Belgravia Dispatch - a useful, short piece pushing the US Administration to explain (and justify) the pro-democracy, pro-Muslim policy:
Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, acknowledged that U.S. troops, too, were becoming aware of the drop in the public’s confidence.
"When my soldiers say to me and ask me the question whether or not they’ve got support from the American people or not, that worries me. And they’re starting to do that," he said.The Hugh Hewitt’s will tell you it’s the Dick Durbins of the world that are the root cause of Abizaid’s concerns. Or the baddies of the MSM deflating war morale with slanted news coverage. People like Hewitt might have a point, to a fashion. But the real issue, I’d submit, is that no one in this Administration has come clean, really come clean, about how long and hard the war effort in Iraq will be. So the American people have been left surprised and dispirited about how bloody and difficult the going has been. Meantime, rank fools or spinmeisters are declaring victory in the blogosphere and in think tanks. This is as irresponsible and stupid as saying we have already been defeated and should pack up and go home. No one really knows how this effort will play out in the final analysis yet. What is clear, however, is that there is a lot of hard work yet to do–as Abizaid, who knows better than anyone, said today…
Yeah, and Abazaid seems still to be trying to make himself look good, regardless of who it costs. Fairly common human attribute, of course.
This is the time when the job is half-done, and fools and infants should look the other way, as they can’t comprehend the process.
Maybe it’s a question of selective reporting and listening. GWB said from the beginning this was a multi-year, even generational struggle.
Hm. Seems I got confused about whose words were whose, above. I was reacting more to what Greg Djerejian of Belgravia Dispatch was saying. Please ignore first post!
Brian,
Understood. As you said GWB has been totally consistent (in his speeches, which I read on the net). A long, difficult, and almost certainly a multi-generational effort.
However, the Bush administration has not done an adequate communications job on Iraq nor on the GWOT. I don’t mean spin, I mean simply getting the facts in front of the media every week. I think the attitude comes from GW Bush himself - he resists dealing with the news cycle on a real-time basis (sort of the anti-Clinton in this area).
Even if the big media were neutral to supportive of the Bush policy there would still be a problem. The US administration cannot expect the average US citizen, much less the EU citizen, to read the daily Pentagon briefings.
The hysteria over “prisoner abuse” is an excellent example of poor communications. I have a large backlog of material I’m trying to get posted to put that issue in better perspective. E.g., see What is really going on at GITMO, and Gitmo patriots deserve our respect. And for sure Sanctuary!