Eeyorepundit at Hot Air hearts NYT

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

Quite obviously we are at a pivotal moment in Iraq; security operations have done what they are supposed to, reduce the violence to a level that politicians could swing some deals but that has yet to materialize. I realize that it would have been ideal if the Iraqi Parliament had stayed in session and passed an Oil law and reconciliation procedures, but like every other legislature including ours, they took the hottest month of the year off and went home. I don't recall any expectations being laid out that political progress would track right alongside security, as a matter of fact common sense ought to have pointed toward that as a follow on to less killing. It is tough to think about peace in the midst of battle. Well things have cooled down and we have made amazing progress in Anbar, which even 6 months ago was de facto ruled by AQI, and Baghdad is hardly pacified but it is much safer.

In the face of this we have plenty of skeptics and pessimists and there is plenty to be skeptical and pessimistic about. Before I knee him in the neck let me say I love 99% of Allah's work at Hot Air, but sometimes he gets out of his depth. Today Allahpundit at Hot Air continues his trend of skeptical pessimism and you can almost hear the "We're doomed Christopher Robin", as he hugs the skirts of the NYT's Damien Cave. In a piece he titles NYT survey: Surge has largely failed, Allah joins Cave in concluding the surge has likely failed because there is no instant political reconciliation. Cave quotes a US officer:

He said, “I think we have essentially stalled the sectarian conflict without addressing the underlying grievances.”…

Allah then comments:

The boldface part sums up the dilemma: if they’re not making things better but they are keeping things from getting worse, is that in itself enough of a justification to keep troops there long term?

WTF? Even if you simply take that statement as gospel with no context it hardly means the surge has failed. We are about 6 months into this effort and we have already made large gains in many areas. The fact that Cave and his stringers can find Iraqis who think they are doomed as well is hardly surprising. Things have been sucking for a long time, hope is tough to find after so much carnage. But the idea that this piece by Cave is somehow particularly noteworthy is a stretch. Now Cave came in for some well-deserved praise when he refused to parrot Bill Maher's idiotic ideas about Iraq, but given the abject stupidity of Maher's questions all he really did was disagree that things would be better if Sadaam was still in power and that we owe it to the Iraqis to fix what we broke. Noble sentiments but hardly a step out on a limb.

Allah seems to feel that this and Cave's rep as an honest broker give tremendous weight to his assessment of current affairs in Iraq. I do not. Cave is a reporter for the NYT, and despite Burns and Gordon's solid work on the war, that is still a strike against you. If we are to listen to the sage analysis of Mr. Cave one would assume that he has expertise in military affairs and national security right? Mr. Caves' bio from his Phillips Foundation fellowship

Damien Cave
Full-time Fellowship
Project: "Beach Blanket Capitalism," focusing on four aspects of the Cuban government's effort to increase tourism: American laws and their effect on Cuban travel policy; the changing fortune of underground entrepreneurs; the effects of "tourism apartheid" on local citizens; and the role that tourism training schools play in exacerbating prejudices against race, class and political creed. Damien is now a reporter for The New York Times. He previously worked as an associate editor at Rolling Stone, a senior writer for Salon.com, and as a staff writer for the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire. He received a B.A. in English from Boston College and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.

And there you have it, he was a technology writer for Salon, wrote for a little paper on local stuff, wrote for that noted defense industry journal Rolling Stone and now he brings all that relevant experience to bear informing the rest of us on a counter-insurgency operation following an invasion that deposed a brutal dictator in a situation complicated greatly by religious strife. Right, I mean that's just like when the  guys in Motley Crue forced Vince Neil out because of sectarian oh wait no, maybe like when at the Keene, New Hampshire city council meeting when Mrs Jones argued that the Catholic Church social was trying to sabotage the Presbyterian bake sale, oh wait no.

Actually Damien Cave is as qualified to write on war as I am to write on neuro-surgery. I could research a piece and talk to some doctors and sick people and read some stuff and go to some hospitals and watch some surgery and take some pictures, and in the end I would produce a piece that was mostly factual, but provided no actual insight or really useful information. It would be a ignorant layman's look at an incredibly complex topic. Anyone who used my piece for any important decisions would be a fool.

Well I will answer Mr. Cave quite simply, I don't dispute a single thing he reports. I simply don't consider him a valuable source of information on the conflict and neither should anyone else. Just because the NY Times thinks he is qualified to be a war correspondent doesn't make it true, actually it probably works against his credibility. Allah would be well advised to take his skeptical eye and consider his sources. Sadly he drops a link to Bill Ardolino, who is in Fallujah right in the middle of this sob fest and then says read Cave for the last word, that was some weak shite. He would have been better off quoting large chunks of Ardolino and throwing Cave the little bone.

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Eeyorepundit at Hot Air hearts NYT

Quite obviously we are at a pivotal moment in Iraq; security operations have done what they are supposed to, reduce the violence to a level that politicians could swing some deals but that has yet to materialize. I realize that it would have been ideal if the Iraqi Parliament had stayed in session and passed an Oil law and reconciliation procedures, but like every other legislature including ours, they took the hottest month of the year off and went home. I don't recall any expectations being laid out that political progress would track right alongside security, as a matter of fact common sense ought to have pointed toward that as a follow on to less killing. It is tough to think about peace in the midst of battle. Well things have cooled down and we have made amazing progress in Anbar, which even 6 months ago was de facto ruled by AQI, and Baghdad is hardly pacified but it is much safer.

In the face of this we have plenty of skeptics and pessimists and there is plenty to be skeptical and pessimistic about. Before I knee him in the neck let me say I love 99% of Allah's work at Hot Air, but sometimes he gets out of his depth. Today Allahpundit at Hot Air continues his trend of skeptical pessimism and you can almost hear the "We're doomed Christopher Robin", as he hugs the skirts of the NYT's Damien Cave. In a piece he titles NYT survey: Surge has largely failed, Allah joins Cave in concluding the surge has likely failed because there is no instant political reconciliation. Cave quotes a US officer:

He said, “I think we have essentially stalled the sectarian conflict without addressing the underlying grievances.”…

Allah then comments:

The boldface part sums up the dilemma: if they’re not making things better but they are keeping things from getting worse, is that in itself enough of a justification to keep troops there long term?

WTF? Even if you simply take that statement as gospel with no context it hardly means the surge has failed. We are about 6 months into this effort and we have already made large gains in many areas. The fact that Cave and his stringers can find Iraqis who think they are doomed as well is hardly surprising. Things have been sucking for a long time, hope is tough to find after so much carnage. But the idea that this piece by Cave is somehow particularly noteworthy is a stretch. Now Cave came in for some well-deserved praise when he refused to parrot Bill Maher's idiotic ideas about Iraq, but given the abject stupidity of Maher's questions all he really did was disagree that things would be better if Sadaam was still in power and that we owe it to the Iraqis to fix what we broke. Noble sentiments but hardly a step out on a limb.

Allah seems to feel that this and Cave's rep as an honest broker give tremendous weight to his assessment of current affairs in Iraq. I do not. Cave is a reporter for the NYT, and despite Burns and Gordon's solid work on the war, that is still a strike against you. If we are to listen to the sage analysis of Mr. Cave one would assume that he has expertise in military affairs and national security right? Mr. Caves' bio from his Phillips Foundation fellowship

Damien Cave
Full-time Fellowship
Project: "Beach Blanket Capitalism," focusing on four aspects of the Cuban government's effort to increase tourism: American laws and their effect on Cuban travel policy; the changing fortune of underground entrepreneurs; the effects of "tourism apartheid" on local citizens; and the role that tourism training schools play in exacerbating prejudices against race, class and political creed. Damien is now a reporter for The New York Times. He previously worked as an associate editor at Rolling Stone, a senior writer for Salon.com, and as a staff writer for the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire. He received a B.A. in English from Boston College and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.

And there you have it, he was a technology writer for Salon, wrote for a little paper on local stuff, wrote for that noted defense industry journal Rolling Stone and now he brings all that relevant experience to bear informing the rest of us on a counter-insurgency operation following an invasion that deposed a brutal dictator in a situation complicated greatly by religious strife. Right, I mean that's just like when the  guys in Motley Crue forced Vince Neil out because of sectarian oh wait no, maybe like when at the Keene, New Hampshire city council meeting when Mrs Jones argued that the Catholic Church social was trying to sabotage the Presbyterian bake sale, oh wait no.

Actually Damien Cave is as qualified to write on war as I am to write on neuro-surgery. I could research a piece and talk to some doctors and sick people and read some stuff and go to some hospitals and watch some surgery and take some pictures, and in the end I would produce a piece that was mostly factual, but provided no actual insight or really useful information. It would be a ignorant layman's look at an incredibly complex topic. Anyone who used my piece for any important decisions would be a fool.

Well I will answer Mr. Cave quite simply, I don't dispute a single thing he reports. I simply don't consider him a valuable source of information on the conflict and neither should anyone else. Just because the NY Times thinks he is qualified to be a war correspondent doesn't make it true, actually it probably works against his credibility. Allah would be well advised to take his skeptical eye and consider his sources. Sadly he drops a link to Bill Ardolino, who is in Fallujah right in the middle of this sob fest and then says read Cave for the last word, that was some weak shite. He would have been better off quoting large chunks of Ardolino and throwing Cave the little bone.

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