Perhaps it's his relentless use of what, to me, seems like an echo of the clever boy tone that so bedeviled my high school and undergrad years.
But when he's right he's right and he's surely right about what a complete disaster - from a humanitarian, military and even public relations point of view - the Fallujah incursion has (predictably) turned out to be.
The Americans, of course, are declaring success as are their "Iraqi caretaker government" droids. But, just as the War Nerd says (see, it even gets on my nerves to use the dude's handle - I mean, "War Nerd"?), if the operation has been so successful, why are you still bombing vast stretches of the city?
Corporate media coverage of the destruction has been an interesting example of non press release ready information hiding in plain sight within the body of deeply massaged, Pentagon friendly reports.
For example, over the weekend I read a story on the BBC - an interview with a few Marines - in which the Americans went on and on about how much ass they kicked and how easy it all was (I'm constantly puzzled by Americans' astonishment at being able to kill people rapidly with weapons designed to do just this - it's as if they think they're fighting temporal bending mechas plated with super dense, collapsed star fashioned armor instead of partially trained teenage boys).
But curiously, right after all this bravado about the ease of dealing out death the piece went on to describe how amazed the Marines were by the discipline, planning and lethal effectiveness of many of the insurgents they've encountered, especially in the city's southern section.
They described ambush after ambush - each expertly conducted and producing many American wounded. They talked about sniper against sniper battles between highly skilled American and Iraqi long distance killers. They talked about being led into obvious traps in which ragtag fighters drew them into confrontations with uniformed, more heavily armed and highly trained combatants. They described all this and other indications of what six months of planning can produce.
News stories on National Public Radio, the New York Times, the Washington post, MSNBC and so on contain a similar structure: it's all over, we've killed them all - well, all except for the guys who just blew up that tank and the ones we're trying to bomb to atoms in that mosque over there who, by the way, are very, very good fighters.
The blood soaked absurdity of it all makes me want to vomit.
.d.