1115.org

When the wheels come off, it’s always the talking points that suffer. Top U.S. officer faults leaders on terrorism war stakes (Reuters):

The top U.S. military officer faulted U.S. political leaders on Friday for failing to get across what he portrayed as the huge stakes in Iraq and elsewhere in the U.S.-declared global war on terrorism.

“The most important thing we have … right now in this kind of conflict is our will and our resolve,” Gen. Richard Myers, outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff…adding the U.S. public does not get the stakes. “I think it’s incumbent on the national leadership, writ large, to help communicate this to the American public.”
[…]
He contrasted the national mood with World War II, when Americans planted “victory gardens” of vegetables and took part in scrap metal and paper collection drives to boost the military effort. “And that of course is not the case today. And so I think it’s easy for people that don’t have individuals indirectly or directly involved in this to forget for a minute that we are a nation at war,” he said.
[…]
“This military can do anything as long as they have the will and resolve of the American people,” said the general.

An interesting bit of revisionism from Myers, who is facing the end of his term and a legacy generously described as disappointing. The chairman of the JCS is responsible for building consensus among the branches of the military, presenting options and recommendations to the President and communicating with the media, and thus is part of the national leadership. By willfully spinning next to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his daily disinformation briefings, Myers has utterly wasted literally hundreds of opportunities to communicate with the American people in favor of toeing the administration line. Assuming he’s not referring to himself, which members of the “national leadership” should be better communicating? Chuck Hagel? Russ Feingold? Both have called for bringing the troops home. Rumsfeld? The President? What kind of plan could the people who couldn’t predict an insurgency come up with to defeat it?

Maybe he has seen the light, but more likely he is lobbying for favorable coverage in the inevitable features that will run in every paper upon his retirement, and his remarks ring just as hollow as those from the President’s weekly radio address:

“Our efforts in Iraq and the broader Middle East will require more time, more sacrifice and continued resolve.”

With no ebb to the violence in Iraq and the long-anticipated constitutional stalemate dragging down the President’s approval ratings, the “we’re building schools” and “women will have rights” happy talk has become inoperative. The theme of sacrifice and resolve from Myers, the President, and others would be welcome if it had come four years ago when it might have produced results, and more importantly if they were actually advocating real sacrifice and resolve.

The situation in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) is now probably past the point of no return. In the early days of the insurgency, it was official dogma that we could win a war of attrition, reaching the end of the stream of rebel fighters before we depleted our own infantry. Through poor theatre intelligence, shortages of armor and other matériel and unmet recruiting goals, it is now clear that we have lost the initiative and are well on our way to losing the war. Resolve is now another word for burying our collective head in the sand and hoping for a miracle. Hope isn’t a plan, and miracles aren’t taught at the service academies, but they are standard operating procedure for our leaders who place faith above fact, prayer above preparedness.

That Myers and the President are calling for resolve, though unproductive, is no surprise–they have been doing it since the days of “wanted dead or alive” when Osama bin Laden was still a man that we would stop at nothing to catch. But the idea of sacrifice has enjoyed no such emphasis from the President or any of his political allies; just the opposite when shopping (to “get about the business of America“) was the most patriotic thing that came to the President’s mind in the wake of 9/11. While the only Americans the President has asked to sacrifice are military men and women and their families, Democrats (both pro- and anti-war) have called for repeal of the President’s tax cuts to pay for the billion-dollar-a-week war, proposed legislation that would conserve oil in an effort to reduce foreign dependency, and Rep. Charles Rangel even introduced a bill that would have reinstated the draft in order to more evenly distribute the sacrifice. The President may have learned the political lesson of Jimmy Carter’s “cardigan sweater” chat, but his insistence on promoting wasteful consumption hasn’t done much for his popularity.

Even now, his call for more sacrifice is undefined. If the resolve of the American people is needed, why wouldn’t real sacrifice be even more important? Resolve, for 99.9% of the population, simply means not organizing a revolution to remove this administration from power. All Republicans and virtually all Democrats in Congress ceded their Constitutional responsibility to declare war to the President in 2002, seven months before the invasion of Iraq. Since then, nothing (even electing John Kerry) could be done to stop what has been started. Resolve is a nothing more than the President’s word for stubbornness. But sacrifice is something more, and by refusing to provide leadership by letting the people know what they can do, he leaves only military families holding the bag. Or does he?

Practically every day, another group of people is asked to sacrifice, only not in so many words. Those who do not support the war in Iraq are being asked to sacrifice their voice and right to dissent. While the government nibbles around the edges of the First Amendment with the USA Patriot Act, they ask us to finish it off by voluntarily giving up our free speech when it comes to criticism of the architects of the war. Those who refuse to censor themselves often face being labeled un-American, appeasers, and worse, traitors. But all the opposition has is talk–and when Republicans were the opposition, they certainly didn’t keep quiet.

The strategy of focusing on resolve and sacrifice isn’t going to change any minds nor will its lack of substance advance the war effort. Though Myers, to his credit, sidestepped it, the below-the-line modus operandi is the continued bashing of the media for “only reporting the bad news” in Iraq. When reporters on the ground in Iraq who aren’t embedded with military units can’t venture into the worst regions, how much worse would the news be if they had the whole story? Still, it is impossible to watch a debate on Iraq without a Republican moaning about all the schools and hospitals we’re opening not receiving coverage because all the reporters are too busy covering the insurgency. In short, more positive, less negative. Who knows, maybe reporters are too busy getting killed to cover ribbon-cuttings. But looking back at the coverage as a whole, what is the pattern?

etc

The only negative images that have made it through the filter have been the photos of Abu Ghraib and flag-draped coffins. Both were fought vigorously by the administration, and mark their only failures at controlling reality. Even today, 2 1/2 years into the war, images of the death and destruction, both on the battlefields and in the cities, are deemed by the media (with pressure from the government) to be too disturbing. It’s almost laughable that they still get away with talking points that criticize the bad news when they created the situation through insufficient planning and atrocious diplomacy, and have successfully spun the media away from reporting scandal, carnage and failure–yet it’s never enough.

And even if it was enough, it wouldn’t be enough. The only number that matters is the toll in lives that the war has reaped. Obscuring that number would certainly fool the public into a rosier outlook, just as hiding the official injury count complete with amputations, paralysis, blindness and post traumatic stress has. Good news isn’t a plan any more than hope is; it’s the reward for winning. And that’s not what’s happening in Iraq. It’s not the fault of the powerless masses who are accused of insufficient resolve. This war is being lost by a handful of men who long ago decided that since Iraq would be a cakewalk, it should be fought on the cheap with a minimum of impact and almost no sacrifice, which is the only reason it ever enjoyed more than 50% support. Now that we’re in such bad shape, their resolve consists of little more than pointing fingers at anyone brave enough to question them, now a majority of Americans.

Myers will be replaced at the end of his term by another general equally as willing to stand at the podium next to Rumsfeld and say that everything is under control. It won’t be any more true then than it is now, and only the body count will have changed. If the President won’t ask his constituents to sacrifice, then he should sacrifice his political capital and do the right thing: bring the troops home now.