>Kelley writes:
>
> > 1]. I don't think this is "objective" truth. I'm _interpreting_ media
> > reports from the perspective of the "war party", as they represent their
> > views and asking why they would want news that makes them look bad. If
> this
> > news weren't coming from embeddeds, I would agree with Lou. E.g., Chris's
> > analysis of the London papers makes sense for instance.
>
>This raises an empirical question: is the people whom you are calling the
>'war
>party' in -complete control- of everything under the jurisdiction of the -
>division commanders-?
No. They don't have to be. In fact, from a sociological perspective, being in complete control is not only impossible, but the worst thing they could _try_ to do.
>However, I don't believe they have that kind of control. I believe there are
>competing interests: between the generals and the chicken-hawk 'war party',
>and also among the generals - between the "fighting generals", who actually
>have to win the war in the field somehow, Wallace for example, and
>the "political generals", who are the loyal vassals of Rumsfeld and are in
>Qatar and Tampa talking about how "everything is going according to
>plan". At
>least that's the impression I'm getting.
Me too.
> Leaving aside the WPost reporter in Nasiriyah, what do you think about the
>current flap which is portrayed as a dispute between Wallace, griping in the
>field about the failings of the Master Plan, and Rumsfeld and Ari Fleischer
>grimly defending the administration's omniscience? Is THIS all just a
>scripted puppet show? Is Wallace just saying what the 'war party' wants him
>to say? I don't think that's plausible.
Neither do I. It's the truth. I haven't disputed that.
>To call it a 'split' may be too strong a term - we have to see. But I'm not
>necessarily talking about 'wings of the admin' if 'the admin' means civilian
>bureaucrats. In this case I'm talking about an apparent divergence in
>interests between the politicians who are saying 'We're winning the war,
>we're
>winning the war',
The same thing is happening in Iraq. They are saying "We're winning the war, we're winning the war..."
>and the generals on the ground, who are saying 'If we are
>really going to win this war and not get our asses kicked out here, you had
>better fix some of the holes in the plan, send us more troops, plan for a
>longer war, etc.', and would not be above letting a reporter send out an
>accurate picture of the problems in order to bolster this idea.
Yes. (Where we differ is in the assessment that this is a surprise to anyone involved. This back and forth between civilian and mil leadership has been going on for months. I'm not taking it as evidence of anything that this split continues to rage on. I _am_ saying that the war party isn't surprised by it and is, in fact, engaged in a battle with the .mil over this issue. It could break either way.)
The media have been airing potentially negative images of how hard a time the troops are having since, at least, Sunday. Not just teeny blurbs, but an _entire_ CNN special report on how the troops were engaged in battle for 72 hrs straight, soldiers talking abt their lack of sleep/sleeping on their feet, and how they are having problems because there aren't enough reinforcements.
>The real limitation of the Nasiriyah report is that it just has people
>saying 'things are bad here'. The implication they want to draw is 'things
>are bad, we need more help and better grand strategy'. They don't hint
>at "things are bad here, this war is bad, let's go home."
Yah. As I said a few days ago, it is becoming justification for pulling out all the stops. :(
Kelley