Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand

[J Wolfsberger]

But most of the guys discussed were on cable television. Where are people getting information then? I realize there are people who rely on Limbaugh, Newsmax, Moveon or other infotainment/ideological sources, but I'd have to think they're a minority.

There are still a lot of solid sources. I use NPR, Fox, World Radio Network (also on Sirius), the Washington Times and Post, the NY Post, IBD, WSJ, etc.

[SteveMetz]

There are still a lot of solid sources. I use NPR, Fox, World Radio Network (also on Sirius), the Washington Times and Post, the NY Post, IBD, WSJ, etc.

But the experts in the story were prominent on those sources.

[Watcher In The Middle]

Originally posted by J Wolfsberger:

To put this in perspective, the MSM has seen its influence with the public steadily deteriorate. Circulation is down, viewers are down, public trust is down. In a normal business, this is a sign that you're out of touch with your customers. To the ideologues in the MSM, its a sign that some grand conspiracy is undermining you.

Little different take, but close - very, very close. After the last set of financials (coming out over the last few weeks), the media folks are all looking for scapegoats, and there's real tensions between the adminstrative/financial side of the different corporations and the media side. After all, "somebody" has to be at fault here - it can't possibly be the product

The sniping is starting to grow into something akin to a civil war at some organizations - over who's losing the business (See Tribune Co. as a good example). And over who they are losing the business to.

Bottom line: If the newspapers/media corporations had growing and profitable marketplaces, this wouldn't even being reported. Wouldn't even be a story.

But cable (and the Internet, of which cable is a big service provider) have been taking chunks (not just bites, CHUNKS) out of the conventional media (MSM) business. So their business isn't growing.

What you are seeing what looks to be a very creative way to create questions about the "journalistic integrity" of the cable / non-MSM version of the media, and the product they put out there. Not bad - very slick, actually. Worthy of presidential campaign staff, if they end up having to look for a new job.

Problem is, it's not just cable. It's craigslist, talk radio (not mine, but that's more potential eyeballs off the scene), youtube, facebook, all sorts of other options. I halfway expect a bunch of MSM scare stories along the lines of "Using the Internet can give you brain cancer".

[tequila]

...

The itinerary, scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women’s rights, a mass grave and even the gardens of Babylon.


Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.


“We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed.

“I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,” General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times.


The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.


“You can’t believe the progress,” General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months.

That certainly sounds like accurate information from the Pentagon to me. What a shame that the American people didn't get this sort of ground truth back in 2003-2005 more often. Then we could have continued on with the sort of remarkably effective strategies that brought us such enormous successes back then.

I recall reading a quote from a UN official that there was debate over referring to the genocide in Rwanda as a "genocide," since calling it that would obligate the international community to intervene. Given that behavior from the UN, I can understand having a tough time figuring out how to present the justification for the war.

That was a discussion within the Clinton Administration's NSC, not the UN.

[Ken White]

they see on the tube deserves their fate...

I thinks Spud and Watcher in the Middle have got it about right, the Times article passes the 'so-what' test ONLY in the sense it impugns the Cable networks -- who did almost certainly know exactly what they were getting -- so should any listener or viewer have known what they were getting.

Those who missed that can snivel about being mislead. I'm not too sympathetic, personally.

[Rob Thornton]

Steve,

I believe--and I hammer this theme in my book--that this abandonment or distortion of the logic of strategy was made possible by the unusual post-September 11 psychological climate. Even those uncomfortable with it were unwilling to openly and vigorously oppose it. It was almost like being drunk--something in the back of the mind said, "this is a bad idea" but the inebriated part of the brain said, "what the hell--go for it!!"

(bold added by me)

For just a second when I read the bold part I got an image of Larry the Cable guy sitting down with Ron White

I think there is a solid argument to be made that your analogy is well fitted; Rational Policy got a time out so to speak.

I'm sure you've seen it, but others here may not have - below is a link to Gray's piece that weighs the publicized doctrine of preemption over the realities of prevention. I think its a good read, and has bearing on broader discussion.

The Implications of Preemptive and Preventive War Doctrines: A Reconsideration.

Since we're still fighting the war, its hard discuss what the original stated goals, and grounds were while considering what the stakes are now as seen by the various participants, or the consequences of considering what the possible outcomes could mean.

I like Gray's choice of quote from Bernard Brodie:about the need to be pragmatic:

Strategic thinking, or "theory" if one prefers, is nothing if not pragmatic. Strategy is a "how to do it" to accomplishing something and doing it efficiently. As in many other branches of politics, the question that matters in strategy is: Will the idea work? More important, will it be likely to work under the special circumstances under which it will be tested? These circumstances are not likely to be known or knowable much in advance of the moment of testing, though the uncertainty is itself a factor to be reckoned with in one's strategic doctrine. pg.16

To me this ties in nicely with the dictum as articulated by Clausewitz (para-phrased): "that the first and most important action a political leader must make is to define the true character of the war upon which he is about to embark."

To me that means at least considering the range of possible consequences in light of the political end you are attempting to achieve through the use of military force; and the possibility that by entering into the environment where friction and chance create many more possibilities, we might create new ends that have to be addressed. This is where I think we are at now. Anything commentators have said in the past becomes somewhat circumspect when held against the changing context the original ends gave birth to.

Best Rob

[Old Eagle]

Isn't this the rag that has to clean house every year or two for manufacturing Pulitzer Prize stories?

Also please consider Shallit's Razor -- Never assign to conspiracy that which can be sufficiently explained by ignorance or incompetence. Anyone close to the Washington bureaucracy, especially to the strategic communications piece, would know that the "gang that can't shoot straight" could never put together a real plan to accomplish what these authors contend.

I have never been a proponent of public affairs: the spouse tends to find out; bad things happen. International affairs, on the other hand...

[ipopescu]

In deciding to invade Iraq, the Bush administration abandoned that logic. It used a legal rather than a strategic form of thinking, concluding that the establishment of guilt was sufficient. Once guilt was established, punishment proportionate to the guilt was applied. I contend that make sense for a domestic legal system, but not for strategy.

Feith, being a lawyer, fully adopted this position. He spends dozens of pages establishing that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and a few sentences on the costs and risks of addressing that threat by invasion and social re-engineering.

I believe--and I hammer this theme in my book--that this abandonment or distortion of the logic of strategy was made possible by the unusual post-September 11 psychological climate.

I think you are exactly right in pointing out the lack of solid strategic thinking on the part of the administration in the run-up to Iraq. My reasoning for that is that they did not really understand the nature of military power and what it can and cannot do, and hence they asked of it something alien to its nature, to loosely paraphrase Clausewitz. And, broadly speaking, the ideological belief in the power of freedom to solve all the problems of the Iraqi society definitely did not help whatever cost/benefit analysis it may have taken place.

But I am intrigued by your argument that they acted "astrategically" because they addressed the issue in a legalistic fashion. I've always been rather uncomfortable with the fact that so many lawyers end up in high decision-making position on issues of national security, so this would confirm to me that my bias against people with a legalistic frame of thinking making decision about war and peace may not be totally misplaced. I think lawyers are best at arguing for or against a course of action, not at actually analyzing and thinking through many options and choosing the most appropriate one. But I wonder whether this abandonment of strategic logic was due to 9/11, or it is something more endemic to the "American way of war" in general, as Colin Gray never tires of arguing, and something whose causes go beyond any particular administration and have more to do with, in his words, "a longstanding tradition of material superiority which offers few incentives
for strategic calculation; and the nation’s traditional theory of civil-military relations, which discourages probing dialogue between policymaker and soldier."