George Packer has an extremely important piece in this week’s New Yorker that is exactly the sort of thing the magazine keeps off the internet to drive up paper sales. Check it out if you have a subscription or live near a hip coffeeshop; otherwise you can scan the summary here. The piece has more in common with George Ron Suskind’s (late-night typo) The One Percent Doctrine, an unapologetic paean to the grunts inside America’s intelligence agencies than it does with Assassin’s Gate, Packer’s evenhanded chronicle of the CPA. Packer wants you to know about the credentialed anthropologists who advise the government using their intimate understanding of counterinsurgencies both effective (West Java) and ineffective (East Timor). The upshot – these guys are in a state of total panic over America’s handling of the global terror war.
Let me open up one point for discussion while we wait for the article to go live. Packer makes clear that the idea of a homogenous, global insurgent network is far form a fait accompli. Insurgency, like any form of politics, is mostly local. That is why Aceh secessionists for example largely rejected an offered linkup with an al Qaeda affiliate. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is also a jerk, or he doesn’t answer my local needs very well. Our enemies at the top of globalist movements like al Qaeda desperately want want to homogenize the conflict for the same reason that we really don’t. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido. Divide and conquer. Take your pick, it’s the same point from different perspectives. Fighting a red ant, then another red ant and then another one is much easier than fighting a red anthill even if you have to repeat it a thousand times.
The people who hate us want very badly to transform local peoples with local grudges into a homogenized America-hating Army of Davids (to use a popular term). Strategically speaking America wants just the opposite. But if you judge the President by his words a uniform, stereotyped enemy is something that he clearly wants very badly. It defines who he is, how he sees himself and how he sees the world. Extremist pundits like Christopher Hitchens and the Powerline crowd also relish the idea of America locked in an existential struggle with a global threat so uniform in its makeup and goals that it fits into one pat neologism. Islamofascism.
It seems past time to point out that the basic worldview of these people, the fundamental perspective that drives every aspect of their decisionmaking, runs counter to America’s interests. It hurts our ability to deal with global threats in an intellegent and effective way. It encourages enemies and makes it harder for potential friends to cooperate with us. Among the anthropologists who Packer profiles, the guys whom we should have consulted from day one, the idea is about as controversial as gravity and the periodic table. So why should this even count as a novel observation? It’s the sort of rhetorical question that’s almost too depressing to answer.
***Update***
The article is now available online.
craigie
Actually, gravity is just a theory.
Ryan S.
Duh, I’ve only been saying that for like 4 years. Lets just hope this Kilcullen guy can get a hold of the president’s ear, especially since 70% of the US can’t seem too.
Ryan S.
Duh, I’ve only been saying that for like 4 years. Lets just hope this Kilcullen guy can get a hold of the president’s ear, especially since 70% of the US can’t seem too.
Andrew
I don’t see anything here about the threat of gay marriage and our global war on secular humanism. I don’t see how I can take Packer seriously with such omissions.
Gary Farber
“The piece has more in common with George Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine….”
Small point: I think you mean “Ron,” not “George.”
nichevo
Lemme just throw one out there for more beatings…insert some throat-clearing to demonstrate that I’m trying to be open, bipartisan, rational, and so forth….
If you’re worried about what the world, or the Islamic world sees, you’re worried about message control.
Not to chase the hare of 1st Amdt. restrictions…but media is more globalized than ever; you cannot send different newsreels to Chile and Brazil, nor South America and Southwest Asia, and present different sides of different issues dressed in different local coloring, as you once could.
Oh there’s CNN Europe and CNN Airport and so forth, but with a remote control one can glean the whole picture…and pick snippets to show one’s own mob, a la the Danish cartoons, exacerbated with some cut-and-paste of entirely irrelevant, more-offensive ones.
Now, … I repeat I don’t know where I’m going with this…but given that message discipline is so much harder now…
what could the gov’t be doing differently to manage this (irrespective of the policy being sold, what methods best/worst to sell it)
and
what could would should the media be doing (irrespective of their opinion that’s OPINION assuming they’re supposed to have one and it’s supposed to matter) of the policy?
Do we just assume they have no responsibilities? Was that the case in WWII (or would Eisenhower or Churchill or Monty or FDR have simply disappeared any journo he suspected was going to blow D-Day or Operation TORCH, say)? Did they have no duty to support their side of the civilizational struggle?
And if not – if ‘objective reporting’ is now your grail and you should watch ‘North Kosarians’ wipe out a patrol of your guys, a la Mike Wallace, without warning them – do you still have a duty to be evenhanded?
Or is it OK to crap on the head of those you dislike, because you calculate you can influence elections and get Gore or Kerry or Clinton or Barack in
(who, with their superior brains courage and everything else – and your equally fervent support – will quickly win)
before the bad guys come to chop off your head?
or because you don’t believe they really want to do head-chopping, or because you think they will chop you last, or because only SOME of them want to chop, some of them want to poke, some of them want to chop a third party … I mean what?
Is maximizing shareholder value (and hey, I’m a capitalist) the core value of news media? What bleeds leads?
Look…
Publisher and/or his clique hates Bush: crap on Bush
Public hates Bush: crap on Bush
Crap on Bush = maximum dollars: crap on Bush
And all can feed off each other in a virtuous or vicious cycle.
That all makes sense in terms of the mechanism, as does pebbles falling down a well in terms of gravity. But does it make sense in terms of what we all want?
Agree or disagree: the real sensible thing for the Sunnis, even the Baathists, to do in Iraq would have been to lie low, pretend to reform/leave/die, kiss ass, get their privileges back, candy and flowers all the way, no-more-AQ-or-WMD-boy-will-we-whack-them-for-ya-boss, and when the US leaves, THEN strike?
For the Shia: to cooperate with the coalition to root out the Baathists, AQ, jihadis, fedayeen, Saddam’s Mariel amnesty; use us to get stability; have us leave; THEN strike? (actually they have tried harder on this) Oh and DON’T have stupid marches, flaunt Iran allegiance, like that?
So…
If the media, or elites, or the Dems, or the Left, really want a) Bush out b) the war over,
why not all get behind and push?
–Better to be inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in. BELIEVE IT OR NOT Bush has tried (ineffectually if you like) to conciliate. Teddy Kennedy, say, got a nice education bill with much of his side of the argument done. Think if he pushed on the war he couldn’t get input into strategy, tactics, direction? Do you think FDR shut out all GOP Congress’ ideas? Think McCain-Feingold couldn’t make some kind of go-big-or-go-home argument?
Remember, the sooner the war is over, a) the sooner our boys aren’t dying (boo hoo sniff as if they cared);
b) the sooner the achievement dwindles in the public’s eyes. Look at the first Gulf War. In, out, bim, bam, boom, bada bing, etc. Done and done. Bush at 89% approval in 1991.
Did it keep till 1992? I’m thinking…no.
If we had been in and out of Iraq by end 2003…would it have seemed so crucial to keep him in for 2004?
– FINE – YOU CAN CONSPIRACIZE (?) that Bush flubbed the war for that reason, if you can swallow that kind of camel.
But can you NOT SEE that it’s in the Left’s interest to get it over with for JUST THAT REASON?
…Ugh. Tired, cold, busy weekend…and this post interests me, I have long wondered whither today’s Parsons, Laswell, Paley, Marcuse, and will have to see if the post’s linkage is useful or merely tendentious.
But there are two sides. If Bush is unsubtle and doing harm, I think the media is also unsubtle and doing harm. Furthermore, the media could help Bush; yet in fact I think they may be able to do more harm than he is. Yes yes slaves on an ant farm; but compared to what?
Sorry – poor effort – chew away. Just wanted to get this in before post count = 500 again.
Weird day really. Just saw Blood Diamond tonight followed by Apocalypto. In the face of these kinds of brutality, madness to nitpick those who will fight. Constructive criticism, urging to do the right thing, yes; offering to peel of his skin and let him see you wearing it, no.
Not adding value at this point…rambling…endit.
Gary Farber
“The piece has more in common with George Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine….”
Small point: I think you mean “Ron,” not “George.”
Oh, and also, that was last week’s issue, not the one that goes online tomorrow. “Week of” dates on newsstand publications are the dates they come off the newsstand, not when they go on (when you’re throwing dozens of new magazines on your stand every day, that’s the date you care about, not when the publication comes out, which you already know when you have it in your hand). I mention this largely in case anyone wants to actually go looking for the issue.
nichevo
I would like to note, Firefox/your site is choking on my bigger posts. I managed to get this one in with IE7. Ideas? Aside from snarking on WordPress’ good taste, etc.?
srv
This is why we’ve known the wingnuts, George, Dick and the neocons aren’t serious about winning anything in a strategic sense. They say the word strategic, but they never come up with a strategy.
GW never talked about winning over the Iraqi middle class. He never talks about winning over the Iranian middle class. Instead of toiling every night trying to figure out how to build a strong Pakistani or Saudi middle class, he’s in bed by 10pm.
As we all know, that’s just intellectual namby-pamby surrender monkey talk. Hearts and Minds? Ha! As the chaos theory of stabilization-via-destabilization doesn’t work out, and the majority tunes them out, they’re only left to find someone else to blame for their failures.
They just never realize the damage they’re doing to us, strategically.
Frank
Nichevo- I recommend you write shorter posts. I got as far as:
“And if not – if ‘objective reporting’ is now your grail and you should watch ‘North Kosarians’ wipe out a patrol of your guys, a la Mike Wallace, without warning them – do you still have a duty to be evenhanded?”
before giving up. Incidently I can’t think of a case where people on Daily Kos got a patrol killed, and I don’t think you can either.
srv
Did Al Maviva have a kid?
nichevo
Frank – misreporting on defiling Korans sparked rioting that killed people – does that count? They may not have been GIs, so would that make it OK?
And let’s take a hypothetical: what if the reporting on Abu Ghraib had been wrong? Just a hypo. But say it had been substantially overblown or otherwise exaggerated. Everybody goes around saying that Abu Ghraib made us look really bad and has been a heavy blow in the war.
Now fine, you riposte, “But it was all true!” Let’s say for the sake of argument that it was.
What is – we shut up about it anyway? Fixed it, of course, as it was already being fixed (look it up) before the reporting went live. Have all those trials, change all the procedures – just do it on the QT. How much would that have helped with PR?
Sorry I went long. Perhaps you would like to try again, I shan’t post more tonight.
srv – uh, ok.
nichevo
‘Scuse me,
What i
sf – we shut up about it anyway? FixedPb
Except that now, the obscure references to battles once fought are entirely fictional instead of just thousands of years old.
Bruce Moomaw
Nichevo, there is no reason to believe that the philosophy that led to Abu Ghraib — which came right from the top of this administration — HAS been fixed. They are still fighting furiously for their right to continue doing exactly the same sort of thing — to allow a single Great Leader to always decide, ENTIRELY BY HIMSELF, that it is permissible to torture someone, or to wiretap anyone’s phone, or to arrest anyone and hold them permanently without charges or any legal rights whatsoever. Abu Ghraib was only one relatively small symptom of a tremendously greater illness in this administration; we have not only seen, but are continuing to see, many other symptoms of the same illness. And if it’s allowed to continue, it will do disastrous simultaneous wrecking work both on American democracy and on the Megaterrorism War overall. Facts really must be faced: we are currently — by bad luck — being governed by two particularly incompetent megalomaniacs, and their power has got to be either outright broken or reduced as much as possible, for the sake of both the US and the world.
Ted
You’ve got problems…
You could try limiting your posts to just a few paragraphs, instead of long, rambling nonsense.
Frank
Nichevo- Doesn’t it get tiring carrying those goalposts around all over the place? You made a disgusting and libelous accusation about Reporters and when invited to back it you try to claim reporter are responsible for anything anyone else might do in response to information. Its crazy, if a reporter reports the Dow Jones falling 500 points and some suit takes a header out of a window, contrary to your apparent belief the reporter isn’t responsible for the executive’s death.
jake
Tulkinghorn
Maybe Dougj is trying out a new shtick as fiasco-denialist/demented fool.
The Other Steve
I think that this battle is similar to Frodo struggling to throw the one ring into the fires of mount doom?
As such, I think it is imperative for our armed forces to not only stay in Iraq, but to double down our actions there. We may not win, but at least we create a distraction to focus the attention of the eye away from Mordor, thus allowing Frodo to make the attempt unhindered.
Of course there are also those who say that this battle is more akin to the time the Unbeliever battled Lord Foul. I guess I could see that analogy if our armies were composed of bloodguard, but I’m afraid that’s not the case.
The Other Steve
Got a laugh out of this one…
Special Forces blowing CIA operations
Apparently, Rumsfeld started sending US special forces around the world to track down terrorists. They haven’t found any terrorists yet, but they’ve found themselves in a lot of trouble with the CIA having to bail them out.
Our incompetence knows no bounds.
ThymeZone
What’s new here? Critics of the completely made-up “War on Terror” theme have been saying things like this for four years. Those critics are right, and have been right from the get-go.
You can’t wage a “War on Terror” with linear, military thinking and action-response models. Only a moron would think that you could, and as luck would have it, our government has been run my morons.
Which is why 70% of Americans are now fed up and think we’re going the wrong way here.
This ain’t rocket science.
jenniebee
I do adore the theory that Iraqis don’t know any more about what’s going on in their country than they can read in the NYT.
Great quote from the piece (full text of article here):
Looking forward to nichevo’s next:
Jake
The “War on Terror” is the “War on Drugs” with bigger everything: Weapons, loss of life, screw ups…
skip
“the basic worldview of these people, the fundamental perspective that drives every aspect of their decisionmaking, runs counter to America’s interests. It hurts our ability to deal with global threats in an intellegent and effective way. It encourages enemies and makes it harder for potential friends to cooperate with us.”
That kind of talk will move M.s Friedman to make Rupert fire you, Mel. ;-)
nongeophysical Dennis
Wow, that’s suspicously close to the original–are you nichevo in another guise? ;)
PS that’s good natured kidding, there.
Zifnab
I’ll drink to that.
TenguPhule
I call Bullshit. Bush’s idea of compromise can be summed up as “What I want, I get. So Fuck you.”
I call Bullshit. Kennedy did not get what he want. Bush got what he wanted.
And Bush didn’t listen to them or anyone else who knew what was coming. You keep evading that simply little fact, Bush does what he wants and screw reality when it disagrees with him. You can try and dress it up as ‘Bush hatred’ but that still doesn’t change that Bush hears what he wants, not what is actually said.
TenguPhule
What if the media had stopped slurping Bush’s Dick Cheney long enough to do some real reporting before Bush launched the stupid invasion in the first place? Just a hypo.
TenguPhule
Fallacy Detected. A may equal B, but that doesn’t mean C equals B too.
Sirkowski
nichevo: TL;DR
TenguPhule
Shorter nichevo: Repeat after me, Propaganda is good for you! The Government is here to help! Trust us! We come in peace! Don’t trust your lying eyes!
SeesThroughIt
I’ll
drinkdo various drugs to that.nichevo
Bruce Moomaw Says:
Bruce, then you haven’t even had whatever humanitarian or freedom/liberty benefit you might claim. Since you haven’t bothered to deny it, I presume you agree that the Abu Ghraib scandal has had material negative impact on the war effort. Perhaps this pleases you in some sense, e.g. as harming Bush.
Ted – is that what Tengu calls Irony of the Day? I asked for a technical impression, not whining about my writing longer posts than you can bear to read. Naturally you provide the latter.
You know what? THANKS FOR PLAYING!!!
Frank – you are putting words in my mouth because the ones I provide discomfit you.
You know what? I give up. Waste of time and soap. In fact, it’s rude of me to interfere with your good time. Don’t forget the Jergens (jenniebee excepted) and the Kleenex for later.
TenguPhule
We intend to hold you to that.
Ted
Surely you can work in a reference to the rape of a toddler and get banned again. LOL!
Honestly, if I had been banned from a site as you were, I would probably just leave it alone after that. You, hilariously, decided to start posting again after your IP was taken off the banned list.
ThymeZone
I, for one, welcome our torture-loving overlords.
Tax Analyst
Gosh, I just came around and got to nichevo’s initial post here. I could try to take it point-by-point, but I can see that most of his tom-foolery has been adequately addressed by others, but the impression I get is that he thinks that messages can take the place of reality and we’ll live happily ever after if we can just put the right “spin” on our message. I don’t think I’ve ever read a more ass-hatted post on this site (even from Darrell – he posts his unsupportable crap, then calls you names when you ask for links or proof of some sort). Mister, you sure make a lot of assumptions about how/what other people think. You talk about “Media Responsibility” and suggest that if the Media “Played ball”, well, things would just work out somehow. You don’t understand the function of a FREE Press in a FREE Society, do you? Are we “crapping on Bush” because we DISLIKE him? Is THAT what you think? No, I DON’T like Bush…but I don’t need to. “Liking” is irrelevant here, “Needing” is what matters. What I (and our Nation) need(s) is for Mr. Bush to pay attention to his job – which should have included getting and USING accurate Intelligence before involving us in a War. Is it “crapping” on Bush for political gain to point that out? You ascribe an awful lot of cynicism to those of opposing viewpoints. That’s a liberty you should use more sparingly, if at all, because it comes off an awful lot like you are sneering at us from a higher and sharper point-of-view. I don’t think that is the case, my man.
Bruce Moomaw
Nichevo: “Since you haven’t bothered to deny it, I presume you agree that the Abu Ghraib scandal has had material negative impact on the war effort.”
It has indeed.
“Perhaps this pleases you in some sense, e.g. as harming Bush.”
It indeed does NOT, since it’s also harming the hell out of us — and by us I mean not just the U.S., but the entire civilized and humane world — in our efforts to stop both Islamic Fascism (a phrase which I continue to regard as extremely meaningful) and the possibility that nuclear terrorism may shatter human civilization altogether. The fact that I regard Bush as Cornelius Fudge does not mean that I have any use for Voldemort. Exactly the opposite. (Which, by the way, is also why I got suckered into supporting the Iraq War initially.)
srv
What if this is exactly what 95% of the Sunni have in fact been doing? What if your reality is only based on what 5% of the population is doing, but the other 95% plan to pick up once we exit?
It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black.
jake
The idea of promising to foreswear things they didn’t have in the first place (WMD or AQ ties) might pose a bit of a problem to honest folk. Rather like the witch hunts of old: Confess that you’re a witch to stop the torture, find yourself tied to a stake. Cute. Evil, illogical, stupid. But cute.
lard lad
I’m scrubbing my brain, but the image lingers.