Quote Originally Posted by Old Eagle View Post
The enemy has no similar problem. When the president of Afghanistan complains more loudly about coalition-caused civilian casualties than he does about AQ/Taliban ruthlessness, we've lost the IO thread. When every Arab on the street (and most of liberal America) can recite the Abu Graib/Guantanamo mantra (see Tom Friedman editorial today), we've lost the IO thread.

Somebody help me with this.
That's because we still haven't mastered IO in relation to some of the specific mediums causing us the most damage. I don't think we've mastered dealing with al-Jazeera's version of "fair and balanced," we haven't mastered, or even really begun to deal with the 24/7 rampant rumor mill that is the Arab world, and we sometimes forget that it will always, at least in the near future, be politically expedient to blame the Americans for a problem, rather than themselves or local insurgents. Just like how in the US it will remain politically expedient to blame things on a misinterpretation, a miscommunication, or a Miss Lewinsky rather than actually take responsibility.

I know a lot of very smart people in the armed forces are working on this stuff, but I just don't see how anything we accomplish can change the strategic equation until we deal with these issues.

Sorry for getting waaaaaaaay off topic - I love the Daily Show, probably because I'm a little more to the left than most of you, and I loved this interview, especially LTC Nagl's great deadpan sense of humor.

Stewart was respectful and seemed impressed with Nagl, but his comments at the end, generic "looking out for the guys" stuff, betrayed his feelings about Iraq; namely, it sucks, we've screwed up, I don't want to hear anything more except a departure date."

Also, did anyone else sense that Stewart was making a major distinction between officers like Nagl (or any other officer) and "the guys," as though officers wall themselves in compounds and send the dead-ender young boys out to do the job?

I'm a pretty liberal kid and this is far and away the most infuriating attitude that many on the left have.

Along with the whole "why are you throwing away a Cornell education" question when I mention I'm applying for Marine PLC, of course. . .

Matt