Weak-ly Standard

I propose that we hereby refer to Bill Kristol as the most dangerous pundit in America. He has what seems like a mainline to the White House and yet, of all his colleagues, he is the most casually dishonest, the most outwardly war-hungry, and the most recklessly illogical. Here's an example of all three:

[R]eal progress has already been made in the war against Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the terrorists know it.That's why they're surging against our surge, and why they are attempting to convince us that we have lost when it is they who are losing.

He should have added that al Qaeda's rubber and we're glue. This is so preposterous that it requires a platitude that even an eight-year-old could understand: This war can't be won, but it can be lost. In fact, the only way the situation in Iraq could in any way be considered "not lost" is if the amount of violence drops drastically before all the vestiges of civil society in Iraq have been destroyed. That's it. So when the insurgents "surge against our surge" it doesn't matter why they do it. As long as they have the resources to do it, it means we lose. That, if anything, is the defining characteristic of our involvement in Iraq today, and it's a reality that Bill Kristol is maddeningly desperate to obfuscate.

Comments

[billkrystol]

Sticks and stones can break my bones!

[Other Ed]

I think Kristol is deathly afraid that someday he might actually be held responsible for this fiasco.

What am I saying? Of course no one in Washington is ever responsible for their actions. How stupid of me to think that could somehow happen.

Nevermind.

[matty]

do i detect a contest in the works? like yhe one proposed for mitt romney?

[Joe Bisio]

"and why they are attempting to convince us that we have lost when it is they who are losing."

The obvious view of an ideological moron who understands exactly zero about post-modern civil wars.

Its well-known that civil wars like the one ongoing in Iraq last often a decade or more. Kristol is at best is conflating a few successes in Al Anbar and elsewhere with some idea that the US is on the verge of victory (whatever that means) in Iraq. At worst (and usually Kristol is at his worst) its just another neo-con hack engaged in the trademark mode of self-delusion they have engaged in for years on Iraq and the Iraq War.

Kristol, of course, like many neo-con fools, fails to realize that Al Qaeda(AQ) is only one of many of our opponents on the ground in Iraq---he seems to totally ignore the basic sectarian nature of war and just like many other Republo/Bush supporters pushes the idea of AQ as the main (or almost the only) enemy within Iraq. The idea that maybe our troops have been handed a mission impossible by their political masters is obviously beyond his ken.

[togolosh]

I've found that it is impossible to understand Kristol as someone who believes what he says. The only consistent explanation of his words and actions is that they are intended to produce a particular result, namely a state of perpetual low-level warfare sufficient to distract the rubes from their real problems while the military industrial complex laughs all the way to the bank. Kristol doesn't care about winning the War on Terror - the very existence of the WoT (and its widespread acceptance as a legitimate war) *is* the victory condition. Defeating Al Qaeda (and "Islamofascism") is a total defeat for the Neocons unless they can be replaced by a new enemy. Chaos in the Middle East *is* victory for Kristol and the PNAC All-Stars.