but that's another matter.

[winterbadger]

As one who has been involved in debating American foreign policy (politics in general, in fact) for a long time, what I find so disturbing about the current breed of American conservatives is their sheer unwillingness to accept reality, their desire to simply deny clear and demonstrable facts. I feel as if people used to debate by taking a set of circumstances and arguing about what the best way of dealing with or addressing them was. Now all the argument seems to be one side's attempt to deny even the circumstances.

Related but not directly connected is the Right's approach to education, their willingness to see public education marginalised to the point of destruction, with the "free market" instead substituting highly religious, strictly dogmatic private education that presents students with one party line to memorise, instead of giving them the tools to learn and then turning them loose to find the truth on their own. Sad, and a total betrayal of what people like Thomas Jefferson intended, education that would be free to all and provide the nation with an educated, thoughtful demos to make its choices.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree with you in all particulars here.

What bothers me *so* much about the news from Iraq is that instead of keeping us informed about what's going on, the current administration has proven over and over that it will spin any facts to suit its agenda. This causes what ought to be conversations about best practices to be turned into screeds about ideology. The BS gets so thick that nobody can do anything.

Look at yesterday's report by General Jones. In any sane world it would be accepted on its merit and followed. But because he's implied that some poor decisions have been made it's going to be dropped into the same hole that the 9-11 Commission Report went into.