Retro


Juan Cole points to a WaPo article blaming the chaos of Operation Enduring Clusterfuck...on those on the receiving end:

From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.

Funny enough, I remember seeing in March of 2003 that very prediction:

Eventually the misery of the Iraqi people will be blamed on the Iraqis themselves.

O'Connell didn't get everything right, but, then again, I doubt he--or anyone else--realized the extent of Team Bush's "all we touch turns to shit" incompetence at the time. Still, he got that one right on the money.

I expect blaming the victims of first "shock and awe," then an occupation led by loons will become a fairly standard wingnut talking point, not unlike the way New Orleanians have been blamed for...living in New Orleans. After all, their hero--Dubya hisself--has a known history of shirking blame. The issue, then, becomes whether or not the story can be sold, say, in the same manner that defeat in Vietnam was repackaged into "spitting on the troops," or "the media lost it," etc. etc.

And they might actually get away with this sort of myth manufacture, IF the reality based community shirks ITS responsibility.

Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening.