The Alleged Mind Of The Neoconservative

[filkertom]

Thanks to Atrios for aiming me to this bit at Tristam Shandy, focusing on a Townhall interview wherein Hugh Hewitt interviews the WaPo's senior Pentagon correspondent, Thomas Ricks:

TR: I hope it's not. I don't think the current course is sustainable, politically, either here or in Iraq. I don't think the American people are going to put up indefinitely with two to three dead American troops every couple of days, and spending $1.5 billion dollars a week, as we are now.

HH: Why not?

Earlier in that interview, Hewitt refers to Prof. Juan Cole, one of the finest and most honest experts on the Mideast and especially Iraq that we have, as "the University of Michigan leftist".

Comments

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to put these two quotes from the same interview in closer proximity to one another. Thomas Ricks, in both cases, speaking of his own book:

"I put it in the book. I'm trying to be fair and accurate, fair and balanced."

and

"I want to remind you, though, the ratio of conservatives to liberals quoted in this book is probably about a hundred to one."

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Context, ace. The larger points, which frankly I think make both Hewitt and Ricks look like shmucks:

HH: Yup. Now the fact is, though, you answered clearly, they're better off today than they were under Saddam. Why do you think that?

TR: Saddam was a bad guy. On the other hand, we don't go to wars just to help people out around the world. We go to war, one would hope, in the national interest. And that raises the question, is the United States better off than when Saddam Hussein was in power. And that's a much tougher question to answer.

HH: I'll let you answer the one you raised. What do you think?

TR: Look, I think containment as a policy was more or less working. Saddam was contained. He was no threat to the United States. He wasn't even the largest threat to the United States in his neighborhood. Iran probably was then, and probably remains now.

HH: You quote on Page 431, Juan Cole, the University of Michigan leftist, who's a...

TR: Oh, good. The one lefty quote in the whole damn book, and you dig it out.

HH: (laughing) I read closely, Tom Ricks. I read very closely.

TR: But I want to remind you, though, the ratio of conservatives to liberals quoted in this book is probably about a hundred to one.

HH: All right. I want to go to Juan Cole, though. It's in the conclusion, in the Afterwards, and he says, "Iraq was not a failed state." Robert Kaplan, another preeminent military analyst, author of Imperial Grunts, on this program, called it a Stalinist nightmare, with mad as hatter sons, who were in line to succeed Saddam, and who, either under Saddam or the sons, would have gone back to WMD just as soon as they could, and sanctions were failing. What's wrong with Kaplan's analysis? Is it better or worse than Juan Cole's?

TR: I think it's the best possible argument for making an invasion, which was look, Saddam may have been old and toothless, but his sons were vicious nuts, and they might have taken over. One would only hope that somebody eventually succeeded in assassinating those two, which people had been trying to do for some time. I think it's equally likely that he would have been succeeded by a general, because I think people were very uneasy with those two around the country.

HH: If they had come into power, even more than they had under their father, that would have been disastrous for the world, correct?

TR: You know, it's sort of...you're out there in hyperspeculative territory. I'd like to stick a little closer to reality, which was hey, containment was pretty much working. What we found out after the invasion, when David Kay and the official Iraq Survey Group, a wing of the U.S. government, went out and interrogated the weapons scientists, was yeah, guess what? In 1998, Desert Fox worked. Iraqi weapons scientists basically gave up in '98, and our premise for invading that country have been gone for five years, when we did invade on the WMD premise.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

[...]

HH: You raise, Thomas Ricks, again, towards the end of the book, on Page 426, one of the most provocative paragraphs. I want to read it, and then talk about it with you. "Many military officers," you wrote, "meanwhile grew deeply distrustful and resentful of the media, feeling that is focused on the negative bombing and casualties, while neglecting the positives, such as political progress and reconstruction efforts. I would speculate that the vast majority of American soldiers, by the time they left Iraq, we pretty much hated them, said Major Jay Bocker, an Army reserve civil affairs officer. They, the media, are bald-faced liars. I could just go on and on and on, but the media clearly, clearly as any soldier will tell you, have an anti-U.S. agenda, and are willing to propagandize falsehoods in furtherence of their own agenda" If that's widely shared among the veterans of the Iraq theater, Thomas Ricks, don't you think that message will be carried home to the American people, either quickly or over time, solidifying, actually, support for the soldier's view of what happened there?

TR: I think you're whistling past the graveyard. Look,...

HH: Your quote, not mine.

TR: Yeah, I know. I put it in the book. I'm trying to be fair and accurate, fair and balanced. Look, we've been fighting in Iraq almost...the U.S. military has been fighting in Iraq almost as long as the U.S. military fought in World War II. The American people are watching this, and they aren't buying it. But remember, that's one point of view from that guy I quoted. What has struck me since my book has come out a couple of weeks ago is overwhelmingly, the response from U.S. soldiers, who were in Iraq or have served in Iraq, has been positive to this book. One battalion commander wrote to me, thank you for finally saying publicly what we've been saying privately for the last two years. Fundamentally, this book is saying hey, we could still win this thing, but you've got to make some changes here.

HH: Well, that part I fundamentally agree with. But they aren't buying it, meaning the American public, most of the arguments that are made by General Zinni, and other fine Americans in this book by name, and some who aren't quoted, against the war and against their preperation, were made in the run up to 2004, Thomas Ricks, and were rejected by the election results then. What has changed from November, 2004, to today that makes you think...I mean, I know the polling data as well as you do, and we both know that polls are snapshots, and are not actually choices. A referendum's coming up in November. What makes you think at this November's referendum, the American people are going to vote differently than they did just two years ago?

TR: Well, first of all, I think Republicans are very uneasy about the war in Iraq. It's very difficult to go out and campaign on the war in Iraq having been a success at this point. What worries me is both parties. I want to emphasize, this is not a partisan book. This is a book that I believe is pro-military and pro-troop, and pro-victory, and is giving conniptions to some people on the left because of that. I think that Republicans have failed to ask the tough questions, but I think the Democrats have, too, though for different reasons. The Republicans don't want to embarrass the President, the Democrats don't know how to ask the tough questions, frequently. They don't know much about the military. They're afraid of getting on the wrong side of the defense issue, and looking weak on defense. Neither of those stances serve the troops well. One of the roles of the legislative branch is to ask the tough questions, and to push the military. And it's especially good when the military isn't asking itself the tough questions.

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Oh I know, I read the whole interview and on balance I was impressed with Ricks and wrote off Hewitt. But those quotes leapt out at me when I read them.

I think what's between the lines here makes a lot of sense. A very small group of Imperialists represented by Rumsfeld and Cheney and the other PNAC people in the administration made a metric fuckload of arrogant decisions that this country will be paying for for the rest of the century.

But the anti-media shit continues to bother me a lot.

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

How much is a metric fuckload, and what units are best for conversion? Cubic metres, litres, hectares, tonnes, what?

On-topic, I like your condensed summary. It's eloquent, to the point, and pretty much hits all the major points without the eye-glazing Hugh Hewitt (why do I always have the urge to spell his name Huw Huwitt?) bunkum?

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

Cubic parsecs.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

Juan is an evil "University of Michigan leftist" because...
1) He's an academic - aren't all academics leftists? The Damn Libruls have taken over higher education, remember...
2) He doesn't uncategorically support Israel.

Bleah. Juan is my daily must-read for real information about what's actually going on Over There...

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Yeah. The American masses will put up with anything that doesn't directly impact their lives. The only reason most of them care about the Iraq situation is that it's one contributing factor to the price of gasoline. HH is right: why wouldn't the American people sit back and just let this happen? They've been sitting back and letting Shrub and the government do whatever it wants for six years already on the flimsiest excuses. The only people you see aggressively pursuing questions or challenges to the current powers that be are those people who've been directly affected by the war.

I'd have more respect for "the masses," but I've seen their voting record. They pay more attention to American Idol than to world politics and have difficulty finding Canada on a map.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... That one statement bugs me. "They (the democrats) don't know much about the military."

Uh, yeah... I take it this guy has never looked at how many congressional democrats served in the military as compared to congressional republicans, and how many of Clinton's white house staff served as opposed to Bush.

Sheesh!

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

Little things like facts have never mattered to these people. For example I cite the example of Bill O'Reilley turning the Malmedy massacre where SS troops brutally murdered US troops that had surrendered into an American war crime to justify the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.