http://donklephant.com/2005/08/10/sitzkriegs-end/#comment-1123
(’bout halfway down)

My main complaint about this is that either (a) WaPo and ilk are too stupid to understand this or (b) they understand it and choose to write garbage like this anyway. In both cases they do it solely to destroy faith in our leadership, purely for partisan reasons. The result: the terrorist insurgency is emboldened by being shown survey results indicating that “we” have a low approval rating regarding the war and that “we” think it was wrong to depose Saddam, etc., etc., ad nauseam. This encourages the terrorists to keep blowing things up, as they think they’re “winning”.

“Freedom without order� is a good complaint, but a question of balance. Do you think there’s enough “order� for you to walk alone in Harlem at midnight, or do you lack that freedom?

Jeez Tom…come on. You’re above these examples. And considering I’ve done this before, I obviously have a very specific opinion. You’re comparing apples and oranges here. Respectfully, this is extremely clumsy at best. I think you’ll find that the fears we’ve been fed in the media are pretty much unfounded.

And yes, we’ve been hearing news (I can’t point to it right now because I don’t have time) that insurgency is becoming less and less succesful. However, multiple deaths are rising. So while the number is going down, the quantity during single incidents are going up. I think perhaps that fewer dead is “good news”, but it’s also a matter of perspective. What’s also going on right now is nothing aking to wandering around in a “bad” neighborhood at night. It’s as ridiculous as Brit Hume comparing Iraq to California.

However, mixed messages are what I’ve come to expect from this administration, so this doesn’t really surprise me. It’s just makes me worried that it will embolden the terrorists and therefore, hurt the Iraqi people’s chances to truly live in a free society.

Maybe that’s precisely the purpose of the Bush administration’s “conflicting signals” the WaPo is griping about – to confuse the enemy. As I’ve pointed out before, keeping the enemy guessing is Warfare 101 stuff.

“Militarily defeating the insurgents” is, and has always been, a job the military cannot do — without the imposition of an Occupation Police State.

Only Iraqis can stop the terrorists.

“Freedom without order” is a good complaint, but a question of balance. Do you think there’s enough “order” for you to walk alone in Harlem at midnight, or do you lack that freedom?

There’s a balance; I doubt that most liberals will be happy with the first few elections in Iraq at where the balance is.

Main Entry: contingency plan
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: a program of action designed for handling **possible** future circumstances or events [my emphasis]

One **possible** future circumstance includes a scenario where the Iraqis have in fact developed border controls, information networks and military and police forces capable of controlling the terrorist insurgency. That’s the actual goal here, so discussing the possibility shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. At the same time it can hardly be seen as a fait accompli, as the rest of the “article” suggests.

WaPo is hardly “scratching its head”. It’s blaring the standard Chicken Little, sky-is-falling and the-Bush-administration-doesn’t-know-what-it’s-doing claptrap spewed pretty much 24/7 in both tone and content by AP, Reuters, NYT and CNN (as well, ahem, as on way too many blogs). Note how the “article” (analysis, actually) jumps from casting aspersions to public consensus – the consensus the media’s been working tirelessly to build for over two years.

But hey, if garbage “analysis” like this also serves to confuse the enemy, that will partially make up for its self-serving mischaracterizations.