Earlier today I posted some commentary on a WaPo Op-Ed by William Kristol and Rich Lowry. I addressed the article solely in terms of Mr Kristol, though, of course, Mr Lowry is also equally guilty for this mendacious piece of dreamland fantasy. In my limited experience with newspaper and news magazine writing any piece produced by a team usually does not have equal contribution from all the persons cited as authors. It’s the inevitable fact of human nature that one will tend to dominate the creative effort and put the primary stamp of effort on the piece. However the piece was produced, I ascribed the primary effort to Mr Kristol, and that may well be because of personal animus. In my worldview I consider Mr Kristol a greater threat to the democratic future of America than Mr Lowry, whom I mostly consider foolish.

Glenn Greenwald, on the other hand, apparently considers Mr Lowry the prime creative personality in this piece of fabulist trash. I respect Mr Greenwald quite a lot; he has a strong, well-organized mind, and argues to great effect in his writings. I’d be amenable to persuasion that I’m wrong in authorship, but that issue is really moot, since both Mr Kristol and Mr Lowry are, to put it politely, jerking off into the toilet.

Mr Greenwald makes some cogent observations:

One of the most depressing aspects of the Iraq debate is to watch the self-styled "experts" who advocated this war, such as National Review Editor (and Sean Hannity substitute) Rich Lowry, thrashing around, constantly grasping for new excuses as to why their war is failing, desperate to embrace any explanation at all other than the only true one sitting right in front of their faces -- that the invasion was a bad idea from the beginning, that it was premised on false assumptions, that war advocates were wrong about everything they predicted would happen, and the ongoing occupation has produced incalculable disaster along with virtually no good.

I have no strong objection to non-veterans educating themselves in military matters, forming opinions and espousing them. I do object to people who have (again, putting it politely) no fucking clue how soldiers and armies work, yet insist they have all the strategic and tactical answers.

We are at a crucial moment in Iraq. Supporters of the war, like us, have in the past differed over tactics. But at this urgent pass, there can be no doubt that we need to stop the downward slide in Iraq by securing Baghdad.

There is no mystery as to what can make the crucial difference in the battle of Baghdad: American troops. . . . The bottom line is this: More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment. This means the ability to succeed in Iraq is, to some significant degree, within our control. The president should therefore order a substantial surge in overall troop levels in Iraq, with the additional forces focused on securing Baghdad.

If you want to be a good soldier, after you learn to operate a squad, the next career step really should be the study of logistics. Learn how to feed and support that squad. Logistics is the lifeblood of military operations, after all, and these days it’s much more complicated than “beans and bullets.”

Bu$hCo can barely support the troops that we have in Iraq at the moment. If you remember, for the first eight months of our occupation troops were getting one or at the most two meals a day, and were limited to a liter of water for all usage. It hasn’t gotten all that much better – six months ago we had to make an emergency purchase of 5.56 ammunition from Israel. And Lowry (Kristol?) wants another two or three divisions in Iraq.

Mr Greenwald makes some excellent points in his article, carefully addressing the “no uniform” phenomenon of right-wing “experts” and he should be given a good read.

[Personal note: today is my wife’s second juhrtseit and I’m especially negative. Apologies for the excessive negativism. I’ll be in a better frame of mind in a day or so, and then maybe I’ll do a better job of cleaning up after the dimwits on the right.]