Glenn Greenwald, president of the WWS fan club, spends an extraordinary amount of ink today trying to debunk the credentials of Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack as critics of the war in Iraq. He also argues that because their visit to Iraq was coordinated by the U.S. military, with the military arranging most of their visits and interviews in Iraq, that their opinion on the success of the surge is called into serious question.
Leaving aside the fact that Sandals doesn’t arrange tours of Iraq, and that Greenwald’s premise assumes that the military is a deceitful institution intent on manipulating the American people, O’Hanlon and Pollack are in good company in speaking of the changes in Iraq since the implementation of Operation Phantom Thunder. We await Greenwald’s debunking of the optimistic comments from Senators Durbin, Casey, Levin and Reed, and Representatives Ellison and McNerney. Are all these war critics being fooled when they speak of the military progress in Iraq? The only other alternative–that they are closet supporters of the war in Iraq–can be dismissed out of hand. Perhaps Greenwald can take the time to look at the puzzling case of Representative Jan Schakowsky, who saw only what the U.S. Embassy wanted her to see while in Iraq, but came away equally certain that the surge is failing. Is she simply that much more of a clear thinker than the senators and representatives who preceded her in Iraq? Or is she being intellectually dishonest–looking at the same facts as the others but refusing to accept them?
