Quote Originally Posted by carl dick View Post
The context is that CBS has sold their soul to the Democratic Party. They focus all effort on military leaders and military action, not on American leaders, American action and American interests. Improving 'Governance' responsibly is actually run by the US State Department through the Ambassador in Iraq and Afghanistan (check their web site), but we never hear about their action, or inaction. Critics will say that PRTs are fully engaged and the embassy has over 1000 civilians. However, there is a difference between responsibly and accountability. PRT leaders and Ambassadors are never fired. USAID leaders are not trumped through congress to explain the 'unfinished business.' It was never security problems Ms. Stahl showed; it was economic and governance. I did not know the DOD was charged with making economic and governance problems go away throughout the world, and I believe the budget for that "mission" would be slightly higher than the current rate.
I don't see how Congress' lack of action on holding non-military agencies accountable means that CBS has sold their soul to the Democratic Party.

Congress has chosen to behave a certain way.
CBS has chosen to behave a certain way.
Unless Congress told CBS what to do (good luck with that!) then I don't see how your assertion that "CBS has sold their soul to the Democratic Party" has anything to do with Congress not holding public (and widely promoted) hearings of non-military agencies in which their members are held accountable for a variety of (in)actions.

The reality is that a Republican administration made DoD the lead agency for post-war Iraq. Whether or not you agree with the decision, the fact is that it happened. And since 2003, Iraq - for good or bad - has been seen as a "military" problem, whether it was or not. Given that context, is it any wonder that CBS viewed the successes and failures of Iraq through a military lens?

As to questioning the metrics of success (ie, do the streets look like Manhattan?), again, you have to go further in the past than 60 Minutes in October of 2010.
Please tell us what the mission statement was for the invasion of Iraq, and please point to us the subsequent FRAGOs that define the changes in that mission over the past 7+ years that (re)define the end-points for us.
The point is that when you can't identify, locate, and articulate a specific set of guidance defining success for you, then you're at the mercy of having it defined by others.
You say that "good governance" wasn't part of the mission. I could very easily counter by asking "how do you know?" - and neither one of us has a clearly-defined mission statement to make our case for us.