Going for broke
The American Conservative
by Andrew J. Bacevich
01/29/07
What can we say of this proposal? Simply this: to imagine that 170,000 troops will accomplish what 140,000 troops failed to do in nearly four years or that marching a handful of additional combat brigades into the maw of Baghdad will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat qualifies as pure fantasy. Kagan’s ’surge’ is the first cousin to Kenneth Adelman’s more famous ‘cakewalk.’ It is ideology dressed up as strategy. Marketed as the product of careful analysis, the surge should be seen for what it is: a naked gamble. Tacitly acknowledging the point, some proponents even refer to it as the ‘double down’ option. That in places like AEI and the editorial offices of The Weekly Standard Kagan himself has emerged as the man of the hour testifies to the depth of neoconservative desperation...
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_29/cover.html
Going for broke
The American Prospect
by Reid Cramer
03/05/07
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast with such ferocity in late August 2005, Americans were shocked by the broadcast images of desperately poor people left to fend for themselves. The depth and consequences of poverty in America, normally hidden from public view, had once again become the subject of debate and national soul-searching. And yet, a year and a half later, the subject of poverty has fallen so far off the public’s radar screen that President Bush did not give it a mention in his recent State of the Union Address. How can our prosperous nation continue to tolerate such deep pockets of despair as were seen in New Orleans? It’s easy to blame the public’s infamously short attention span, limited budget resources, or our preoccupation with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for this state of affairs...
http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=12532
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=neoconservative
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Hurricane+Katrina
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=poverty+in+America
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=New+Orleans
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Andrew+J.+Bacevich
by Andrew J. Bacevich
01/29/07
What can we say of this proposal? Simply this: to imagine that 170,000 troops will accomplish what 140,000 troops failed to do in nearly four years or that marching a handful of additional combat brigades into the maw of Baghdad will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat qualifies as pure fantasy. Kagan’s ’surge’ is the first cousin to Kenneth Adelman’s more famous ‘cakewalk.’ It is ideology dressed up as strategy. Marketed as the product of careful analysis, the surge should be seen for what it is: a naked gamble. Tacitly acknowledging the point, some proponents even refer to it as the ‘double down’ option. That in places like AEI and the editorial offices of The Weekly Standard Kagan himself has emerged as the man of the hour testifies to the depth of neoconservative desperation...
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_29/cover.html
Going for broke
The American Prospect
by Reid Cramer
03/05/07
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast with such ferocity in late August 2005, Americans were shocked by the broadcast images of desperately poor people left to fend for themselves. The depth and consequences of poverty in America, normally hidden from public view, had once again become the subject of debate and national soul-searching. And yet, a year and a half later, the subject of poverty has fallen so far off the public’s radar screen that President Bush did not give it a mention in his recent State of the Union Address. How can our prosperous nation continue to tolerate such deep pockets of despair as were seen in New Orleans? It’s easy to blame the public’s infamously short attention span, limited budget resources, or our preoccupation with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for this state of affairs...
http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=12532
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=neoconservative
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Hurricane+Katrina
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=poverty+in+America
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=New+Orleans
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Andrew+J.+Bacevich
rudkla - 30. Jan, 15:36
