Lessons Learned
Damn solid stuff from Dexter Filkins in the New York Times:
In nearly every military and diplomatic realm, the American effort in Iraq is finally beginning to show the careful planning and concentrated thinking that seemed to vanish the moment American troops entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003. We’ve heard progress reports in the past, of course, and they have often preceded a stunning setback. But what is new is the level of sophistication that Americans are bringing to their work, and the intensity of their engagement across so many fronts.
A more subtle response to the insurgency was a long time in the making. American generals were caught flat-footed by the resistance that bloomed in 2003; they didn’t plan for it, and they had no playbook to fight it. The result in the field often amounted to a war of attrition, which was designed to kill and capture as many insurgents as possible but which ended up alienating Iraqi civilians. These days, however, the military is making new efforts to help local Iraqis feel safe and secure in their homes. The two top American commanders, Gen. George Casey and Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, are proponents of placing far less emphasis on killing guerrillas and much more on working with the locals. In Baghdad, General Casey has set up a local counterinsurgency school, through which American officers must pass before they can head into the field. Find an American officer these days, and he is likely to tell you about the police officers he is supervising or the local council he’s helping to set up.
Read the whole thing, please.
Yes, there’s plenty to complain about the Bush/Rumsfeld “peace” plan of 2003. Even taking the VodkaPundit Corollary into account (“no peace plan survives the last battle”), we simply didn’t have enough troops on the ground or even any idea what we would face.
It’s nice to know that at long last, things are changing.
It’s the MSM inverse covrage law.
When a republican administration is in power.
The greater our success, the less coverage it recieves.
The worse our failure or crime, percieved or otherwise, the greater the MSM coverage.
Ofcourse it’s just the opposite if a democrat administration’s in office.
I don’t think for a second that the MSM is unaware of the slant of their coverage.
Small Minority of Extremists & Misunderstanders of Islam
It’s like Instapundit, but all in one post! Heh. It’s the Religion of Peace update:…
Tiny Minority of Extremists & Misunderstanders of Islam
It’s like Instapundit, but all in one post! Heh. It’s the Religion of Peace update:…
Failure!
Failure!
Failure!
?
Whathafu…???
Squandered oppurtunities on a road to success that WOULD have been neat, tidy, and quick if they’d only done it the success-guaranteeing way that only an idiot couldn’t have figured out instantly.
This is pure butt-covering by a guy who is worried.
Yeah.
What they said.
(I’ve never been able to comprehend the notion that *any* war could be done “the right way.”)
It’s sounds to me like they’re stealing pages from the Special Force’s manual and slipping them into the line doggies’ SOP’s.
Cool.
Filkins has been dispatching accurate reports from Iraq since the invasion began. He is not some Hilton whore mailing it in.
The only cya he engages in is literal.
Cheers
Stephen Spruiell at NRO’s MediaBlog has an excellent post on this subject.
Mike
http://media.nationalreview.com/090373.asp
Will The NYT Ed Board Listen to NYT Reporters?
The NYT has published back-to-back articles about how the military is turning things around in Iraq. First, Dexter Filkins published this article in the New York Times Magazine. The article is billed on the cover as “The U.S. Military Gets It Right, Too Late.” I didn’t think the piece was as pessimistic as that headline suggested. Filkins noted that sectarian violence might have progressed to the point where the military can’t turn things around, but he didn’t declare defeat inevitable. He charted progress in the military’s methods for dealing with the insurgency and praised the new strategies of the commanders who are training the Iraqi forces to police their own country.
Today, Thom Shanker followed with a front-page piece about the new Iraqi Counterterrorism Force