Ross Douthat; A War Trump Won
In the pages of the New York Times, Ross Douthat writes about the media ignoring the fact that the Trump Administration actually put ISIS out of business in Syria and Iraq without getting in a shooting war with the Russians and that they did it in record time.
But this is also a press failure, a case where the media is not adequately reporting an important success because it does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested.
I include myself in this indictment. Foreign policy is the place where the risks of electing Trump seemed to me particularly unacceptable, and I’ve tended to focus on narratives that fit that fear, from the risk of regional war in Middle East to the perils in our North Korean brinksmanship.
Yeah, the media is unhappy that Trump unleashed the military forces from the politicians’ collar of ineffective rules of engagement for the troops and they helped regional forces crush ISIS and the forces of evil are relegated to a few caves in Syria.
But if you had told me in late 2016 that almost a year into the Trump era the caliphate would be all-but-beaten without something far worse happening in the Middle East, I would have been surprised and gratified. So very provisionally, credit belongs where it’s due — to our soldiers and diplomats, yes, but to our president as well.
Curses. Foiled again.
Category: Terror War
That must have really hurt for him to write that.
Good.
Simple orders, Hal. Find the enemy and kill him.
Always worked for me.
Peace through superior firepower.
Amen Claw! It’s about time we have a grown up in the White House!
Dec. 2017 USNI Proceedings has a nice article about Mil. leaders neutering Mil. forces with restrictive rules of engagement, 2008 ADM. Mike Mullen saying that we can’t kill our way to victory forgetting that is what we did in WW2 etc.
He must not understand the enemy can’t “die” their way to victory either…you don’t need to kill them all (although that would be great) but killing so many they no longer matter as a threat is always a good start point.
I remember when Mullen said that. It made me wonder if he really understood what military forces do, because yes, you can kill your way to victory. If all the opposition is dead, you have won.
Reminds me of Reagan’s Cold War strategy: We win, they lose.
Works for me.
OK, props to Ross Douthat for manning up and facing reality.
There is hope for some of these reporters after all.
And more evidence that our military can get the job done correctly when realistic policies are implemented by adults.
Amen.
And if there is one thing an old soldier can appreciate, it is someone willing to admit he was wrong. Most of us old married guys have ample experience in this field, of course.
So true. I think I can admit I was wrong even before she finishes finding out what I did.
I start admitting I was wrong about the time she turns her head to look my way. Saves a lot of effort.
Would it be near accurate, even a little, to say that the ‘glamour’ (false front) of media angst toward DTrump is not only fraying at the seams, but also wearing thinner than the threadbare parts of my favorite, if ancient, sweater?
While I never expected anyone on that side of the fence to — well, cross OVER to the other side and see the light of day, it is plain that there are cracks in that wall, rips in that fabric of twaddle that has infested the media for far too long.
I will give Mr. Douthat credit that he is due for admitting that he was wrong.
The New York Times!?! Does this guy still have a job??
Hawkeye: “Aw, great, we screwed up in reverse.”
Agreed.
” … the Islamic State, whose expansion was the defining foreign policy calamity of Barack Obama’s second term …”
Hmmmm … I wonder if those words of criticism of the Anointed One will get Ross Douthat Excommunicated from the LibProg House?
In any case, he nutted up and overcame his own blindness to the obvious. Good on him.
Gee whiz, maybe the Trump Acceptance resistance Disorder (TARD) in some of them is wearing thin and there’s hope that they won’t let it run their lives making them Trump Acceptance resistance Disorder Operatives (TARDOs)? I can see it now, “Xxxx Xyz form xxxx outlet, a reformed TARDO now says this”……” in support of President Trump’s action”.
The fact that the New York Times let Ross Douthat identify “the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested” is probably better than otherwise, but the questions still remain: how did those entities get that way, and what, if anything, can be done about it?
Part of the reason for the media being unable to cast Donald Trump in a positive light is because it spent the last eight years being unable to ever cast the former White House occupant in a negative one. To do so would be to risk appearing racist. To show anything at all positive about the Russians is also unacceptable given the past enmity between Vladimir Putin and the White House.
Meanwhile, apparently to help the anti-Trump narrative along whenever his accomplishments become inconvenient, the news media echo chamber comes up with alternate byzantine explanations. This morning, for example, CNN is running an interview with former DNI James Clapper about how Putin is drawing on his former KGB case officer skills to run Trump as an intelligence asset. As if the simple explanation that sometimes the need for the enemy of my enemy to become my friend just doesn’t cut it.
My armchair analysis determines that this is indicative of waves of reality impinging themselves on the lamestream media. The loss of readers/viewers/listeners leading to the loss of revenue from advertisers and the financial drain of overpaid talking heads has garnered their attention at long last.
Some self-evaluation is, it appears, resulting in a return to reality from the hash-pipe dreams in which they have drifted for the last 25 years.
They don’t give a tinker’s damn about the loss in ratings, lower advertising revenue or anything that might upset their apple cart.
Take ESPN & the NFL for prime examples, they know that the stands are empty and that people are tuning them out.
They are convinced of their own Godlike presence and that the rest of us have no right to criticize anything and that we should be forced to pay for the privilege of watching them…
In other words, we are not worthy of them…
When they start losing their jobs, like Kathy Griffin has done, then they might pay a it of attention.
But, she still doesn’t get it, she still thinks she did nothing wrong.
Meanwhile, she’ll be serving food and asking people if they want fries with their Big Mac…
That is if any McDonald’s will hire her…
Maybe Mike Rowe could find her a job !!!
Cleaning out grease traps in sewer lines…
Lol on Trump being Putin’s intel asset. So he’s basically saying that Putin can, despite our “17 intelligence agencies” best efforts, that the most powerful office in the world has been compromised?
Is he delusional? As much as I didn’t like Obama or Clinton, I wouldn’t accuse them of capital treason (despite all the circumstantial evidence suggesting otherwise).
The problem I have with the left is that when they disagree with me, I just say we have a difference of opinion. When I disagree with them, I’m literally Hitler.
” … what, if anything, can be done about it?”
The willful blindness is staggering in the media. It is so monumental, I am beginning to suspect a spiritual origin. He’s not called the Father of Lies for nothing. If this be the case, this kind only comes out by fasting with prayer.
Or, perhaps there are some who have the strength of character to admit to being in error, and this is the crack, in that willful blindness, that Ex-PH2 alluded to.
Or, some combination of the above?
Whatever the case may be, I hope these folks come to their senses.
I’ve long believed that it is of spiritual origin, and that the real battle involves the discipline of fasting and prayer.
[Can we fast after New Year’s Day, Lord? So much good feasting going on now…]
As I’ve argued before, theology matters.
Theology matters, and they have none, Graybeard. They have nothing to fall back on, not even paganism or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
hmff, and all this time I thought they worshiped Obama.
They do, and he is best symbolized by the “empty chair.”
Not even the One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater !!!
Wonder how he prepared that crow to make it edible?
Like fish, Crow is best eaten as fresh as possible. It gains nothing with age.
Nothin wrong with a little Old Crow.
There’s a reason that the morning of a pitched battle, someone may say ‘Good day for the crows’.
Reading “A Song of Ice and Fire” again?
The Mountain that Writes takes too long between books.
He lost me as a reader a few years ago.
For some reason, Douthat’s confession rattled my memory locker door and I came up with this, from “Wolf”:
Will Randall: I’ve never loved anybody this way. Never looked at a woman and thought, if civilization fails, if the world ends, I’ll still understand what God meant.
and there’s this one:
Mary: Is the worm turning, Mr. Randall?
Will Randall: The worm has turned and it is now packing an Uzi, Mary.
Mary: It’s about fucking time, sir.
Perhaps the worm turned with Mr. Douthat, and his eyes have been opened.
I hope he’s able to keep his job at NYT.
Wasn’t it Mattis’s doctrine that was implemented (by Trump) that has reduced IS to their cave-dwelling origins? Remember when the media were wailing and gnashing teeth over CHAOS’s appointment? Now it turns out that he actually knows what the hell he’s doing when it comes to winning wars—which is, y’know, his job—and Trump really has picked the right man for the job. They pissed and moaned about Obama inheriting a mess that he promptly made worse. Unlike Obama, Trump & co. are cleaning up the mess. This does not compute with the far left, so expect more cries of naziism, etc.
Yes, Trump appointed Mad Dog to come up with a plan and let slip the dogs of war.
Mattis is the same general who was canned by the Obungler administration because he was thought to be too Hawkish in saying Iran was a major threat.http://www.weeklystandard.com/obama-fires-top-general-without-even-a-phone-call/article/697744
I wonder if Ross still has a job after that editorial.
The response is already happening.
Can’t remember where it was but the article was basically “Trump had nothing to do with the defeat of ISIS, it was all the elite Iraqi forces that beat ISIS.”
Those Iraqi ‘elite’ forces include CTS, PMF, SMG, KDF and 26 partner nations in CJFLCC providing A3E, fire support, logistics support and a metric buttload of other support. So, yeah, technically, the Iraqis are pulling the triggers.
Fair point. I’ve been here in Iraq for going on six months, under Trump; and was here last year under Obama. I’m all ears for somebody telling me what specifically (not rhetorically) changed here from one Administration to the next…….because I really haven’t seen it. And I don’t think that’s taking anything away from the current Administration.
Attitude maybe? Priorities? Actually listening to military advice?
Though I asked for something specific. I can say with some experience that (American) attitude doesn’t make the Iraqis fight any better.