Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Everybody saw this coming.

The lights are all blinking red.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Michael Totten In Iraq

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17Comments

  1. 1.

    Walker

    He seems like a straight shooter. But I start to question his biases when he says stuff like this:

    You’d think explosions and gunfire define Iraq if you look at this country from far away on the news. They do not. The media is a total distortion machine. Certain areas are still extremely violent, but the country as a whole is defined by heat, not war, at least in the summer.

    We aren’t looking at individual attacks in the media; we have numbers. In June, Iraq had the most number of coalition attacks since “Mission Accomplished”. So either his point is that Iran has never really been “defined by war”, or he is asserting that his anecdotal experience is representive.

    Anecdotes are useful for formulating theories, but they are not useful as supporting evidence for those theories. This is a failing of both pro-war and anti-war media.

  2. 2.

    The Pirate

    I wonder if he still thinks the pro-invasion folks were on “the right side of history.”

  3. 3.

    ATS

    Totten is only “reasonable” compared wth the OSP crowd. Relocate him abroad (e.g. Europe) and he’d be judged a jingoist US tub thumper and a Labour party zionist at best. Pious aides, and an amiable demeanor sure as hell don’t change that.

  4. 4.

    ATS

    Totten is only “reasonable” compared wth the OSP crowd. Relocate him abroad (e.g. Europe) and he’d be judged a jingoist US tub thumper and a Labour party zionist at best. Pious aides, and an amiable demeanor sure as hell don’t change that.

  5. 5.

    capelza

    Totten is sincere, I’ll give him that.

    When Israel attakced Lebanon, he was so torn by it, he knew people there, it was personal for him) and wrote about that. His comment section was very interesting. His fellow hawks turned on him in a not very pretty way.

    Haven’t been there for awhile, well since then really, but I wonder if that lesson sank in at all for him. Sounds like maybe it hasn’t.

  6. 6.

    Randy Paul

    Capelza,

    He hasn’t, especially when he spouts nonsense like this:

    Willie and Larry work construction for private companies in harsh places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They are both well-rounded individuals with Red State tastes and political views and a worldliness and cosmopolitanism that surpasses that of most people who live in the Blue States.

    I’ve lived in both blue and red states and the only thing I’ve learned is that generalizations about “most people” are for the intellectually lazy.

  7. 7.

    capelza

    Randy Paul.

    That is extremely lazy of him. He lives in Oregon (or did) and he should know damn well that’s a lot of bullshit. God, what a load of drivel.

  8. 8.

    Andrew

    They are both well-rounded individuals with Red State tastes and political views and a worldliness and cosmopolitanism that surpasses that of most people who live in the Blue States.

    I’m pretty sure this means that they are assholes with expensive watches they bought in Dubai.

  9. 9.

    Rome Again

    I’ve lived in both blue and red states and the only thing I’ve learned is that generalizations about “most people” are for the intellectually lazy.

    Sweeping generalizations just about always are, right Cassidy?

  10. 10.

    Newell Blair

    He does seem like a guy who at least makes something of an effort to be honest.

    But like most Western reporters he doesn’t speak Arabic and is therefore extremely limited in his sources. He must either talk to the educated English-speaking elite, who have many biases of their own, or try to use a translator, which brings tons of other problems.

    Because of his weak sourcing, he often flatly reports extremely questionable and sometimes just inaccurate claims (especially in his Lebanon reporting, he even said Nasrallah wasn’t a religious scholar ‘Alim’ which is insane. He didn’t also seem to know this word, which is sort of like to report on catholic affairs without knowing the meaning of “cardinal.”)

    He seems like he makes an effort to report both sides, and he’s certainly not worse than other Western reporters, but I can’t really see much special about him other than a pleasant writing style.

  11. 11.

    John Cole

    He seems like he makes an effort to report both sides, and he’s certainly not worse than other Western reporters, but I can’t really see much special about him other than a pleasant writing style.

    Because anymore, honest people make me extremely pleased.

  14. 14.

    searp

    I just got back for the second time this year. What he describes is just standard procedure. Think about it: he got there with just a few delays, courtesy of DoD, which is understandably more concerned with moving soldiers.

    The austerity and strangeness of it all shocked me the first time, but this comes from not understanding how the military lives. Conditions at Ali Al Salem, BIAP, and the Green Zone are good! Much worse at other locations. Soldiers understand and are used to it, even if they don’t like it much. Michael Totten will get used to it.

  16. 16.

    Tom S

    It would take a special kind of insanity to claim–on the basis of Totten’s piece–that the situation in Iraq is not as bad as the media is saying. If it takes 16 hours to get from the Bagdhad airport to the Green Zone because of security conditions and procedures, Bagdhad is far from pacified.

  17. 17.

    searp

    We aren’t even trying to pacify the country in the sense that Americans can walk around without an armed escort. One aspect of the situation in Iraq is pretty simple: foreigners of any nation, but especially the US, are not at all welcome and will be kidnapped or killed if they wander around without a substantial armed guard.

    The goal, as I understand it, is to make the country safe for Iraqis. This may well be a hill that cannot be climbed.

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