The NYT editors and the art of covering Bush's ass

[ProSense]

Editorial

The Army, After Iraq

By
Published: March 18, 2007

You do not have to look very hard these days to see the grave damage the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the Iraq conflict has inflicted on the United States Army. Consider the moral waivers for violent offenders, to meet recruitment targets. Or the rapid rotation of exhausted units back to the battlefield. Or the scandalous shortages of protective armor. Or the warnings from generals that there are not enough troops available to sustain increased force levels for more than a few months.

Adding 7,000 soldiers a year, as President Bush now proposes, will bring the Army’s overall strength to 547,000 by 2012. That will help, but not much, and not at all in Iraq. America’s all-volunteer military was simply never designed to be deployed as it has been for the past few years: unilaterally, indefinitely, and at peak strength in the middle of a raging civil war.

Exiting Iraq with America’s forces, credibility and regional interests intact is now, understandably, the nation’s most immediate concern. But in the process, crucial lessons need to be absorbed from this unnecessary, horribly botched and now unwinnable war.

Snip...

Once that is behind us, the Army can be increased substantially, and should be, so long as Congress can assure the country that it will never again delegate away its war powers as carelessly and recklessly as it did in 2002. And so long as the next president understands that the point of having a large Army is to strengthen American diplomacy, not to launch impulsive and unnecessary wars.

more...

After years of cheerleading the war the NYT wants to give Bush a little pass by putting the fault of this war squarely in Congress' lap.

NY TIMES WMD COVERAGE

NYT: "giving Iraq’s leaders one last opportunity to try to bargain their way out of civil war."

[AuntPatsy]

1. So typical and proof we have along way to go.

[NNN0LHI]

2. NYT really blows n/t

[cali]

3. LOL!

from the editorial: "But in the process, crucial lessons need to be absorbed from this unnecessary, horribly botched and now unwinnable war."

No doubt that the Times did cheerlead in the runup to the war, but over the last several years, the ed page has slammed bushco, time after time after time.

The constant tarring of the NYT as a right wing tool of bushco is as amusing as the freeper take on it- that's it a wholly owned subsidiary of the left.

[ProSense]

4. Make no mistake, the NYT simply wants a better policy for the occupation:

March 10 NYT editorial (linked here):

Anyone who wanted to believe that all Mr. Bush was seeking was a short-term security push — as part of a larger strategy to extricate American troops from this unwinnable war — now needs to face up to a far less palatable reality. What is under way is a significant and long-term escalation. The Army cannot sustain these levels for more than another few months. And as long as Iraq’s leaders refuse to make significant political changes, the civil war will continue to spin out of control.

With this backdrop, it is somewhat reassuring to see Congressional Democrats getting a little smarter in their gathering efforts to force a policy change. They are still talking about a phased withdrawal and an arbitrary exit date. That’s an approach we’ve never favored without a parallel political strategy to try to contain the chaos and regional strife that are likely to follow. What they can usefully do, and are attempting, is to use the power of the purse constructively to force the White House to give American troops the kind of support they need and to demand some sanity from Iraq’s leaders.