David Kilcullen, the counterterrorism expert currently advising the American military in Iraq, whom I’ve frequently referred to since reading about him in George Packer’s New Yorker article “Knowing the Enemy,” posts at the Small Wars Journal (via Wretchard at the Belmont Club).

Kilcullen takes on the Guardian, its anonymous source(s), and by implication (because he addresses the snide tone and attitude of the “reporting”) the rest of the MSM:

Today’s Guardian article (“Military Chiefs Give US Six Months to Win Iraq War”) misrepresents the Baghdad advisers. So much so, it makes me doubt the reliability of the single, unidentified source responsible for much of the article’s reporting.

I hope SWJ colleagues will forgive this more “personal” post than usual, but as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser I have a duty to set the record straight on this.

There is a real country called Iraq, where a real war is going on, with real progress but very real challenges. We are not going to “win the war” in six months — nor would anyone expect to. But the Guardian seems to be describing some completely different, (possibly mythical) country, and some imaginary group of harried and depressed advisers bearing no resemblance to reality. As counterinsurgency professionals, we take a fact-based approach and we are well aware of the extremely demanding task we face. That makes us cautious realists …

But the point of Kilcullen’s post is not to lash out at the media. It’s to refute, point by point, the inaccuracies and, even more important, the innuendoes mischaracterizations in the Guardian. For example:

• the article (incorrectly) describes me as a serving military officer – I’m a civilian diplomat, as any source truly familiar with the team’s thinking would be well aware. …

• The plan is not “unclear” or “constantly changing” – we all know exactly what the plan is. The article seems to be mistaking the freedom and agility which have been granted to us, allowing us to respond dynamically to a dynamic situation, for vacillation.

I’m sure Kilcullen will be ripped to shreds by the usual Doubting Thomases, but it’s good to see someone in authority and with real knowledge clarify the situation on the ground, put it in context, and underscore the long road ahead.

That’s true even in Iraq. And Omar Fadhil, reporting for PJ Media, has some for Baghdad, where, he says, there are incremental signs of change for the better:

I have recently been to districts in Baghdad where a month or two ago I wouldn’t have thought of going to. In the last week or two I’ve showed my ID to soldiers and policemen in checkpoints dozens of times. A few months ago this was considered an extremely risky thing to do — especially for someone whose ID shows a name and profession such as mine. “Omar” is a pure Sunni name and everyone here knows that scores of young Baghdadi men were killed by death squads just because they had the name.

Numbers are always useful in assessing results of any effort, and the numbers so far are on the good guys’ side. I read today that the count of various death squads’ victims for this month is one half that of January, and little more than one third that of December of last year. This comes from the official figures reported by the Baghdad morgue.

Omar also reports that displaced familes have started to return to their homes, and that business owners are reopening shops (though thousands remained shuttered).

He’s not predicting that peace will break out tomorrow, however:

I regard this as a further positive sign of a change in Baghdad’s daily life. It means that those shopkeepers are leaving their fear behind, and openly ignoring the threats of militias and insurgents who once ruled the streets and intimidated the people with threats and violence. The results of Operation “Imposing Law” are not magical. We didn’t expect them to be magical. The commanders didn’t claim they’d be when the Operation began. Still these latest developments are certainly promising.

Carter doesn’t want to debate? Whatever. It’s his prerogative, and his legacy.

Here’s a book that punctures some holes in his fairy tell tale. It’s about some of the Palestinians who are not poor and dispossessed: the merciless thugs and gangsters of Hamas, who brutalize their people with impunity and claim that the Zionists made them do it:

How does a group that operates terror cells and espouses violence become a ruling political party? How is the world to understand and respond to Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that Palestinian voters brought to power in the stunning election of January 2006?

This important book provides the most fully researched assessment of Hamas ever written. Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert with extensive field experience in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, draws aside the veil of legitimacy behind which Hamas hides. He presents concrete, detailed evidence from an extensive array of international intelligence materials, including recently declassified CIA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security reports.

Levitt demolishes the notion that Hamas’ military, political, and social wings are distinct from one another and catalogues the alarming extent to which the organization’s political and social welfare leaders support terror. He exposes Hamas as a unitary organization committed to a militant Islamist ideology, urges the international community to take heed, and offers well-considered ideas for countering the significant threat Hamas poses.

They just won’t reject Rudy, goddammit. (He may play the Theme Song from 9/11 everywhere he goes, but they don’t know him like we know him, says New York magazine.)

Enter the Politico: Fuggedabout Rudy! He’ just too liberal for you!

Giuliani-Appointed Judges Tend to Lean to the Left

When Rudy Giuliani faces Republicans concerned about his support of gay rights and legal abortion, he reassures them that he is a conservative on the decisions that matter most.

“I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,” he told South Carolina Republicans last month. “Those are the kinds of justices I would appoint — Scalia, Alito and Roberts.”

But most of Giuliani’s judicial appointments during his eight years as mayor of New York were hardly in the model of Chief Justice John Roberts or Samuel Alito — much less aggressive conservatives in the mold of Antonin Scalia.

A Politico review of the 75 judges Giuliani appointed to three of New York state’s lower courts found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by more than 8 to 1.

Scared yet? Well, McCain just announced. Sorta. In the “newly usual way” (according to the NYT’s Adam Nagourney): on Letterman.

How old school (hat tip: BuzzMachine).

We’re not supposed to say “the n word” in New York City anymore.

“People are using it out of context,” said Leroy Comrie, a black city councilman who sponsored the unanimously passed measure. “People are also denigrating themselves by using the word, and disrespecting their history.”

New York’s resolution is not binding and merely calls on residents to stop using the slur. Leaders of the nation’s largest city also hope to set an example.

I have never uttered “the n word” in my entire life, except on this blog: to defend freedom of speech. Now that my ferociously libertarian hackles are up, however, I just can’t stop. And I won’t stop.
Nigger.

Nigger.

Nigger.

Nigger.

Nigger.

Nigger.

Nigger.

Nigger.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., America’s most consistent liberal (he thought JFK was too conservative), died last night at the age of 89. The NYT writes:

In 1949, Mr. Schlesinger solidified his position as the spokesman for postwar liberalism with his book “The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom.” Inspired by the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, he argued that pragmatic, reform-minded liberalism, limited in scope, was the best that man could hope for politically.

Memo to the Defeatocrats, the girlie men, the moral cowards, and the narcissists of America:

“Problems will always torment us,” he wrote, “because all important problems are insoluble: that is why they are important. The good comes from the continuing struggle to try and solve them, not from the vain hope of their solution.”  [e.a.]

Even Angelina Jolie knows that. Where the hell are all the rest of the goddamn liberals?

First it was a French university professor trying to coax the unwilling into reading books by persuading them that they don’t have to, you know, sit down and read every word from beginning to end (quel surprise!).

Now it’s British publishers who are going for it—only, they’re not bothering to try to persuade:

Two leading publishers have hit on the idea of boiling down classic novels for modern audiences who are too busy/stupid to read the real thing. Orion was first off the blocks with its Compact Classics, which will appear in May - Anna Karenina, Vanity Fair, Moby-Dick, The Mill on the Floss, David Copperfield and Wives and Daughters, all reduced to not more than 400 pages for “less confident readers”.

The Guardian’s Stephen Moss doesn’t want to fall into the “trap” of condemning abridgements. He just has his own ideas of which classic novels are suitable for chopping and lopping:

The fact that Moby-Dick is a digressive, unboildownable whale of a book is the whole point; The Portrait of a Lady, Vanity Fair and Middlemarch are straightforward reads - page turners, even for less confident readers, though in the case of Middlemarch there are admittedly a lot of pages to turn.

Moss also has some suggestions:

HarperCollins is reducing War and Peace from almost 1,500 pages to 900. It says it will give us less war. Perhaps it has hit on the answer. Why not The Only Child Karamazov, Le Misérable, A Tale of Two Medium-Sized Towns, Limited Expectations and A Couple of Days in the Country? That should do the trick.

Me? I don’t care if they create comic-book versions out of the classics … as long as they preserve the essence of the works (which is what has turned them into classics in the first place).

Like Shakespeare’s plays, all of the classics were written to be read (or, in the case of Shakespeare, viewed) by the common man and woman of their day. Many of the classics still have much to teach the common man and woman of today.

The classics should not be inaccessible, just because our language and our storytelling forms, techniques, and media have evolved to put the originals out of our reading comfort zone.

Reading heretics and infidels, unite!

If you love books, set them free (TM).