"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.