[I’d like to welcome Patrick Lang to the front-page of Booman Tribune. He is one of our country’s foremost experts on the Middle East and intelligence matters. And my father is a big fan of Pat’s from watching him on McNeil/Lehrer. Here is Pat’s Bio.] -Boo
I have decided to continue my commentary on the decline
of the quality of the editorial page of the Washington Post and its
leadership. This is today’s
leading editorial in the WashPost.
"WITH THAT statement, which
appeared on an al Qaeda Web site Thursday, Iraq’s al Qaeda network at
last made explicit the goals of the Iraqi insurgency: to prevent a
freely elected, constitutional government from taking power and to
promulgate a totalitarian Islamic republic instead."
WashPost
It is the US government’s position that the insurgencies in Iraq have several
components; sorehead Baathists, criminal mercenaries, disaffected
tribals and, in a special category, international Jihadis (AQ Iraq)
under the command of Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi. If you read Mr.
Hiatt’s editorial as quoted above, you will see that he says that a
statement made on an AQ web site speaks for all the components of the
insurgencies. What’s the evidence for that, or is this yet another
example of the WashPost editorial page distributing "talking
points?" pl
"Shortly after meeting with Iraq’s
most important Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, another
Shiite Muslim leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, told a crowd in the holy city of
Najaf to support the constitution in order to unify the country.
"We should not let this chance of accomplishing this goal to go
away," he said."
Who are the "we" in this
speech by Hakim? What is the "goal?" Is the goal
of this Shia activist to unify Iraq on the basis of inter-communal
equality, the rights of minorities (like women), and the civil rights we
think were given to mankind by "nature’s God" as
"inalienable." Is that what he means? Or does he
mean that this is the great chance to consolidate Shia power in the
pursuit of a Godly morality and unity of effort and purpose?
The Post does not even consider the
latter possibility. I should not complain too much about the
Post. It has been "subdued" like much of the
media.
That’s all right. The blogosphere
and media forms yet unconceived are coming to put the old media out of
their misery. Pat Lang
Pat Lang’s blog: Sic Semper
Tyrannis || Bio
And thank you for your continued service to all of us. I will visit your blog often and look forward to seeing more from you here at BMT.
you are a very welcome addition to Booman. I so admired your testimony before the senate hearing with Larry Johnson. Just what the doctor ordered, imho…a real expert. I appreciate your veiw point greatly.
Welcome, Mr. Lang. Sir, why is it that the post does that kind of reporting? Once one diagnosis the disease then it is easy to treat.
I find the post and all the other media outlets rather suspicious indeed. I have had to take them at their worth, now going on for over 25 years, and it is getting harder to believe anything they ahve to say.
God only knows we need some honesty for a change!
Thank you so very much for joining us here.
Where else — except Juan Cole — can you get commentary like this about the deposing of the mayor of Baghdad:
Iraq’s new U.S. ambassador — Zalmay Khalilzad — will be on with Tim Russert tomorrow morning.
A couple of my previous stories on Khalilzad:
I wish I could find my copy of The New Yorker with a wonderfully long article on Khalilzad’s extremely close relationship with Karzai and the view of many that Khalilzad’s departure might enable Karzai to become his own man. I’ll look for it.
Here’s the roundup of guests on Meet the Press tomorrow:
hey susan, funny I linked to your ‘Oil Viceroy’ diary and found out I had made several posts there..but it was well worth rereading your diary on this dickhead. An original signer of PNAC-a top of the line insider neocon to say the least.
The problem, as I see it, is that the Pentagon has no interest in sharing information with Congress, or the press, about what we know about the insurgency.
What state actors are assisting them. Iran could be playing a double game. Could Russia be giving explosives training and other logistical assistance?
How about Syria? How reliable are Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt?
Is there any consensus whatsoever among these groups about what kind of end-state they want to see?
And then there is the internal situation. The number of Iraqis that want to see an ongoing decimation of police recruits must me vanishingly small. Yet, it goes on unabated.
I see they are planning on doing an officially sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Kirkuk to make up for a 20 year old ethnic cleansing of Kirkuk. Do we have any alternative to the forced relocation of thousands of Arab families there? What are the legal vulnerabilities of having anything to do with this?
All I see is a big violent mess that no one is debating honestly. Least of all, the WP editorial board.
the Pentagon has no interest in sharing information with Congress, or the press, about what we know about the insurgency.
They’ve been consistent in their analysis of the players, but not the numbers – even they admit that’s a moving target. Myers characterized the “insurgency” as criminals (organized & freelance), ex-Baathists, and internal and foreign Jihadists, to name a few sources of violence.
Add the larger political factions with their separate agendas and you have a big violent mess indeed. No one’s on first, in Iraq or here.
I vistit Pat Lang’s site everyday. I was always impressed with him when he was a frequent guest on cable news talking head shows. Both the depth and accuracy of his perspectives, combined with his willingness to challenge the official line emanating from the White House/Pentagon spin machine were a welcomed relief from all the other too clever, too carefully constructed deceptive rhetoric spewed by most of the other so-called “experts”. And of course it was clear that Colonel Lang would not remain a frequent guest for long on these shows, since his analysis and pointed questions exposed more holes in Bush regime policy and hence required more thoughtful and direct consideration than his cable news hosts were willing to provide for.
On a related matter, another very articulate and accurate “expert” who experienced the same diminution of media-time as Colonel Lang was General Odom. A friend of mine sent this article by him to me this morning; an excellent refutationof the numerous arguments put forward by BushCo as to why we need to stay in Iraq.
It’s a great read. I’d very much like to know Pat Lang’s perspective on General Odom’s views, and I hope you/he might post a comment either here on on your own site.
Anyway, here’s the link to General Odom’s piece.
It’s good to know that this is only one of many posts by Pat on his new blog.
One thing I like about reading his works is that me makes me curious to learn more. After reading one of his posts, I spent a couple hours scouring maps of Iraq to understand its geography and topography better. Another day, he mentioned the Hundred Years War and I realized I knew almost nothing about it so spent a couple hours reading all about that. Fun!
Nice diary, Mr. Lang. I agree whole-heartedly with your last point. Just yesterday when I was reading comments made by Cindy Sheehan online it really hit me how powerful the blogs are and how historical this is. I really think blogs are going to be an important part of history books with regards to this war in Iraq. Glad to see you here.
Welcome to Bootrib…and one of your interests is cowboy boots?..does that mean you just like them or know the history etc of them?
Thanks for breaking down the editorial in the WP. It seems that sloppy thinking and writing are becoming the norm for far to many major newspapers unfortunately. And people here have become increasing spoiled by the excellent writing of our own frontpagers and other great diarists.
I’ll be looking forward to more of your Frontpage diaries.