Michael Hirsch and John Berry - Quagmire Queens

Penraker pulls no punches in analyzing the groupthink-based article in Newsweek that purportedly claims that the Pentagon is looking into the "El Salvador option." (Said Newsweek article in Italics):

"The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is."

How odd. The fact that the Pentagon is considering going after the terrorists and killing them is to be considered evidence that Rumsfeld is really, really worried.

"What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing."

We have now learned to look for these quotes - any time anyone from the major media inserts one of these quotes in a piece, most rational people who have read about Jayson Blair, and Mr. Kelley from USA today, now know that a senior military official may exist who said this. Or equally likely, they may not exist.

Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

Most analysts agree? This is more "me and my friends think" stuff. A rational examination of the Falujah episode would agree that it hurt the terrorists, and it forced them to move to other places, re-establish themselves - and that is costly to an insurgency. (underlining below is mine)

"Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)

Why does he have to put "allegedly" in front of "included so called death squads?" I think it is because he is relying on reporting that was never confirmed - that it is merely one of those left leaning myths that gets going.

And look at the attempt to minimize those who believe it succeeded 'Many conservatives believe' it worked. What, no independents or liberals believe that? What a strange formulation. It seems to say, in a sly way, that the only impetus for their belief was political.

And why that bit about Iran Contra. That was Nicaragua, not El Salvador. What in the world does Iran-Contra have to do with El Salvador? Nothing. But, there is a need to conflate things, so away we go.

Perfidy on behalf of the mainstream news media is a favorite topic within the blogosphere and this is just the most recent example of an opinion piece being sold off as a "story." Many journalists (not all) have been looking for any stories that will portray the war effort as a failure. Unfortunately, this goes all the way back the Afghanistan campaign when journalists were passing the word "quagmire" around just as the Northern Alliance rolled in Kabul.

Be wary of any story that utters the word quagmire as fact--the very word is steeped in Vietnam-era narrative. The reason that many journalists see Vietnam everywhere is because they do. Their worldview, that this is an immoral war where America can't lose on the battlefield, but at home, hasn't changed. The press was able to force-feed their agenda to the public in the 1960's and 1970's; but now their monopoly on information no longer exists. Combine an informed public with the fact that our military is fighting much more effectively than in Vietnam (though, militarily, they still fought well in Vietnam), we look to be in pretty good shape (Admittedly, the Iraqi situation could deteriorate for a number of other complicated reasons far removed from the press's coverage of the war).

The elections are now three weeks away. Look for the press to come-up with a myriad of stories filled with quotes from "most analysts" and "unnamed senior military advisors" who will deem the elections as "illegitimate." At that point, realize the stench filling the room isn't coming from anything that you stepped in, but from something thick coming out of your T.V. or newspaper.