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Fifth Column
Boston Globe Marooned in the Abysso Sea
2004-12-08
Why don't we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised. "Coalition" members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can't secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war...
Alas! Alack! Alarm! All is Lost! We must run away and hide! Chaos reigns! Aiiiieeeeegggghhhh! It's Vietnam all over again, but without the good music and free love!
Posted by:Anonymoose

#19  It’s Vietnam all over again, but without the good music and free love!

Actually the same people are listening to the same music and still having the same free love.
Posted by: eLarson   2004-12-08 6:11:04 PM  

#18  Give war a chance. One of the best titles ever.
Posted by: Phiter Glolung1555 (aka Jarhead)   2004-12-08 5:48:51 PM  

#17  Just wanted to say I *love* the concept of Abysso Sea!
Posted by: Seafarious   2004-12-08 5:15:06 PM  

#16  Hmmmmm... I wonder if Vietnam would have turned out differently (or how differently) if there had been an alternate media.
Posted by: Shipman   2004-12-08 4:30:33 PM  

#15  
I don't know what you would call the Battle of Fallujah, but it is in no way a loss for the good guys, except that it is a loss for the bad guys if you are a defeatist.


For the press, Fallujah was a defeat for the "good guys". Remember, the press is as much the enemy as your average jihadi.

In fact, I'm starting to think that terrorist operations depend on three types of personnel, instead of two:

Brains: Plan the operations, run training, make up the justifications, generally not expendable.

Mules: Carry out the attacks, guard the brains, generally expendable.

Mouths: Publicize the justifications and attacks, wage propaganda war against enemy.

The US press is, by and large, the "mouths" of the jihadist movement, the green movement and various racialist movements.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2004-12-08 3:39:16 PM  

#14  December 7 and this guy can't mention a word about Pearl Harbor. Aren't you glad now that W won?

BTW, count the number of scare quotes in the piece. Look, I love sarcasm, too, but if that's your only tool to make your point, Carroll, go back to composition class and I'll be your teacher.
Posted by: chicago mike   2004-12-08 2:28:12 PM  

#13  War: It's what's for dinner.
Posted by: Dishman   2004-12-08 2:19:53 PM  

#12  The 16th of December is the 60th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge which had 81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured and 19,000 killed. Elements of the 106th Division surrendered in mass. This German offensive was unanticipated by Allied war planners. It was not until March and April 1945 that the U.S. authorities allowed the Luxembourg refugees to return to their villages in the Ardennes. The villages had suffered severe damage, and it took months and sometimes years of reconstruction.
Thank God, we didn't have twerps like those running and writing the Globe back then.
Posted by: Don   2004-12-08 1:14:52 PM  

#11  Justrand:
I have a sticker that says "War is the answer, you damn hippy."
Posted by: jackal   2004-12-08 1:11:53 PM  

#10  Speaking of Herpes flareups, this guy is just recycling an article we fisked here a year ago. The War is Lost
Posted by: Matt   2004-12-08 12:50:47 PM  

#9  "His column regularly appears in the Globe, like a Herpes flareup"

I gotta write that down...
Posted by: Dave D.   2004-12-08 11:26:13 AM  

#8  Situation grows more desperate = we Bush-haters are getting more desperate as Jan 30 approaches...

Plan B! Sunnis are being disenfranchised! Civil War!! Elections stink: invisible ink !!!
Posted by: lex   2004-12-08 11:07:40 AM  

#7  We've all seen the bumper sticker: "War is not the answer". The other day a woman with one on her car saw me snickering at her bumper sticker. She asked me what was so funny. My reply: "It depends on the question". (her) "Huh?"

I told her that "war" isn't the answer to EVERY question, for instance: "What's for dinner?" But for questions like: "How do you remove a murderous dictator who has shown a willingness to murder any and all who stand in his way, including through the use of WMDs?" then the answer is "War".

If the question had been: "How do you free an oppressed people from the muderous clutches of Saddam and his demonic offspring?" the answer would still be "War". Though if we weren't involved it would have been a Civil War, and MILLIONS would have died fighting it!

Tough questions...tough choices.
Posted by: Justrand   2004-12-08 11:06:28 AM  

#6  James Carroll. His column regularly appears in the Globe, like a Herpes flareup
Posted by: Frank G   2004-12-08 11:04:09 AM  

#5  That's what you get for reading the Globe. Stick to the Herald.
Posted by: mojo   2004-12-08 10:54:45 AM  

#4  WHY DON’T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day.

Note the use of the phrase 'grows more desperate'. The writer has nothing to back the contention that things are getting worse, just that they are. You will find that in some journalistic circles it is okay in a 'news' article to state the 'fact' that a trend is present even when a de facto trend does not exist at all. The only criteria is that the 'trend' was not apparent when the writer began the story.

Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it.

Vaunted with goddam good reason.

I don't know what you would call the Battle of Fallujah, but it is in no way a loss for the good guys, except that it is a loss for the bad guys if you are a defeatist.

The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting.

Forgive my ignorance but the last time I checked we were shooting back and so are the Iraqis.

The structures of relief and repair are gone.

Read: Our leftist friends want peace. they just don't want to live to see it. They want the kind of peace that only a military defeat of the US can deliver.

Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised.

The clock is still ticking for the elections. We are still in the game and we are winning.

"Coalition" members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can’t secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war...

AGain, I point to Fallujah. To reduce a city in three weeks fighting with literally hundreds of enemy casualties with a tiny number of friendly casualties;

We just told the Iraqi enemies, you can't hide baby; but if you do we will dig you out, bury you by the hundreds, and we will still be ready for a lot more than you can dish out.

Fallujah is not just a tactical victory; it will be shown to be the event that breaks the resistance. As can be seen by this letter, the resistance is concerned they really have lost. Jihadis just found out they can't hole up in a city and conduct operations with impunity. There is a cost involved.
Posted by: badanov   2004-12-08 10:46:17 AM  

#3  Who from the Boston Globe's stable of Krugman wannabees is the author of this fluff. I'd guess Derrick Jackson or Tom Oliphant, though it could be Ellen Goodman on a day when her Valium is below therapeutic levels.
Posted by: Mike   2004-12-08 10:35:26 AM  

#2  "In the grim future of 40th century America there will be only war!" (apologies to Warhammer 40K freaks evrywhere)(grins)

I think that the scale of the Left's defeat/irrelevence is finaly starting to sink in.
Posted by: N Guard   2004-12-08 10:27:48 AM  

#1  There is a line from 12:00 high...where the propaganda radio spewing into the ready room says (something like), you've already lost the war, go home.

another thought:
Heh...maybe this is all just another Bush cabinet "rope-a-dope" tactic where they get the Dem's to get all indignant about Bush's inability to pass immigration reform so that when he brings it to the floor, they jump all over it.

Bush seems like the kind of leader that realizes the best way to get your opponents to support your own ideas is to make them think that they are their own.
Posted by: 2b   2004-12-08 10:25:56 AM  

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