Monday, July 28, 2008

Reality: Every Cult Leader's Problem

"He misread the war in a way that would have had catastrophic consequences had he been president. As time passed, it became obvious that the surge was working. But Obama determinedly refused to credit the surge or acknowledge the new conditions in Iraq. Perhaps this was because he was so ideologically rigid and blinkered that he couldn’t accommodate reality,..."
-- The Editors, assessing the honesty of McCain's charges against Obama on the war, in the National Review.

4 comments:

  1. Well actually (and note I haven't commented on Obama elsewhere) Obama was one of the very few who was RIGHT about the war. He did not support the invasion in the first place.

    Neither, if I read correctly, did W's dad, the first President Bush. He thought it would be expensive and unwinnable. All too true.

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  2. Obama was only RIGHT about the war (in caps) if you're, blindly, against war. Otherwise, he's a damn fool.

    And your "unwinnable" comment shows you're stuck in a mindset and aren't paying attention to the facts on the ground.

    But no surprise there.

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  3. Well, I am pleased to see after what has been a massive cock-up, the generals have finally got some smarts:

    'It was not a tactical adjustment; in fact, it was a profound, and much needed, change in strategy.

    What Obama doesn't seem to grasp is that what made the surge successful is not merely, or even primarily, an increase in the number of troops; it was a fundamentally new counterinsurgency strategy, one that concentrated on securing the population and, over time, winning their confidence and support.'


    Sheer genius. Why didn't anyone think of that back in 2003? Oh wait, I did. Could have saved a lot of lives and dollars, General Petraeus.

    There's a name for this belated change of tack surge. In the vernacular it's called 'shutting the gate after the horse has bolted' and you'd better hope the forces have some very strong diplomatic types to convince Iraqi civilians that, despite the mistakes, they really mean no harm.

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  4. Yea, yea, Berko: with hindsight being 20/20, you and every other lib are fucking wartime genius's.

    Not.

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