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May 26, 2007

Tell It to Alvie Singer

WASHINGTON, May 25 — The Bush administration is developing what are described as concepts for reducing American combat forces in Iraq by as much as half next year, according to senior administration officials in the midst of the internal debate.

The New York Times (my emphasis)

At the moment it’s just a Notion, but with a bit of backing I think I could turn it into a Concept, and then an Idea.

Tony Lacey, in Annie Hall

Times link via Greenwald.

And it’s worth seeing the Peanuts video satire linked from an unrelated Tim F. post on Balloon Juice too. (It’s actually quite interesting, with a very satisfying reintegration of a key Peanuts Mythos element at the climax.)
Again we have to ask, are the media merely stupid, or merely servile? Do we even have to choose?

And of course, note that these leaks never promise what the American people actually want, which is an end to this misbegotten war. All the leaks ever really say are, Next year it is our pious hope to make the war less noticeable.

Posted by Jim Henley @ 10:58 am, Filed under: Main

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4 Responses to “Tell It to Alvie Singer”

  1. Comment by Gsnorgathon —
    May 26, 2007 @ 11:27 am

    The media: stupid or servile? Would that this were a cake we neither had to have nor to eat. Yet…

  2. Comment by Thoreau —
    May 26, 2007 @ 12:47 pm

    Here’s a concept for reducing our presence in Iraq:

    Land a bunch of airplanes at military airstrips, and land large ships at naval installations in Iraq, and order US forces to board the planes and ships.

    Ditto for the “contractors” in Iraq.

    See? Easy!

  3. Comment by Nell —
    May 26, 2007 @ 1:47 pm

    In comments to Greenwald’s post Jay Ackroyd is onto something.

    He points out that this article is really about the bases, as is the whole damned invasion and occupation. The silence of media and politicians about those bases is at least as sickening as the apparent assumption that we wake up each day having forgotten everything that came before.

    (To the possible response that this very NYT article is evidence against media silence, I’d reply that Saturday editions are a traditional outlet for unpalatable news, and help avoid the charge of never having run a word about the subject while not running the risk that anyone important will pick up on the content. This goes double for Saturdays on a holiday weekend. The existence of widely read blogs that might pick up on these stories and amplify them may be changing this calculation.)

    As JA quotes from the Times article:

    Several administration officials said they hoped that if such a reduction were under way in the midst of the presidential campaign, it would shift the debate from whether American forces should be pulled out by a specific deadline — the current argument consuming Washington — to what kind of long-term presence the United States should have in Iraq.
    …
    The officials cautioned that no firm plans have emerged from the discussions. But they said the proposals being developed envision a far smaller but long-term American presence, centering on three or four large bases around Iraq. Mr. Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the American presence in South Korea.

    I was just a little nervous about being quoted saying this same thing in the Roanoke paper three years ago, but not because I wasn’t convinced I was right.

  4. Comment by Gary Farber —
    May 26, 2007 @ 4:26 pm

    In the department of utmost trivia, it’s “Alvy,” not “Alvie.”

    5. (Comments automatically closed after 21 days.)