Dwayne Monroe:
>
> Hersh's focus, as far as I can tell, is describing the motivations and
> ideas of policy makers and knowledgeable functionaries.
>
> For example, his work for the New Yorker detailing the policy
> decisions that led to torture becoming standard operating procedure
> at Abu Ghraib is centered on what's known and unknown about American
> actions, not the Iraqis damaged or destroyed by them.
>
> His articles and speeches about the possibility (almost a certainty,
> in his view) of an American assault upon Iran seem to be similarly
> concerned with what Washington intends to do -- as predicted by
> insiders -- instead of what's going on in Tehran.
>
> In other words, he appears to exclusively speak about what he knows
> (the twists and turns of American policy elites ) and not about what
> he doesn't (the ground situation in Iraq from the Iraqi point of
> view).
>
>
>
> .d.
The average Iraqi doesn't have the vaguest effin idea of what's happening on the ground either. Twenty years ago, Bagdhad and the other major cities in Iraq were upwardly mobile middle class cities like... New York or Des Moines, according to a Time pocket dictionary I own that's from that era.
Now those places are mostly rubble and razorwire.
What would your psychological state be like Doug, if UBL managed to blow up most of lower Manhattan and two years... five years later things are still blowing up all over the place and savages called soldiers are running amok in the streets and you might get turned into bloody mush just for looking at him the "wrong" way?
Could you tell me what was happening across town with any degree of accuracy? You'd be too busy scrambling for water and food, and hoping and praying you didn't get killed in the process.
Here a tidbit for ya: http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/archives/2005_05_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#111506438245725553
Leigh