Surging Toward Propaganda

I would call this Glenn Greenwald interview with Michael O'Hanlon nothing short of devastating. In it, Greenwald gets O'Hanlon to admit that he was not a "critic of the war," as practically every media outlet characterized him when he and Ken Pollack wrote their "the surge is working!" op-ed for the New York Times. In fact, as O'Hanlon says, "I was not a critic of this war. In the final analysis, I was a supporter," which you thought would have merited a mention on any of the television appearances they made.

Greenwald also gets to the truth about the "fact-finding" trip that O'Hanlon and Pollack took to Iraq that served as the evidentiary basis for their op-ed, a trip that was planned entirely by the US military:

GG: I just want to ask you some questions about the trip that you just took. Whose idea was that trip? How did that trip arise and who planned it?
MO: Well, I have wanted to go back to Iraq for a long time. I feel it’s- I've been there once in September 2003 - it behoves anybody who's working on this issue a lot of the time as I've been for a few years trying to get some on-the-ground experience and observations. And so I've been trying to get back for a couple of years and I started putting in these requests a little bit more assertively -

GG: Who did you put them in with?

MO: To the military, starting in about the spring.

GG: And then, at some point they accepted and said that they would organize a trip for you?

MO: Yeah. I think the trip was ultimately originally scheduled for other people as well. I think it's public knowledge that Tony Cordesman was also on our trip, and I think he had plans to go before Ken and I managed to get ourselves invited as well, but --

GG: Why did you need the permission of the U.S. military in order to go? Why couldn't you just go yourself?

MO: I suppose I could have, but I was hopeful that someone could help take care of my security, for one thing. I'm not going to try to sound more heroic than I am. And also I wanted to talk to a lot of military personnel and get their impressions.

The itinerary was developed by the DoD, and it's not unlike the itineraries developed for visiting dignitaries like Congressmen, which Jim Webb has rightly called "dog and pony shows." I don't know if the group had air cover and tank cover like John McCain did in his Baghdad stroll, but any implication that O'Hanlon and Pollack saw the real Iraq is dubious. What's more, there was another member of the delegation, Anthony Cordesman, and he was not nearly as impressed about the success of the surge:

From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq's ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq's politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development. So far, Iraq’s national government has failed to act at the rate necessary to move the country forward or give American military action political meaning.

The reasoning for the military buildup was to make room for a political solution. That hasn't happened at all, and so I don't see how you can characterize the overall mission as anything but a failure. The military is doing a fine job in a situation beyond their control with a mission that they are helpless to complete. And certainly, the words of a couple of war supporters who spent eight days with a handpicked group of military and personnel shouldn't sway anybody. It's shameful that the media allowed this fiction to perpetuate.

UPDATE: British Parliament jumping ship as well. It's so clear that the current policy is unable to meet whatever goals the Bush Administration has set out.