"History or Hysteria? Our Vulture Pundits Regurgitate Rumor and Buzz"

A monumental column from VDH today at NRO:

.... We should recall that in the first Gulf War we bombed for over 44 days. Critics in 1991 by day 10 were complaining because after the first few nights’ pyrotechnics, Saddam’s army had not crumbled. In turn, earlier swaggering air-advocates had promised victory in three weeks — only to be unjustly slandered that they had failed to end the war in six. Gulf War I is considered a great victory; it required 48 days of air and ground attacks by an enormous coalition to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait. Our present attempt, with half the force, seeks to end Saddam Hussein altogether — and on day 7 already had him cut off, trapped, and besieged.

In the campaign against Belgrade, the ebullience was gone by day 10 when Milosevic remained defiant. By the fifth week, criticism was fierce and calls for an end to the bombing widespread. On day 77, Milosevic capitulated — and no critics stepped forward to confess that their gloom and doom had been misplaced. Does anyone recall the term “quagmire,” used of Afghanistan after the third week — and how prophets of doom promised enervating stasis, only days later to see a chain of Afghan cities fall? Yet no armchair doom-and-gloom generals were to be found when the Taliban ran and utterly confounded their pessimism. Our talking heads remind me of the volatility of the Athenian assembly, ready to laud or execute at a moment’s notice.

The commentators need to listen to history. By any fair standard of even the most dazzling charges in military history — the German blast through the Ardennes in spring 1940, or Patton’s romp in July — the present race to Baghdad is unprecedented in its speed and daring, and in the lightness of its causalities. We can nit-pick about the need for another armored division, pockets of irregulars, a need to mop up here and there, plenty of hard fighting ahead, this and that. But the fact remains that, so far, the campaign has been historically unprecedented in getting so many tens of thousands of soldiers so quickly to Baghdad without losses — and its logistics will be studied for decades....

Listen to history? They? As if. For far too many of them, history goes back no further than breakfast.

(Thanks, Patrick.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 10:52:20 PM
Categorized as War.

Cavuto Incinerates Journalism Professor

And it was a joy to behold.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 10:26:15 PM
Categorized as Media.

Col. Larry Papini Jr.

A Hometown Hero from Roscoe in the local paper today:

U.S. Army Col. Larry Papini of Roscoe had been serving at the Army War College in Carlisle before being deployed to Albania and then to Qatar.

A 1974 graduate of California High School and 1978 graduate of The Citadel, he is the son of Jessie Lou and Larry Papini of Roscoe.

He and his wife, the former Marsha Fayish of California, Pa., have a son Larry, 7, and daughter Gabriella, 4.

He has two siblings also serving in the military, Master Sgt. Jay Papini and Air Force Maj. Jennifer Papini.

Larry and I grew up together; he was a year ahead of me in school. We are third cousins. His parents' house faces mine, one block over. In fact, I live in the house his mother grew up in. His father was my 10th-grade algebra teacher.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 06:28:51 PM
Categorized as Other.

"Taking Sides: The Iraq War Will Divide the World — For the Better"

By Daniel Henninger at OpinionJournal today:

.... Which side are you on? Some surely will recoil at the suggestion that we should so simply reduce the politics of this war. But the war against Saddam Hussein is a rare, defining event, as Vietnam was. It is going to establish divisions for a generation--in relations among nations, in voting patterns. Long-term claims to moral standing are at stake. Among families and friends, these matters in time will never come up again, but like villagers in occupied France, no one's ever going to forget either.

These are not the destructive divisions so often worried over by instinctive moderates and multilateralists. These are constructive divisions, which are driving the world's people toward making a decision about what they believe in, why they believe it and what kind of world they want to live in.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 06:20:52 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

Re: "Worse and Worse"

A reader writes:

I have been thinking lately about the two very different journalistic trends that were so starkly displayed on your blog today. I was wondering to myself while walking the dog last night just how long lasting an effect the intense experiences and friendships with ordinary Americans fighting Saddam's thugs will last once they are again immersed in the culture that produced the LA Times story. I'm sure that there is already a growing divide between the embedees and their colleagues who must think that former are all being brainwashed. It will be interesting to see how this divide plays out in the future and if it has any real and lasting effect on the dominant press culture that has persisted since the Vietnam era. In the mean time, I wonder how the editors of some of these media outlets are dealing with the stories from two very different wars that appear to be raging simultaneously in Iraq?

God bless and keep up the good work!

My own hunch is that most of the "embeddeds" will learn from their experience: most of them for the better, I hope, but some of them for the worse. Whether that's something that will pass on to their colleagues, and heirs, is quite another question. But I'm sure that some of them will learn nothing at all that will really last with them — what profession is without its blockheads? Hopefully, though, they will be in the extreme minority.

P.S. I am using "profession" very loosely. ;)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 12:37:56 PM
Categorized as Media.

"Slow Down, You're Not Winning Fast Enough"

"They're like kids on the long drive to Grandma's house, only worse -- slow down Dadday, we're going to get a speeding ticket, are we there yet? Why aren't we there yet?"

A most worthy blog by Bryan Preston at JunkYard Blog yesterday:

When you boil down the media's criticism of the war in Iraq, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. From non-military types--indeed, from people who've never paid a second thought about the military other than its role in propping up American colonialism and cultural imperialism--we're now hearing the strains of Vietnam-era criticism. "Quagmire." "Poorly-conceived strategy." Truth is, in part this war is this media generation's Vietnam. It's a big affair, its origins (to them) murky, and has raised the ire of their continental favorite France. If the French are against it, it must be bad. As much as they'll deny it, I believe many in the media are really hoping that our troops get bogged down in the desert, if only so they have this big story to keep reporting about. But they also hate George W. Bush (remember, about 90% of the media surveyed very liberal a few years back) and don't particularly want to see his approval numbers floating ever higher. They don't necessarily want to see any US troops die, but they won't mind the war going just badly enough to discredit the hawks and do damage to Mr. Bush's political fortunes.

But back to the specific criticism. On any given day, you're likely to read or hear a pundit say that our initial "shock and awe" sweep into the desert was too swift, too soon. Our supply lines can't keep up. We're getting harassed in the rear by those cursed fedayeen, and we're getting confused between our head end and our hind end on the battlefield. In short, we moved in too fast.

Then, these same media types will turn and say, basically, what's taking so long? You military warmonger types told us this would be easy, and would be over quickly, but we're still there, Iraq's troops are still fighting back, and it's starting to look like a quagmire. Of course, the military never promised the proverbial cakewalk. That idea came from a bunch of retired generals who are still thinking in the military way of 15 or 20 years ago, but since they're former generals and they're criticizing the military, the media laps them up like thirsty pups....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 11:25:20 AM
Categorized as War.

"War No More? How Much of a Pacifist is the Pope?"

William McGurn writes at OpinionJournal today:

.... Catholics understand that not all papal utterances are invested with the same authority. If you dig far enough, you will even find that point confirmed by the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose latest statement concedes that "people of good will may and do disagree on how to interpret just war teaching and how to apply just war norms to the controverted facts of this case."

Of far more concern, at least to papal admirers such as yours truly, is that the war statements appear to reflect not simply a disagreement over Iraq but a strain in John Paul's thinking that sits uncomfortably with 1,500 years of Catholic teaching on the legitimate use to force — a teaching, moreover, that asks not when authorities have the "right" to use force but when they have the obligation....

(Thanks, Dale.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 10:54:10 AM
Categorized as Pope John Paul the Great & Religious.

"Birth of the Embed"

An interesting and informative article by FOX's Kim Hume at The Weekly Standard today:

.... Barely two weeks before the conflict began the journalists from 200 news organizations were on their way to the gulf. So far, it is working for both sides.

Not remarkably, this cooperation is based on a most elementary concept of nature -- self-interest. And Secretary Rumsfeld hit on it: Journalists want to be in on the action. The military wants the real story told and needs objective professionals to tell it.

Throw in a little blind trust, commitment, and self-preservation and we've got David Bloom of NBC riding around in a Humvee, effectively shouting to the world "On to Baghdad!" Poor Peter Arnett. He's so 1991 -- trying to appease the censors and stay alive in Baghdad. It seems like he's fighting the last war. But then again, it seems like Saddam Hussein is, too.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 03/28/03 10:23:41 AM
Categorized as Media.