Michael O'Hanlon wants us to know that contrary to myth, the Army's just in great shape and not at all overburdened by the situation in Iraq. Brandon Freidman points out considerable evidence from within the military that O'Hanlon is wrong and the conventional wisdom got in place because it's, you know, true.
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O'Hanlon v. Army
06 May 2008 09:08 am
Comments (12)
To suggest in any way that the troops and the military are dealing with objectively measurable difficulties means you hate the troops.
The only difficulties you are allowed to discuss regarding the military and the troops are those that have to do with imaginary measures of how much those latte-sipping ivory tower no-flag-pin-wearing liberals hate them.
The Micheal Brown of national security strikes again.
OK, this is the last straw. We're taking O'Hanlon down. You'll be the smooth-talking celebrity blogger who gets us in the front door at Brookings. I'll bring the pie and the getaway car.
O'Hanlon is part of the Military-Inudtrial-Academic complex. Once you're in, no matter how stupid and wrong you are, you remain a member (as long as you toe the line) and are treated seriously. Anti-war types will never be treated seriously because they don't know the secret handshake.
Ah -- I misread the Byline. Thought it meant O'Hanlon was joining the Army.
By most measures of quality, it still looks roughly comparable to say the early years of the Reagan buildup — if not necessarily as strong as its typical state of the late Reagan years or the 1990s.
Replace "early years of the Reagan buildup" with "immediately post-Carter", widely regarded as the nadir of Army readiness post-Vietnam and post-Desert One and O'Hanlan actually in an extremely wankeriffic way says that the Army is as broke as it was in 1982.
O'Hanlon is a reverse polymath: he's full of shit on an extensive variety of subjects.
O'Hanlon is angry that Doug Feith retains the crown up "Dumbest *&%$*$# On the Planet," and he's ready to go Shmoe-to-Shmoe with the Champ for a shot at the title. Somebody call Don King.
It's not like Hanlon has any direct experience with anything except writing reports in DC. His report-writing instincts tell him there's a market for this particular line of bull.
"The only difficulties you are allowed to discuss regarding the military and the troops are those that have to do with imaginary measures of how much those latte-sipping ivory tower no-flag-pin-wearing liberals hate them."
You forgot all those evil Iranians killing our troops in Iraq - so we have to bomb, bomb, bomb Iran to save our troops - who will be within range of a couple thousand Iranian missiles once we do so (not to mention within range of several million enraged Iraqi Shia when we do so.)
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Heads in the Sand
Don't fret!
Soros earned $3B last year betting against mortgage securities, while Saban's highly-leveraged buyout of Univision is running into a lot of trouble.
Seems to me there's a pretty good chance that Saban may have to sell off his Middle East division of Brookings, and Soros may snap it up at a bargain price. Then O'Hanlon will start saying things you like, unless of course AEI picks up his contract for three future draft-picks plus a couple of ignorant interns.
Posted by RKU | May 6, 2008 9:31 AM