Andrew Sullivan smears US troops; Update: Kaus unloads on Sullivan; Update: with a response to Sadly, No!; Updated one last time
posted at 8:41 pm on January 27, 2007 by Bryan
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Excitable Andy hosts the same video Allah posted the other day–the one in which Iraqi Army troops give captured insurgents the business end of their boots and rifle butts a few times. Not to defend the beating, but don’t we live in interesting times when it’s perfectly fine to kill a bad guy in war, but it’s an unpardonable sin when troops of a Third World army knock a bad guy about a bit if American troops are anywhere nearby?
If Americans aren’t nearby, of course, no one gives it a second thought. Unless we all think the Ethiopians invaded Somalia with their kid gloves on.
Anyhow, Sullivan calls the captured insurgents in the video–and we know that they’re insurgents because they had mortars in their car–”civilians.” They’re every bit as much “civilians” as Mohammed Atta was a “civilian” on 9-11. They are working to destroy their country or take it over by force, and the mortars they were captured with would have been used to that end. These “civilians” intended to kill Iraqis, most likely civilians, or American troops. Those mortars could have been used as such, lobbed against targets some distance from the insurgents, or they could have been modified into an IED and used on some road against a US Hummer. But Excitable Andy is all worried that the fellows caught transporting the mortars might have gotten a goose egg or two when the IA captured them.
As an aside, we heard the dulcet tones of mortar fire one night at Camp Justice. Sunni insurgents like to launch them from their side of the Tigris at the Shia enclaves on the other side, without regard for whether those mortars land on an IA outpost or a kindergarten. Maybe those IA troops in the clip know someone who had the misfortune of catching some of the insurgents’ spray and pray mortar fire? It wouldn’t justify the beating if that were the case, but it might explain it.
I wonder, does Sullivan realize that the insurgents operating in Iraq don’t walk around in candy stripe uniforms? Does he get this war at all, nearly four years after the invasion he once supported? Evidently, he does not, or he wouldn’t call those men “civilians.” They were wearing the uniform favored by the enemy–street clothes.
Excitable Andy goes a step farther and blames the Americans for the incident. Because they were there. Even though the one American in contact with he IA troops tried to get them to stop. And all in the space of fewer words than I have written here in response. The Excitable One packs quite a bit into a short graph once in a while, mostly when he’s slamming the US for one thing or another.
Sullivan long ago passed from reasonable pundit to wild-eyed zealot, and over an issue that is unrelated to the war (we all know what that issue is). He’s become such a clown that I hardly ever pay attention to him anymore, but one thing that I can’t let pass is the kind of mindless smear of the troops that he trots out in that post.
Andrew Sullivan has no idea what’s going on in Iraq. He has no idea how complex the battle is or how our troops conduct themselves day to day in that fight. He doesn’t understand that our troops are trying to turn the IA from being the strong arm of a despot to a professional force that can fight the insurgents on its own. He evidently doesn’t understand that war, including the very war he cheered for so loudly a few years ago, can get ugly at times. People break a nail now and then. They get out of line. They have a bad hair day. They smack a guy around when they probably ought not (though how you scare insurgents straight without physically impressing upon them the error of their ways eludes me at the moment). He has No. Idea. What. He. Is. Talking. About. when it comes to Iraq. None. Zip. Nadda. And he has shown zero intellectual capacity to step outside his lode star issue and re-acquaint himself with the war he once supported but now misses no chance to denounce.
I’m not one to deploy the chickenhawk argument, but there really is something to the notion that unless you’ve seen a thing with your own eyes you may have a hard time understanding it. If you’re writing about a thing as often as Sullivan writes about the war, especially if you spend the bulk of your writings denouncing that thing, it’s irresponsible to stay as far away from that thing as possible. You have to, at some point, examine it for yourself. Especially if you’re as strident a critic as Sullivan is. Yet Sullivan, who slams the troops whenever he can, hasn’t been within thousands of miles of the war they’re fighting.
It’s easy to hurl insults from a safe distance. And Sullivan has certainly kept his distance from the thousands of men and women whom he smears without it twitching his conscience. These are the same men and women now in harm’s way thanks in part to his advocacy. He owes them more than just turning his back on them, insulting them and trashing them.
If he weren’t so unreliable as a thinker, so overwrought as a writer and so nauseating as a human being I’d suggest that Andrew Sullivan go spend time with the troops in Iraq and see what they’re up against and what they’re doing about it, and I’d say that he really ought not write about or opine on the war again until he has been there and seen it for himself. But the troops have enough on their hands without having to deal with insurgents and a pundit who has become an apologist for the insurgents at the same time.
Update (AP): Five schoolgirls dead in a mortar attack today in Baghdad.
Update (AP): Kaus tries to find the line where truth ends and excitability begins.
Update (Bryan): I see that our friends at Sadly, No! can’t distinguish between a mosque having a hole in an onion-shaped thing on top and that mosque being destroyed, as the AP reported on Nov 24. That failure to distinguish between such widely varying descriptions should guide you if you read anything else published there.
Would it matter to them if the hole they’re making such a big deal about was already there before Nov 24, the AP’s day of infamy in Hurriya? Because it was. Not that it should matter, since “having a big hole in a thing on the roof” =/= “destroyed,” and the latter was what the AP reported. Would it matter to them if there were no six Sunnis burned that day, and that the Iraqi Army that the AP accuses of watching the attack and doing nothing to stop it actually responded, helped put out the fire (to the mosque, not the Sunnis, since none of the latter were burned) and then tried to apprehend the attackers? Even though the attackers were Shia and, lo and behold, so were the IA troops on the scene? Evidently not. The Nov 24 attacks in Hurriya are actually an example of the IA doing what it’s supposed to do, yet the AP accused the IA of letting the attack happen, with the implication that sectarian interests drove the IA’s non-reponse. That’s either an eggregious error or a smear, and the AP has yet to acknowledge which.
And dwell on that for just a second–what else is the AP accusing the IA of that isn’t true? Might the AP’s stringers around Baghdad, most of whom are Sunni, have an interest in making the mostly Shia government and IA look bad? I think they just might. Would it serve the interests of the Sunni insurgents to make the mostly Shia government and IA look bad? Undoubtedly.
We’ve never reported here and Michelle doesn’t allege in her Hurriya wrap-up that no attacks happened at all on Nov 24. There were attacks that day. That’s what we reported. What we’ve said and proven is that the AP got the details entirely wrong, the AP falsely accused the IA of doing nothing about the attack, and in fact reported 24 sectarian kills that never happened (including the six non-burned Sunnis). We and others have also reported that the source for that wrong story has been the source for an additional 60 stories. That source–Jamil Hussein–appears now to be an unacknowledged pseudonym, which probably accounts for the confusion over his identity at the Iraqi MoI. He got this one story that we were able to check out entirely wrong, leading to reasonable doubts about everything else he has reported to AP. We stand by that.
Clarifications: The hole at the top of the Nidaa Alah mosque may have been there before Nov 24. I have a hazy memory of one of the officers a FOB Justice saying that it was there before Nov 24, Michelle doesn’t have that in her notes, and her memory is usually better than mine. She’s probably right. In any case, that mosque was abandoned prior to Nov 24, so there were no casualties there. And–large hole =/= destroyed. The AP reported the latter, not the former, as MK is tracking.
In the Army’s official report on the Nov 24 attacks, there is a mention of rumors of casualties (wounded) but nothing confirmed. The report is explicit in that there were no bodies burned, therefore no burned Sunnis. We have two FOB Justice officers on the record on that, in addition to the official report. The lack of confirmation, and the lack of detail or photos corroborating Jamil Hussein XX’s story leads me to conclude there were no fatalities as a result of the Nov 24 attacks. I’m dead certain that no six Sunnis were burned as the IA looked on and did nothing to stop it. No six Sunnis were burned at all.
Finally, if the hole in the top of that mosque was such a liability to our reporting, and if Michelle and I were as dishonest as the Sadly, No! folks seem to think we are, we could have pulled a fast one and just shown this photo from the Army’s official report:
This photo was taken from another angle during the Army’s follow-up incident reporting. They weren’t hiding anything, it’s just the angle they happened to snap of the mosque that the AP reported destroyed that’s still standing. We showed the hole. That’s the angle we happened to capture of the mosque that the AP reported destroyed that’s still standing. The hole is irrelevant to the AP story. But I’ll cut the Sadly, No! folks some slack–there are too many details in this story to master if you just stick to the surface and if you’re only looking for angles to attack us, as opposed to looking objectively at whether the AP got the story right or wrong.
And yes, those are bullet holes all over that mosque. It was abandoned, so no one was defending it, and the militias like to shoot at things that don’t shoot back. And as we reported, there were attacks in Hurriya on Nov 24. Some of those marks are from that day. Some are probably from prior attacks. And, we never said Hurriya is a nice place. It’s not.
Update (Michelle): Tellingly, the pathetic, attempted debunker fails to link to either my post at mm.com or my full report at the NYPost, which give the full details and nuance (plus more photos) of what we found versus what the AP reported (and didn’t report). There is now an all-too-predictable attempt to distort our reports. Read. Them. In. Their. Entirety. For. Yourselves. I have noticed an attempt by some of the AP apologists to deny that the wire service ever reported that four mosques in Hurriya were “destroyed.” They reported it. They were wrong.
On a related note, I followed up on Patterico’s question about the status of the “al-Qaqaqa mosque.” The AP reported that it was one of the mosques “destroyed” in Hurriya.
Capt. Aaron Kaufman at FOB Justice responds:
I remember asking that question about the al-Qaqaqa mosque based on the AP article. The IA officers did not recognize that name, and it was not in any other reports. It may exist, but it was not one of the mosques that was attacked in Hurriya.
Another unsolved AP mystery…
Last update (Bryan): Yes, kids, facts do matter. Fake but accurate won’t cut it anymore. That’s not even a new argument you’re deploying about the relevance of facts in a given debate, in the days after Rathergate. It’s been tried, and it didn’t work then and won’t work now.
Let me explain this one more time, though I understand the futility of arguing facts with the Goalpost Moving Company over there. The AP has sourced 61 stories to Jamil Hussein XX. He got most of the facts of this one dead wrong, which would lead any reasonable mind to wonder what else he got wrong and what else the AP gets wrong on a routine basis since they have been relying pretty heavily on him as the single source for multiple reports. Sorry for the bolding, but it’s done in the hope that it helps things stick. Put the Jamil Hussein XX stuff together with how the AP operates in Baghdad, using local stringers who may be sympathetic to the anti-US insurgents in Iraq, and you have the potential of a DEFCON 1 level scandal on the AP’s hands. Everything they have reported from Iraq is now open for examination, or should be if the AP could be stirred to examine its sources and methods in Iraq. Given the way they write their headlines to skew the impression their stories make, they do seem to have an agenda.
The IA responded to the attacks in Hurriya on Nov 24, both by helping put out the fires and by attempting to round up the attackers. The AP got that wrong. No mosques were destroyed in those attacks. The AP got that wrong. There were no six Sunnis burned. The AP got that wrong. Unless, that is, you guys at S,N! have any evidence that there were mosques destroyed and six Sunnis burned while the IA troops looked on and let it happen.
I didn’t think so, and those are the facts that the AP reported that we have definitively refuted. Those “facts” form the heart of the AP’s original story, the one they have yet to retract, clarify or even acknowledge as problematic. You folks keep linking to stories other than that original one as a way of lying to your readers and keep hope alive that you actually have something on us. It’s a dishonest game you’re playing, but you’re only fooling yourselves and your merry band of commenters each time you pick up the goalposts and move them to a new spot. So I feel no need to “Bring it!” We already went to Iraq and brung it back. If you folks have anything of substance to report, it’s incumbent upon you to bring it.
As far as I’m concerned, until you folks at S,N! prove that either six Sunnis were immolated in Hurriya that day, or that mosques were actually destroyed in the attacks in Hurriya that day, or that IA troops just looked on while the Sunnis who weren’t burned were burned, this discussion is over. I’m tired of trying to map out where you all will put the goalposts next.
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And yet, those troops will defend his right to say that bullshiite.
Mazztek on January 27, 2007 at 8:50 PM
This egregious attacks on our troops are so cowardly and ridiculous. Someone needs to remind mr. sullivan that it is a WAR.
Makes you wannna spit barbed-wire, these arm-chair, Monday morning quarterbacks.
hillbillyjim on January 27, 2007 at 8:59 PM
These…..
Shouldn’t comment and watch hoops.
hillbillyjim on January 27, 2007 at 9:01 PM
Well said Bryan. Well said.
Troy Rasmussen on January 27, 2007 at 9:13 PM
If only President Bush would let Andrew marry his boyfriend, all would be forgiven and Andrew would become a semi-rational, semi-conservative again.
LegendHasIt on January 27, 2007 at 9:14 PM
Challenge him to a “match up” and then proceed to kick his arse.
Zorro on January 27, 2007 at 9:16 PM
When is Crazy Andy going to embed with the troops?
d1carter on January 27, 2007 at 9:28 PM
Well done, Bryan…… I think your quote summed up the problem from the start, and the left still doesn’t get it, until it blows up in their faces, literally.
PinkyBigglesworth on January 27, 2007 at 9:36 PM
Aww, give Sully a break. When he read that they had “mortars” in the car, he probably just assumed that they were masons.
ReubenJCogburn on January 27, 2007 at 9:52 PM
Sullivan has a great ass….too bad it sits on top of his shoulders.
ej_pez on January 27, 2007 at 10:23 PM
RE:
Iraqi Army troops give captured insurgents the business end of their boots and rifle butts a few times
Is it possible the capture one just said something to his captors along the lines of, “We know where you live, and my brothers and a couple of friends are going to rape your mother, and your sister, and then kill them.”?
Sullivan went insane years ago, and I don’t bother reading his rants anymore.
Same thing with John Kerry, whose latest remarks from Davos were well received in the Iranian media. Kerry is a buffoon, and I don’t much care what he says, where he says it, nor who agrees with him.
rockhauler on January 27, 2007 at 10:44 PM
How dare he even think of the term ‘civilians’ in his hit piece. Sullivan is a disgusting piece of ….S..T
shooter on January 27, 2007 at 10:57 PM
“…brutally beat Sunni civilians to near-death,”
I didn’t see that.
Mr. Sullivan should search YouTube for “iraqi resistance” to see how members of the Iraqi Army are treated when captured. Now THAT is a disturbing video.
Those three gentlemen should consider themselves lucky the amount of American training that Iraqi Army unit has already received. If Mr. Sullivan needs a comparison I’m certain there is enough evidence showing how the Iraqi Army would have treated “resistance” prior to 2003. The business end of an AK (not the butt end), and then a shallow grave.
No, the outcome wasn’t perfect, but at least there are a few less mortar rounds that won’t be used to kill or maim.
Job well done.
Memnon on January 27, 2007 at 11:04 PM
This is no time to sit in his perch and snipe our troops. Why doesn’t he go fix England? We have enough pompus asses to go around already.
sonnyspats1 on January 27, 2007 at 11:09 PM
Excellent comments. Too much virtual journalism going on right now - hard to believe that’s really the case - think of the ease of travel to anyplace in the world, all the state of the art global communications, but the amount of actual on-site reporting seems to have shrunk over the past fifty years. Only one word for it : Lazy. Well, there is another possibility: willfully refusing in order to maintain a lie.
The biggest problem with Andrew Sullivan is he’s a has-been. Life and events are passing him by and he isn’t taking it well.
naliaka on January 27, 2007 at 11:16 PM
Correction: “iraqi’s resistance”
Memnon on January 27, 2007 at 11:28 PM
Sullivan is simply a faux-intellectual who craves attention. He isn’t really that intelligent, so don’t expect intelligent things from him.
This isn’t worth commenting on, really.
DaveS on January 27, 2007 at 11:45 PM
Sullivan is simply a faux-intellectual who craves attention. He isn’t really that intelligent, so don’t expect intelligent things from him.
This isn’t worth commenting on, really.
DaveS on January 27, 2007 at 11:45 PM
He probably has a pet sheep like my Grandmother had in England.
sonnyspats1 on January 27, 2007 at 11:56 PM
I don’t think a person with common sense actually has to go to Iraq to realize that a war zone is not a tea party. Sully has become completely unhinged, so if he went to Iraq, he’d just become 20 times as hysterical… and probably get someone killed in the process.
That being said, Bryan’s verbal boot to the head was richly deserved.
Karl on January 28, 2007 at 12:09 AM
You decide to attack Sullivan the same day he links to your site for Allah’s post on Kerry? That had to increase traffic…and this is the thanks you give him.
I guess you just really hate him.
JaHerer22 on January 28, 2007 at 12:42 AM
That’s just brilliant. How long did it take you to come up with that biting repartee?
Pablo on January 28, 2007 at 12:59 AM
Pablo, you’re wasting finger energy on that twit. And frankly, Bryan is wasting a lot of righteous indignation on Sullivan, whose last cogent comments on the Iraq war came before the invasion.
Jaibones on January 28, 2007 at 1:03 AM
Exactly. But the general public won’t see this war for what it really is until they wake up to these facts and spit out the pablum the liberal establishment has been feeding them.
infidel4life on January 28, 2007 at 1:14 AM
Ugh! The drama queen. I could comment all day long about what’s wrong - not only with his comments - but Andrew Sullivan. I hate him! Can I say that and be okay? It’s true. If you want links and proof to support this I’m happy to provide it - really. He’s a misinformed, mis-directed jack-ass and I’m not only proud to proclaim it - I’m happy to provide examples. I hate Sully!!!!
thedecider on January 28, 2007 at 1:37 AM
Really! I hate him!
thedecider on January 28, 2007 at 1:38 AM
This quote is part of Sully’s bio which you can link to via the above links. Think Sean Penn, or any number of Hollywood actors to get a concept of where our “drama queen” derives his mindset.
thedecider on January 28, 2007 at 2:12 AM
Bravo.
Bravo.
Professor Blather on January 28, 2007 at 2:32 AM
I am nauseated and filled with heart-ache.
Sean M. on January 28, 2007 at 4:36 AM
As someone on the receiving end of those mortars, I was more than happy with the Iraqi army’s actions.
The disconnect couldn’t be greater between the troops here in Baghdad and what the media portrays. I and most of my friends/coworkers here take it for granted that the media is acting against us.
Jason on January 28, 2007 at 4:59 AM
Well said. Mickey Kaus at “Slate” makes a similar point about Sullivan’s asshatery.
WasatchMan on January 28, 2007 at 5:48 AM
Ok, let me make sure I understand which makes a liberal’s blood boil-
Acceptable - Video of US Soldier getting shot by a sniper.
Unacceptable - Video of Iraqi Soldier using non-letal force on an insurgent.
Tin Foil Hats for everyone.
SPIFF1669 on January 28, 2007 at 6:35 AM
When did Andy become so gobsmackingly vile?
Kevin M on January 28, 2007 at 7:12 AM
More “civilians” with mortars hit a girls’ school in Iraq today, killing 5 and wounding 20. Do you think Sullivan will show a tenth of the outrage over their deaths that he did over some terrorists getting beaten? Somehow I doubt it.
ReubenJCogburn on January 28, 2007 at 9:58 AM
I do not want to sound smarmy but I have often wondered over the past couple of years if Sullivan is suffering from dementia (and I am not making an off hand reference to his HIV status). It is as if some pod came down to Earth and took over this once intelligent, interesting writer - a writer who saw the difference between us and our enemies, and instead put a neo Stalinist in his place.
I have not checked Sullivan’s “Daily Dish” in years - he has become Andy One Note (an obsessive hatred of George Bush, conservative Christians, and anyone opposed to Gay marriage).
Soon I expect him to be joining Justin Raimondo in writing screeds for Buchanan’s unreadable rag, the misnamed “The American Conservative.”
Hilts on January 28, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Kevin M
Probably you can date it when Bush propsed (which never was going to happen anyway) a constitutional amendment making marriage an act between only a man and a woman. T thought Bush’s proposal was wrong (even though I am a traditionalist regarding marriage) and I saw it as political pandering that in actuality would mean nothing but if you were reading Sully at the time you would have thought that Bush had proposed something so terrible like legalizing child rape. Sully even endorsed John Kerry for President claiming incredibly that Kerry was “the only conservative choice for President.” Sully jumped the shark just about then. Other writings of his seemed to show that he had become Arianna Huffingtonized - references to “neocons,” “Halliburton,” “Likudniks” etc. showed that he had absorbed the talking points of the other side.
Hilts on January 28, 2007 at 12:18 PM
One more comment on the whole Sully mess. Compare Sullivan with Christopher Hitchens. I used to dislike Hitch almost as much as I now dislike Sully. Hitch was a pro Palestinian friend of the vile Noam Chomsky. Yet Hitch (although hardly a conservative) knows who the enemy is. Hitchens has been a courageous spokesman for the superiority of the freedoms of the West and of the need to not only fight but to win the war against the forces of the Islamofascists. I doubt that I would agree with Hitchens on anything else (well maybe our mutual disdain for the Royals in Britain) but on the most important issue of our time, Hitchens is right and Sullivan is dead wrong. Sullivan is in denial that as an active and outspoken homosexual the Islamofascists of al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, Iran, etc. would kill him in a most cruel way for his sexuality.
Hilts on January 28, 2007 at 12:25 PM
I stopped paying attention to Sully when he - a supposed “conservative” - decided that gas was too cheap.
Farmer_Joe on January 28, 2007 at 12:42 PM
Farmer_Joe
Sullivan does not drive! He never learned.
Hilts on January 28, 2007 at 12:56 PM
I think Sullivan is just a hack who likes to stick his woohoo in the air to see which way the wind blows.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that when Bush’s approval numbers were high, Sullivan wrote in a more pro-conservative way. And as Bush’s numbers began to slide, Sullivan began to write in a decidedly with a pro-liberal slant.
.
GT on January 28, 2007 at 1:17 PM
I’m wondering why this schmuck doesn’t go over there and tell them to stop. He’s not disabled, is he? Go on, bro, fly over there, embed yourself and then tell those people how to do business in a war zone. Good luck.
Metro on January 28, 2007 at 1:20 PM
Bryan has worn the uniform (USAF) and just got back from Iraq; Sullivan is not even American and Andy’s power-glutes have never been within 500 miles of a combat zone.
Complete moral authority!
Ali-Bubba on January 28, 2007 at 1:24 PM
Guess I’ll stop posting about Iraq, then.
Allahpundit on January 28, 2007 at 1:26 PM
Andrew Sullivan is as conservative as he is heterosexual. Which is to say . . . NOT.
Phil Byler on January 28, 2007 at 1:40 PM
You’re not a strident critic of the troops on the ground, AP, as Sullivan has become. You tell it like it is, good and bad, but don’t go out of your way to find reasons to slam the troops.
He’s not just criticizing the politicians, which is perfectly fine and only makes sense, but he’s now smearing the actual troops on the ground and taking the side of the insurgents by describing them as “civilians” and overplaying how much of a beating those three took in that video. Yet he has no idea what the reality on the ground in Iraq actually is. None.
My point in not deploying the chickenhawk argument is that as Sullivan first loudly advocated for the war, saw it begin, and has now turned his back on the troops fighting the war he helped get us into, he owes it to his readers and more importantly to the troops to make sure he’s getting the story right. The best way to do that is for him to see the war up close. If he comes back slamming the troops, at least he might have some idea what he’s talking about. But I suspect that he would come back with a little more appreciation for the difficulty of the tasks our troops face and the amazing skill and dedication they’re applying to those tasks.
As things stand now, he isn’t getting the story right. He has no idea how wrong he is, and doesn’t seem to care. The troops are acting on Bush’s orders, Sullivan hates Bush, therefore he smears the troops as an extension of Bush. His distance from the story he spends so much time denouncing is playing a huge role in how wrong he is about it. It’s irresponsible for him to continue down the path he’s on, imho, if he’s unwilling to look up close at the war he once supported. So my non-deployment of the chickenhawk argument here is a very individual thing, based entirely on Sullivan’s own behavior and record. It’s got nothing to do with you or anyone else.
Look at it this way. It’s not like getting to Iraq would be difficult for him. He’s a relatively big name among pundits. He works for Time magazine. They would have no trouble getting him credentialed for an embed any time he asks. The costs of an embed for Time would be miniscule. He’s relatively young so it’s not as though he would have trouble getting around in Iraq for a few days or weeks. Yet there he sits, slamming the troops from thousands of miles away and with not a single clue about the struggle they face every day, and no willingness to go over there and get a clue before slamming the troops–troops who are fighting the war he once supported and advocated.
Has he ever explained why he now sides with captured insurgents over American troops who don’t even control the Iraqi units they’re assigned to train? I didn’t think so. I doubt he even knows that many Iraqi units now operate on their own or only with American embedded supervision–not under direct American control. I doubt he even cares what effect that has operationally on the ground in incidents like the one in that video.
He’s beneath contempt, really, and probably not worth the time it took even to write this post. But some things just need to be called out for their absurdity sometimes. Sullivan’s smears of the troops and the logic of the language he uses to describe events do need to be exposed and destroyed.
Bryan on January 28, 2007 at 2:22 PM
I get so tired of this “outrage” over being a little rough on the enemy…dose anybody dought that during WWII that G.I.s didn’t put the boot to a few Nazi’s?…somehow I have the feeling that no one would get upset about that but because their Arab were supposed to be PC and treat them with kid gloves..well nuts to that kissing their butts is not going to make them love us..and as for Sullivan he just wants to be with the “popular kids” and those are the ones who are bashing Bush and the war on terror…that and plus it gives him an excuse to keep posting those pictures of naked prisoners on his website.
mlong on January 28, 2007 at 2:59 PM
Sullivan started his puzzling turn just as I deployed to Afghanistan in the beginning of 2004. Of course, that is about the time I discovered Allah’s in the House, and the rest was blog history.
Frankly, I think I’ll stick with the consistency I’ve seen with AP (and the rest of the Hot Air staff) …
major john on January 28, 2007 at 3:29 PM
Sullivan sounds racist and Islamophobic to me, since the “Holy” Koran mandates far worse penalties for lesser criminals (as these mortar-toting “civilians” clearly were). Who is he to criticize some poor brownish-skinned person’s culture or religious beliefs (cutting off a thief’s hand, stoning an adulturess to human jelly, et al)?
profitsbeard on January 28, 2007 at 3:45 PM
The chicken hawk argument is totally bogus.
Even, (especially) the Quakers, and Amish have a right to express an opinion on violence, and any war.
And we should listen to them.
Believing that having ‘been there, done that’ gives you some special insight is flawed logic. All it gives you is experience.
rockhauler on January 28, 2007 at 3:59 PM
Oh, I agree–chickenhawk is bogus. That it’s almost always deployed by leftists who not only haven’t served but who also tend to hate the military is enough to give that away.
But.
Even spending a short time in Iraq changed quite a bit of what I thought about the war, and I’ve always supported it and I’ve never smeared the troops over there. Sullivan ought to go over there, if he intends to be taken seriously in his criticisms of how the troops conduct themselves.
Bryan on January 28, 2007 at 4:16 PM
Honestly, I wonder if Sullivan suffers from a bi-polar disorder. Sometimes his writing is concise and well thought out. Other times, he’s so far off base that I have to wonder what medication he’s on.
.
GT on January 28, 2007 at 4:38 PM
Hammer. Nail. Head, Bryan.
However, I’m not really concerned about the beatings of terrorists responsible for, say, mortaring secondary girls’ schools.
Not just because I despise animals who would do something like that, but also because the Laws of Land Warfare clearly state that illegal combatants doing that sort of thing, captured out of uniform and in possession of weapons, are eligible for things a whole lot more serious than a mere beating.
If anything, the Iraqi soldiers let them off too easy.
Misha I on January 28, 2007 at 5:07 PM
Were they LESBIAN girls?
If so, St Andrew of the Church of Hypocrisy and Single Issues just MIGHT be offended.
And blame it on Bush, of course.
Misha I on January 28, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Bryan,
I have never been to Iraq, but I can, and do read. Thus I submit the following,
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/gates-of-fire.htm
from which I have gained considerable insight.
(Take it easy on the new guys, everyone was a new guy once. Michael mentions them mostly in passing. I suspect the NCOs took some time to clear up somethings, privately.)
Regards
rockhauler on January 28, 2007 at 5:32 PM
So, basically, rockhauler you’re saying that it wouldn’t do Sullivan any good to spend any time with the troops he smears? I disagree. They probably wouldn’t enjoy his company, but if he can get past his pet issue and look around a bit the trip would do him a lot of good.
Bryan on January 28, 2007 at 5:44 PM
Destroyed, damaged… dead, not dead… You guys sure are picky!
Jim Treacher on January 28, 2007 at 5:56 PM
Sure. Right. I’ve never been to Botswana … but somebody who lived there doesn’t have any “special insight” on the country. Right?
My neighbor’s a mechanic. I’m an attorney. I’m sure my opinion on how to rebuild an engine from a ‘66 Camaro is as valid as his. It’s not like his actually, you know, “having been there, done that” gives him any special insight. And I’m sure he understands the legal issues in this brief I’m writing as well as I do - not like law school or years of experience gave me any “special insight” on that subject, either.
I can’t believe you actually spewed that - and then accused someone ELSE of using “flawed logic.” Yikes.
It’s not exactly a logical leap to suggest that, in at least some respects, those who’ve spent time in Iraq no more about it than I do.
“Flawed logic,” indeed. Maybe the funniest thing I’ve read all week. No offense.
Professor Blather on January 28, 2007 at 6:00 PM
no = know
PIMF is my friend
Professor Blather on January 28, 2007 at 6:02 PM
Dear Blather,
re: “No offense”, None taken.
You make a good point. The point of contention, however, is ‘being there’ gives an insight that someone who has not been there can not have.
Presuming that only someone of great experience is qualified to make judgements ignores all those events in human history were the ‘experts’ were wrong.
I would suggest that the qualifier you insert in the following quote,
acknowledges my point.
rockhauler on January 28, 2007 at 6:37 PM
Slightly off topic, but from a corporate branding and HotAir.com reader experience standpoint, you might be creating confusion with new readers when you have “AP” stand for both “Allahpundit” and “Associated Press” in the same story.
My suggestion would be to clearly designate the blogger “Allahpundit” as “AP” and the Associated Press as “those lying assclowns”
Again, it’s just a suggestion…
ScottMcC on January 28, 2007 at 6:56 PM
Just ‘being there’ in and of itself is not sufficient. Which is why I get so frustrated with the leftist (or rightist) fanatics who ‘can’t get passed their pet issues’.
To gain an understanding of any issue, you have to be open to all ideas, no matter how crazy they might sound, and you have to also be suspicious of those ideas, expertly presented.
To reject someone’s argument simply because they have not ‘been there’, is not sufficient. You need more than that.
To require that someone must have ‘been there’ means no jury could ever convict anyone of any crime, because the jury was not present when the crime was committed.
rockhauler on January 28, 2007 at 6:59 PM
Please don’t wish that on the military. Come on, I mean, just think about those words a moment and to whom you’re referring.
Sullivan went off the reservation around 2001, actually. It began with his reaction to the President’ faith-based initiatives. While there are flaws with that program, both in conception and execution, it sent Sullivan into a rage I’d not seen from him before. That seemed to be about the time he began using the term “christianist” as well, though I could be wrong on that.
What I’m pretty convinced of is that he has become so full of BDS that he can’t write anything supportive of the war, the troops, or anything else which might constitute approaching victory for this administration. And if you read his work with that frame of mind, all of his skewed logic fits together.
Freelancer on January 28, 2007 at 7:36 PM
Update (Bryan): I see that our friends at Sadly, No! can’t distinguish between a mosque having a hole in an onion-shaped thing on top and that mosque being destroyed, as the AP reported on Nov 24. There is significance in the onion thingy (Dome). This an anchient example of architecture that has spawned wars of itself. The wars I am refering to culminated with the Great Cathederals of Europe. The object was to span the largest area. The largest Dome in the world is in either Naples or Florence, Italy. I beleive of Christian origin. Notably the dome had its limitations and was forsaken for the arch, which if multiplied upon itself could produce enormous caverns of worship. They also have a neat acoustic features wich lend themselves to chiors quite nicely. The various denominations would build larger and larger cathedrals in direct competition with each other. One day I would like to tour the great Cathederals of Europe. I understand our own National Cathederal in D.C. was completed sometime in the 1996, it was built over decades. The moral of the story is Don’t mess with another mans onion thingy. The Islamists were seeking usage of a Cathederal in Spain recently, they were denied access. Imagine!
sonnyspats1 on January 28, 2007 at 7:49 PM
It is indeed, but HA doesn’t have one. I think we need to protest the lack of Preview, Bezerkley style:
What do we want? PREVIEW!
When do we want it? NOW!
What do we want? PREVIEW!
When do we want it? NOW!
. . .
The Monster on January 28, 2007 at 7:57 PM
The chickenhawk argument is sometimes bogus, sometimes not. I think people lose sight of that. It can be bogus during theoretical discussions but when it comes to actual events, it can sometimes be quite valid.
An analogy for you. How many times have some of you parent gotten “advice” from a friend or relative on how to raise children? I think you get my point. Not to say they can’t have a good point here and there, but sometimes, only the parent understand their child’s personality and certainly understands children better than somebody who has never raised one themselves.
If this guy wants to say IN THEORY that roughing up “suspects”–or whatever he wants to call them–is wrong, fine. But if he’s going to pass judgment on U.S. soldiers on the ground regarding videos like this, he better damn well acknowledge that he is NOT THERE and isn’t fully aware of the circumstances that led to what is being seen in the video.
Personally, I’m surprised he didn’t just piss himself and then cry himself to sleep like the little b*#ch he is.
Metro on January 28, 2007 at 9:51 PM
After visiting “sadlyno” I need a shower! Those people are living is some kind of alternate universe. If they found a scratch on that mosque to them that would justify the ap story. I have never seen such sad and pathetic people.
Capitalist Infidel on January 29, 2007 at 4:15 AM
“…and if Michelle and I were as dishonest as the Sadly, No! folks seem to think we are…”
Oh, I think we all know very well who’s dishonest and who isn’t here, thanks.
Mike H on January 29, 2007 at 10:04 AM
I want to be Prof Blather when I grow up.
RobertCSampson on January 29, 2007 at 11:13 AM
Don’t really know you RockH, but “All it gives you is EXPERIENCE”…that’s all?
Since experience is so over rated we can rid ourselves of all those pesky internship programs in thousands of jobs around the world.
Might as well hire 22 year old judges as supremes, we can keep ‘em longer ya know.
Should I go on? Experience is as important as any type of education, usually valued of the highest import.
shooter on January 29, 2007 at 12:21 PM
Shooter
I do not discount the value of experience. In fact the link to Michael Yon’s “Gates of Fire” points that out. Re-evaluate the actions of the newguys.
Now consider the insight gained by reading that account, without having ‘been there’.
rockhauler on January 29, 2007 at 3:13 PM