There are some issues here – especially with the “general public”. The administration’s history of denial and painting a rosy picture in Iraq is not only haunting the suits but the uniformed leadership as well.
For the most part Council members – and the military at large – understand that General Petraeus is a straight shooter and has an extensive grasp of what it takes to win the COIN fight. As oblong pointed out – he is virtually unknown to the average Joe on the street who may have supported the war early on (and maybe longer) but feels somewhat betrayed and generally pissed off on how this all unfolded.
Now is the time for a full-court information press on what the new strategy means, the ramifications of a wholesale pull-out, and (with the clock reset to a spring – summer 2007 start) how long it takes to conduct successful COIN ops – even when you are doing “everything right”… This is critical as publications such as Salon and The New Republic are pounding out their own IO message – each and every day.
Paul Krugman weighed in on the 19th in the NYT:
Paul Krugman: All the President’s Enablers
The pile-on from the left is starting.In other words, General Petraeus, without saying anything falsifiable, conveyed the totally misleading impression, highly convenient for his political masters, that victory was just around the corner. And the best guess has to be that he’ll do the same thing three years later.
Last edited by mmx1; 07-22-2007 at 02:41 AM.
Things may well be improving in Iraq, perhaps dramatically. But my question is Is giving an interview to a highly partisan radio host the right way to spread that message to a skeptical public, and more important, to Congress. Petraeus should have known how his appearance on that show would be spinned.
He's been sort of busy the last four years and I suspect he's not a blog visitor or a talk radio listener. Most Generals are studiously apolitical in the domestic politics sense at least publicly so he could well not have had a clue.
Heard he did another for NPR recently. I imagine he'd do one with anyone who asked and the mainstream media almost certainly hasn't asked -- though they may now.
Regardless the left leaning blogs and talking headless will have fun for a few days. Fortunately, the attention span out there is pretty short.
Excellent post, Dave. Anyone ever tell you to consider starting a web site for dicussions?
Seriously, great points. Even among those familiar with the issues some rosy predictions tend to act like sugar in cavities. As for those who do not track the issues, we do need a sustained IO effort to get their attention across the political spectrum. Even the comments after your post suggest that may be misinterpreted. As Ken said, I believe he was on NPR but so far no one has chosed to turn that "affliation" into an issue.
All of this points to just how deep the credibility gap is at this stage. I believe that McCaffrey's last stitrep had it right when he said general support for the war is gone and that our efforts regardless of wisdom or correctness in a military/strategic sense are on a timed clock.
Best
Tom,
Most of those who objected to the General's statements or his forum for making it are already committed to our defeat in Iraq and they object to anything that might contradict that objective. While Hugh Hewitt is a center right host, he also interviews several leftist and war opponents in a respectful way. I think the real objection to the interview is that he elicited facts that do not support the narrative of the war's opponents.
If we are going to fight small wars, and make no mistake many of the opponents of the Iraq war want us never to fight them, our military leaders are going to have to come up with a way to buy the political time needed to make their effort successful in the theater of action. What we have discovered is that the real center of gravity for these efforts is in the public opinion of Americans who are not engaged in the theater of operations. It is an important area of the war effort that cannot be ignored.
The enemy has said that half its efforts are in the media battle space, and that is certainly the area where he has had the most success.
The lack of or refusal to use critical thinking skills in America is astounding. Are we so needy that we gravitate to the point of view that is the most comforting rather than to accept the truth when it is right in front of you smacking you in the nose repeatedly? I don't know, sometimes I get so frustrated with some of the spin our government (both sides) try to pass off on Americans.
Don't taze me bro!
The Pope and all the Prophets could have been standing behind General P. nodding their heads in approval when he told the world what the reality in Iraq is and it wouldn't matter, some would still call him a Halliburton-Bush-Cheney puppet.
Oblong,
Your questioning of the GEN Petraeus' venue is understandable but misguided. Despite the commonly held perception that a 4-star general is "in charge" nothing could be farther from the truth wrt this type of media engagement. "Experts" in DoD most assuredly directed who the General would speak to and who he wouldn't, at least on the record and in conjunction with official testimony. That's not to say that they control GEN Petraeus' testimony, I spent too much time in his company to imagine his intellect much less his ego would allow that type of manipulation. The man is not without fault, but he's far from a mouth piece.
Live well and row
Yes, because:
1. The boy who cried wolf factor.
2. We're still being lied to; the Anbar awakening predates the surge as confirmed by one of our council members who was there, but that's not the spin.
3. Things rarely get better in the Middle East and they rarely stay that way. Other than, possibly, for Israel.
Also, you should consider
1. There's a difference between better and "good enough." For a significant amount of people, "We're finding less bodies in the streets" isn't good enough.
2. Getting better hasn't achieved the objective. Lots of intelligent people, including many in the military, don't believe that the objective is achievable.
3. Better for who? All many people care about is the US casualty rate. I'm sure if it dropped to zero, the political debate would change radically.
4. You're forgetting about the cost. Many taxpayers - including many here - don't want to pay more in taxes to make America better. Why should they pay to make Iraq better? (The military isn't used to this, but I suspect you're now in the same boat as the teacher who insists that with just a few dollars they could provide better education, or the engineering who wanted to build better flood protection for New Orleans. You may be right, but the best place for the money that I earn is in my pocket.)
Hi RA,
Really good points!
I'd add in a couple of others to sort of round it out:
1. The Big Lie - pretty much everyone has heard about this in one form or another, but awareness of its possibility leads to a jaundiced view of anything "official".
2. Most people don't know enough history to recognize the patterns of what will happen if there is a precipitous pullout. And, given the cost of staying as you noted, why should "we" stay?
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
There's a lot of talk here about what the general public doesn't understand, and I completely agree. Whenever I mention COIN to someone, they look dumbfounded because they've never heard of it. (and never mind when I mention names like Nagl or Kilcullen. They don't even care who they are and what they've done until I throw in the word Dr. or give their credentials/bio)
How can you, the military, (or maybe I could ask should you?) "teach" the general public about COIN so that they'll understand it better? I mean if I, who knows very little about COIN, can get it, why can't the public?
Is the only reason I'm understanding it because, a.) I have an interest in learning more about it or b.) I'm paying more attention to what's going on in Iraq from the people who know what they're talking about/doing (i.e. using better sources of information than most do)?
Maybe I should ask, does it even matter that the gen. public understands this? IMHO, yes it does matter...a lot. I've never changed an anti-war or a "bomb all the Muslims" person, but I helped change their attitude a bit when I explained to them how COIN works.
I'm going to address this one because I am sick and tired of hearing it. First of all the "surge" is not nor was it ever the new strategy. The surge is simply a means to provide more troops to facilitate the new strategy. The new strategy is about pushing more troops out of the FOBs and getting them out where they can do more good. The commanders on the ground did not wait for the surge to start implementing this. Yes, the Anbar awakening started before the surge but without help from us it would have died there. No one is lying about it and I am sick and tired of hearing people who do not have enough information to have an opinion on the issue make grand sweeping statements like "We're being lied to."
SFC W
Hi Uboat,
Well, without speaking for RA, I took his points as being "popular understandings" more than anything else. Of course the surge isn't a strategy, but it has been spun as one by a number of politicians and some media who conflate the surge with a strategy. Since most non-military people use the term "strategy" to cover everything from "how I am going to make breakfast" to "how I will penetrate the Chinese market and achieve world widget domination", I really don't find it surprising that they can't distinguish between them.
What I saw RAs list as was a series of reasons (actually, emotional responses, not rational thought) why the "common man" doesn't believe pretty much anything coming out from "official sources" - the blocks to communicative legitimacy as it were.
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
Releasing contradictory data about important metrics does not help.
Fair enough. We feel like we're being lied to. Like I said above, we feel how we feel. It's our right. Once people are wrong about, "WMDs," dead enders" and "mission accomplished," we're allowed to stop listening. We're allowed to feel like we're being lied to. We don't need to believe "we've finally figured out what we're doing."
For the record though, I know the difference between tactics and strategy. The strategy - last I heard - was to reduce violence, in order to create "breathing space" which would lead to reconciliation. I think most people admit the strategy isn't working.
I suspect that the new strategy is to try some different tactics and see if something salvageable emerges from the chaos, which makes some sense. Or it's to arm the Sunni in order to curb Iranian influence and no one has the courage to admit that our strategy is arming the ones who killed us and who used to work for Saddam. (Of course, my last suggestion may be caused by my incorrect belief that I've been lied to. I have biases just like everyone else.)
PS: When you're talking about hearts and minds, pictures are almost always more effective than words. I was thinking about how stupid the anti Paetreus moveon.org ad was and thinking that they should've run the above picture with the headline, "Do you want America's best and bravest to die in order to give Maliki more time?" But that was just off the top of my head. I'm sure I could come up with a pretty good pro war ad too. It wouldn't use any of the following terms: Bush, Maliki, surge or benchmarks. I'd probably go with some version of Petraeus knows what he's doing and he deserves our support. He seems to be the only one the public trusts, so it makes sense to reinforce those beliefs. Or maybe I'd let RTK talk directly to the camera about why he wants to go back to Iraq. It depends on whether or not RTK could talk calmly about Iraq for 30 seconds without raising his voice.
You would be the most educated person who ever spoke for me so don't worry about it.
From The President's official web site
Our Success In Meeting Surge Objectives Allows Us To Begin Bringing Some Of Our Troops Home. The premise of our strategy is that securing the Iraqi population is the foundation for all other progress. This week, General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified before Congress and made clear that our challenge in Iraq is formidable. Yet they concluded that conditions in Iraq are improving, that we are seizing the initiative from the enemy, and that the troop surge is working.
If you'd dumped your chief spokesperson after "Mission Accomplished" you might have more support. People listen to the Commander in Chief. If he's wrong too many times in a row, they stop listening. That's marketing. That's the hearts and minds of most American people.
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