Gen. Franks' Book

From Instapundit.com:

"TOMMY FRANKS' NEW BOOK, AMERICAN SOLDIER, IS NUMBER ONE on the New York Times bestseller list, but it's not getting a lot of attention. Max Boot explains:

"It is a good read, thanks to the work of veteran ghostwriter Malcolm McConnell; the early sections on Franks's blue-collar upbringing and Vietnam service are particularly affecting. But it has not made as much of a media splash as some other accounts of the administration, because it is not hostile to George W. Bush.

To the contrary, American Soldier rebuts some criticisms directed against the president. Bush has been accused, for instance, of taking his eye off Afghanistan by ordering the plan for a possible war with Iraq in the fall of 2001. Franks writes that, given the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, this was a sensible request, and that "our mission in Afghanistan never suffered" as a result.

Scores of pundits have accused the administration of lying, or at least distorting the evidence, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Franks reveals that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan told him that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Though no weapon of mass destruction was ever found, he writes, "I do not regret my role in disarming Iraq and removing its Baathist regime."

Another charge made against the administration is that political appointees failed to give the generals enough troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, Franks writes, it was his own choice to employ limited forces in order to avoid getting bogged down. Instead of relying on sheer size, he thought surprise and speed were the keys to victory -- a judgment largely vindicated by events."

I hate to buy into a theory as seemingly simplistic and cynical as "if it makes Bush look good, it'll be buried" -- but I can't deny its explanatory power."

Documentaries and Reality TV

Documentaries are cool, but there usually isn't much money in them.

As anyone who knows me already knows, I was not impressed by Fahrenheit 911. I found it trite, unintellectual, and insulting. With the exception of the raw footage from Baghdad, it was a waste of time at best, and a manipulative trick at worst. A friend of mine suggested that even though the movie might be biased and dumb, at least it would get people interested in an important issue. I agree with this only in an abstract way. I think people had to be interested in politics/the-war-in-Iraq before they decided to buy a ticket for the movie, and all the movie really would get them interested in are made-up non-issues. However, I agree with the basic idea that it's better (but only slightly) for people to be watching a documentary, however un-intellectual, than a movie that never purports to have any intellectual component in the first place.

What my friend said did lead me to another idea, though. Maybe this movie's financial success will help bring some real, quality documentaries to the big screen. Since the Fahrenheit 911 craze began, I have heard about Control Room from lots of people and heard that it's excellent. I've also heard about this new documentary called Nine Innings from 9/11 that looks good. If Fahrenheit 911 causes a general upswing in enthusiasm about documentaries, I guess that would be a silver lining to the otherwise dark cloud that it was.

European selfishness

I was reading this article today and it really struck me as representing an amazing selfishness on the part of Germany. Germany didn't support the US in Iraq, even though it owes the US its very existence (in its modern form, at least). It didn't even help bear the financial burden for reconstructing Iraq in any signficant way, even though it stands to benefit greatly from a stable, democratic Iraq.But now the Germans are upset that the US is going to move soldiers out of Germany? They're worried that people in Germany will lose jobs. This is probably true, but it's insane. The Germans are upset because not as much of the US military budget is going to go into the pockets of their restaurant owners, service employees, defense contractors, etc? If you're not a good ally, that's what you get. You can't deny support to US military goals and then cry foul when the US military wants to stop giving you money. Another way to put it is that you can't rely on the US to fight the wars you have no stomach for, absorb the immigrants that you don't want in your country, AND prop up your economy. That's so selfish.

You can't have it both ways

"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The effort by U.S. officials to justify raising the terror alert level last week may have shut down an important source of information that has already led to a series of al Qaeda arrests, Pakistani intelligence sources have said."

The moral of this entry is you can't have it both ways. There are a bunch of people in this country who sit around and second guess things that they have no business second guessing and know nothing about. I can't belive I was reading headlines talking about people questioning whether or not the country needed to be at orange alert as a result of information uncovered in Pakistan (and other places) recently. YOU AREN'T A COUNTER-TERRORIST EXPERT. If you don't trust that the CIA can handle that stuff, then vote for people who want to rearrange the CIA or make oversight committees. Don't sit around and act like somehow you understand better than the trained professionals. When you demand all kinds of justification and don't let elected representatives REPRESENT you, you compel them to do things like leak information so that they can prove they know what they're doing. Now, admittedly, whoever leaked the name of this guy before it was time should not have done so, but it would have been a lot easier for him not to leak anything if there weren't people breathing down his neck every time he tried to do his job.