Friday, September 21, 2007

The MoveOn Ad - Thoughts From the Center

As a centrist Democrat, I have big problems with the "Betray US" ad. There are many claims in the ad that trouble me greatly.

One example:

Here is the quote from the MoveOn ad:

The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot
in the back of the head — not the front.

In fact, this is the quote from the Washington Post article:



Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against
civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as
combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in
Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the
official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

So clearly, the Post isn't making that claim - they are quoting a single (unnamed) source who appears to have said it. That is a HUGE difference.

Another example:

Here's another quote from the ad:
Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge
strategy has failed.

One of the reports they cite, the General Accounting Office (GAO) Report, as evidence (the first and only one I looked at) never judges whether the surge has succeeded or failed. It does indicate that of the 18 benchmarks established by the Iraqi government, 3 were fully successful, 4 were partially successful, and 11 were not successful. Since the surge was mainly intended to reduce the violence, and certainly not to "fix" every benchmark, let's look at what they said about the level of violence:

These results do not diminish the courageous efforts of coalition forces and
progress that has been made in several areas, including Anbar Province.

...

It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased—a key
security benchmark—since it is difficult to measure whether the perpetrators’ intents were sectarian in nature, and other measures of population security show differing trends. As the Congress considers the way forward in Iraq, it should balance the achievement of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks with military progress
and with homeland security goals, foreign policy goals, and other goals of the
United States.



My Bottom Line:

I'm not in any way defending the decision to go to Iraq or the initial planning. I think it was ill-conceived and incompetently planned. However, to attempt to sully the reputation of a decorated soldier who has devoted thirty years of his life to our country's service, and who has a spotless ethical record based on such shoddy, trumped-up charges is at the very least irresponsible, and does irreparable harm to the very cause MoveOn says they are trying to further. This is evidenced by the many Democrats who have criticized or condemned the ad.

Add my name to the list.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

don't you think you're missing the point? The information Petraeus is giving is incomplete, distorted and cherry picked to support extending the war. And further, he knows he is only a show horse; the actual report was written by the White House.

Your points are niggling at best. The Post DID report that sectarian violence is judged in part by where you're shot. That's accurate. To say sectarian violence is down is inaccurate, also because it ignores intra-sect killings.

Your indictment of the GAO report means to pretend that no assessment of the surge is possible from it. Your quote says that the reports all show (not judge) the surge has failed, and your own calculation shows a 16% success rate on benchmarks. That's failure, man.

I trusted Powell and deferred to his reputation. I think MoveOn is smart to alert people not to fall for it again.

Jim Knowlton said...

Hey Torrid...thanks for your comments.

No, the post didn't report that violence was judged that way. They reported that one, unnamed source claimed that. There's a huge difference between a paper making a claim and simply quoting an unnamed source making the claim. Nowhere does the paper claim the quote is true. They simply report that "someone" said it. To say that the paper is claiming it (which MoveOn does) is very, very sloppy from an accuracy standpoint.

You said the report is coming from the White House. I've heard this claim alot. Where is the proof? As far as I know, there isn't a shred of proof that Patreaus is lying when he says he didn't show the report to the White House prior to its delivery. I'm not claiming he's not lying, I'm just saying that unless you have pretty solid evidence that he is, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Again, I'm not an apologist for Bush...I voted for Kerry. I support moving aggressively to end our involvement in Iraq (responsibly). But I also think its important to be fair.