Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Republican Chicken Littles and the Personal Power of Cowardice II

Do Senators and Representatives actually read the Iraq reports that are delivered to them or are they just listening to staffers that slavishly watch network news as if theirs jobs depend on it? If so, their jobs are safe for a while, but also so are our lives as we know them.

I propose pop quizzes on the floors of Congress with public grading on C-SPAN. Those who fail should get swats in the well aired on network nightly news right after the film by al Qaeda segments are aired.

How Al Qaeda is Winning Even as it is Losing

But al Qaeda's largest harvest from "random slaughter" strategy was realized in America. Through acts of indiscriminate violence transmitted by the media, insurgents brought their war to America's living rooms. The atrocity-of-the-day is the principal informational input most Americans receive. This forms their knowledge base. The public does not live in the villages and mahalas of Iraq. Patterns of recovery, of normalcy, are not evident.

This is the essence of 4th Generation Warfare. And al Qaeda is clearly winning
it. . . . Al Qaeda is running its war on smoke and mirrors - or, more accurately, on bytes of sound and sight. Congress could act on General Petraeus' reports from the ground, rather than broadcasts generated by insurgents. This requires a simple commitment - one foreign to many in the elective branch: Leadership.