I’m trying to keep posts to a minimum today. But just a quick update. I’ve been getting hints from a number of directions that some of the president’s political allies are privately distancing themselves from his policies. I’ve mentioned the “I told you so” interviews with retired generals. But this is more pols who didn’t have a lot of sense one way or 
another about the military and diplomatic issues and took it on faith that the plan was a good one. I pass this news on without comment.
The unfortunate reality is that however many long-predicted mistakes Rumsfeld and company made, we still have to come up with a strategy to protect our troops and complete the mission. I think what we should keep in mind is that our immediate military situation is really not as bad as it looks. But our short, medium and long-term political position may be worse than we even yet realize. As per Clausewitz, war is “a continuation of political activity by other means.”
TPM continues to get whining messages from Bush supporters saying that this site is somehow either supporting or giving aid to the nation’s enemies by pointing out the administration’s mistakes. Not true. TPM is obviously no military man. But, to the extent that I had any angle on this issue, it was from interviewing current and retired career officers over the last year. Frankly, if these Bush partisans have a beef with me, they have a beef with them.
The people who have spent a year trying to make sure we didn’t send our troops into battle unprepared are not the ones who are endangering our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
The key priority now is moving ahead in way that secures a successful military and political outcome while safeguarding our troops. But it ill-behooves the president’s partisans to use the sheer magnitude of their screw-ups as an excuse not to discuss them.
Meanwhile, I think we really do need that no-fly-zone set up for the now-discredited cakewalk Iraq-hawks — you know, modeled on the humanitarian operation, Operation Provide Comfort, we set up to protect the Kurds. Again, just for humanitarian reasons, even if they brought it all on themselves. But what would its name be? The best I’ve been able to come up with so far is Operation Chicken Hawk Down …
