David Ignatius is a well-connected journalist who listens to a good cross-section of official Washington. He was infamous for a column a few years ago in praising Paul Wolfowitz. I honesly believed that Ignatius saw genuine merit in the U.S. project for the Middle East and tha Wolfowitz and his PNAC buddies would be a fresh-wind across history. Well he was spectacularly wrong and he's coming to realize this in his columns--he is moving away from the usual "light and the end of the tunnel" nonsense promulgated by his dinner table companions. But he still hasn't owned up to being misled, charmed, duped, or whatever by this administration and least I haven't noticed it. BTW, we have corresponded a little over the years and I think the guy is actually sincere and a good guy who is over-impressed with the guys he hangs with.
Today Mr. Ignatius offered a
column in the Post where he talks about the really horrid situation in Iraq but he ends it with the following bit of strangeness yet another wrinkle on the Vietnamization theme.
...Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki should move his government's 27 ministries, which increasingly are operating in the Green Zone, out into the city. The Iraqi army would protect each outpost of the government, aided by U.S. teams. "The population needs to see there is a government that has the courage to reclaim the city, one district at a time."
Huh? Is this serious? I can't even begin to tell you how lame this is for a variety of obvious reasons so will say nothing. Instead I will include below a copy of a letter I just wrote to him.
Mr. Ignatius:
You have made a step in describing the reality and one hopes you might help us look at how it got that way. But right now it is time that y'all in the mainstream media need to start acknowledging those people who were right about Iraq particularly those who had intimate knowledge of the subject.
I will give you, for the sake of brevity three names: 1) Scott Ritter who asserted that if there were WMDs in Iraq they were insignificant, in short, the inspection regime worked; 2) Ray McGovern has been correct in his analysis and his reporting of sentiment within the CIA and also was (I believe) the first to report about the Cheney/Libby interference with the normal intelligence process; and 3) Robert Fisk who has been, along with a handful of reporters, accurate in fact and in mood where the Post/Times have been resoundingly and spectacularly wrong in their reporting from Iraq because they listened almost solely to "official sources". Now, you may think this occupation is "salvageable", whatever that means--but I suspect you and others believe that out of ego not a grasp of the facts. The situation is an astonishing disaster--everything was done to insure that a Civil War would result--either the decision makers had malevolent intent (both towards the U.S. and the Iraqi people) of they were so far in la-la land that they need to quickly be given strong medications or they will harm others.
You were wrong, Mr. Ignatius from the get-go on Iraq, I don't know if you've acknowledged it or not but you ought to. You probably wanted it to work because you believed, it seems, in the imperial project PNAC--I suspect you did not look closely at either Arab culture and history or the facts on the ground. I say this despite the fact that I actually respect you as someone who cares about this country and the world.
I urge you to really look at the reality that is Iraq including its history. It has been seldom reported in the American mainstream media that the British also had their little war/occupation in Iraq and Mr. T.E. Lawrence had one or two things to say about it. Why did you think and American occupation would be different? Why, when things descended into chaos a couple of years ago did you not start listening to those voices who have been proven right?