Glenn Greenwald deserves an award for his interview with official war booster Michael O'Hanlon

[BurtWorm]

Greenwald's analysis of the interview is here. Background: O'Hanlon and Brookings colleague (and fellow cheerleader) Ken Pollack have been touring the credulous media claiming to be impartial voices substantiating Petraeus's impending rave reviews for the surge, when in fact, their tour of Iraq was arranged and orchestrated entirely by the US military. The Brookings duo's NY Times op-ed media tour is being used to give the DC foreign policy power establishment (on both sides of the aisle) permission to continue the travesty (or to avoid seeking a rational solution) in Iraq indefinitely.

Greenwald is relentless in his bringing out of O'Hanlan the extent of their co-optation by the military/neo-con establishment. And coward that O'Hanlon really is, he is helpless to defend himself. It's a damning exchange and a must read for everyone who wants to know why Washington is incapable of changing course on this unpopular, immoral, illegal war.

A sample of Greenwald's overview of the interview follows:

***

The entire trip -- including where they went, what they saw, and with whom they spoke -- consisted almost entirely of them faithfully following what O'Hanlon described as "the itinerary the D.O.D. developed."

But to establish their credibility as first-hand witnesses, O'Hanlon and Pollack began their Op-Ed by claiming, in the very first sentence: "VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel. . . . " Yet the overwhelming majority of these "Iraqi military and civilian personnel" were ones hand-picked for them by the U.S. military:

GG: The first line of your Op-Ed said:"viewed from Iraq where we just spent the last eight days interviewing American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel..."

How did you arrange the meetings with the Iraqi military and civilian personnel?

MO: Well, a number of those -- and most of those were arranged by the U.S. military. So I'll be transparent about that as well. These were to some extent contacts of Ken and Tony, but that was a lesser number of people. The predominant majority were people who we came into contact with through the itinerary the D.O.D. developed.

I specifically asked O'Hanlon whether, as a result, he was concerned that he was getting an unrepresentative view of the situation in Iraq, and in response he said:

If someone wanted to argue that we were not getting a representative view of Iraqis because the ones we spoke with were provided by the military, I would agree that this would be a genuine concern. Certainly that might have influenced the impressions that we were presented, though by no means did all of the Iraqis agree with the view of progress in Iraq.

The following exchange then occurred:

GG: Given that some of the claims in your Op-Ed are based upon your conversations with Iraqis, and that the Iraqis with whom you spoke were largely if not exclusively ones provided to you by the U.S. military, shouldn't that fact have been included in your Op-Ed?

MO: If the suggestion is that in a 1,400 word Op-Ed, we ought to have mentioned that, I can understand that criticism, and if we should have included that, I apologize for not having done so. But I want to stress that the focus here was on the perspective of the U.S. military, and I did a lot of probing of what I was told, and remain confident in the conclusions that we reached about the military successes which we highlighted. But if you're suggesting that some of our impressions might have been shaped by the military's selection of Iraqis, and that we might have disclosed that, that is, I think, fair enough.

Subsequently, I pressed him again on how they could possibly rely on what they were hearing given that virtually all of the vaunted "Iraqi military and civilian personnel" with whom they were speaking were hand-picked for them. O'Hanlon acknowledged:

I will take your point and I would agree with your point that we were certainly not getting a representative view of Iraqi opinion.


***

The interview transcript is here.

[WCGreen]

1. They were both pretty severe in their criticism on the run up to the

war...

[TwilightGardener]

2. My understanding was that they both supported the invasion--

AND the surge. They simply don't want to be wrong and discredit themselves.

[BurtWorm]

4. Pardon my French, but merde de torreau

The author of The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq was severe in his criticism of the runup to the war?

:wtf:

[Elidor]

11. No, actually they weren't. That's just what they tell people in the media

So that their editorials can be held up as proof that "doubters" about the war now see it working. The media helps them along.

[leftchick]

14. they sure WERE NOT!

lord almighty....

<snip>

Yet the authors – and the New York Times – failed to tell readers the full story about these supposed skeptics: far from grizzled peaceniks, O’Hanlon and Pollack have been longtime cheerleaders for a larger U.S. military occupying force in Iraq.

Indeed, Pollack, a former CIA analyst, was a leading advocate for invading Iraq in the first place. He published The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq in September 2002, just as the Bush administration was gearing up its marketing push for going to war.

British journalist Robert Fisk called Pollack’s book the “most meretricious contribution to this utterly fraudulent ‘debate’ in the United States.” (Meretricious, by the way, refers to something that is based on pretense, deception or insincerity.)

Neocon ‘Full Monte’

Pollack’s influential book offered the “full monte” neoconservative vision for remaking the Middle East, with the Iraq invasion as only the first step in the transformation. Ousting Saddam Hussein “would sever the ‘linkage’ between the Iraq issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Pollack wrote. “It would remove an important source of anti-Americanism.”

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/073007.html

[WCGreen]

15. Everybody was for the war then except for those of us who could

see the truth...

But O'Hanlon was very critical at the begining...

I remember he was one of the only talking heads after the Invasion to point out how undermanned and unplanned the mission was...

He questioned assessments and tactics and was worried about stabilization when most everyone else was ready to build and Arch i DC...

[BurtWorm]

16. The point is, he thought invading Iraq was a brilliant idea.

It's people like O'Hanlon and Pollack--ostensible "liberals" and Democrats--whose blessing of the idea of war made it "respectable."

People like O'Hanlon and Pollack are immoral idiots--useful to the powers that be--for their role in the lead up to the war.

[malaise]

3. O'Hanlon should head back to MSM

and eat crow.

[KharmaTrain]

5. So Little Coverage Of This...Typical

The Rove machine strikes again...get out a storyline...even if it's a blatant lie or distortion...turn up the mighty Wurlitzer of hate radio and telepundits and the story not only gets legs but some wierd credibility. When the truth or transperancy surfaces, the retractions, if made, are done quietly or in a way to appear that the person questioning is "not getting it or missing the point". Factual errors get buried and the corporate media moves on to another misdirection while rarely, if ever, going back to correct the record.

I've been glad to see Glenn get a little more TV and "mainstream" print time these days...he's one of the finest analyists of this time.

Cheers...

[BurtWorm]

7. The really tragic thing, KT, is it's not just Rove.

It's the whole corrupt foreign policy establishment. And this is how they always operate. With utter contempt for both the truth and the American people.

[pretzel4gore]

8. yes. and who foots the bill?

that's what jams my crank: we pay the foreign policy est. and we provide them with damn good living, yet they devote themselves to private interests which ultimately want to kill the golden goose which provides them their enjoyable lives! i do not understand it, and i'm old (57) with too damn much books read and things seen/experienced. these rightwing fukkups(?) insult intelligence by dancing to a tune noone ever heard of? nevermind that they're crapping in their own kids' soup!

[KharmaTrain]

9. Deja Vu Of Vietnam 1967

Burt...I've been sorta tracking this war for profit on a Vietnam timetable...from Ia Drang to Vietnamazation and how the government then and now have spun the narrative and attempted to create a false reality of the situation. This regime has taken it to an art form. This is chattle for those who want...need...to believe we're winning. It's the set up for the future talking point where "our military didn't lose Iraq"...but how the rest of that statement is completed will be interesting.

Cheers...

[BurtWorm]

10. Creepy how the establishment gets on the same train over and over...

and I ain't talking about a Kharma train!

;)

PS: (Unless we're talking bad kharma. :scared: )

[wtmusic]

6. "Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008".

THEN Iraqis will see the wisdom of our invasion.

Batshit crazy. :crazy:

[calimary]

12. michael o'hanlon is SUCH A TOOL. A tool of the wrong-wing.

I saw him on some CNN program where he was presumably the "liberal" position on hand to argue against whatever CONservative bluster-bunny was spewing lies and bile. o'hanlon fell all over himself with this person. ALMOST EVERY FUCKING SENTENCE of his began with - "well, I agree with (knuckledragger so-n-so) because..." or "well, (knuckledragger so-n-so) makes a good point about..."

I wrote an email to him asking WTF. I started out with a compliment about how good he looked on camera - I put it in my subject line in hopes of appealing to his vanity. Sure enough, he took the bait and responded. I said something like - "congratulations on your appearance on CNN. You looked really great on camera! I just wondered why you spent so much time agreeing with, or reinforcing, the views of the person you were supposed to be opposing." I'm paraphrasing. This was several years ago, after all.

But sure enough, his vanity made him open my email and read it all the way through, and he emailed me back - about how he thought it was oh-so-much more important to show all the ways you could agree with your opponents. Because we're just SO divided as a country and all (heavily batting eyelashes). IDIOT!!! So he passes up another opportunity to present the other side of the argument which is far more true and deserves to be heard anyway, not to mention being able to showcase the differences between the nutcase and the rational, thinking, discerning, and informed liberal. Basically, all the viewers were given was a one-sided debate with the one side presented by its backer and the "opponent" confirming and validating that same side. What bullshit. Go host "Romper Room," o'hanlon if you wanna just make nice-nice and play patty-cake with your opponents. If you're going to be speaking about public policy, you can't go armed to the battle with feather-dusters when the guys you're facing arrived with loaded AK-47s.

BTW - o'hanlon is also in bed with the PNAC. He's written pieces for the American Enterprise Institute and the PNAC. Not an actual signatory but one of the lower-level people.

Do NOT be fooled by him. DO NOT trust him. He is NOT one of us.

[BlooInBloo]

13. He deserves awards for a variety of exposes. The Drudgico one, for example....

... Which nobody read.