November 15, 2001
James Lileks posts another ridiculously good Bleat today, this one largely dealing with the Media Elite (or the Meedyalete in its one-word formation), but also delving into the left's Vast Conspiracy, race, Russia, and the uselessness of treaties. The whole thing's worth reading (well, you might not care that much about his computer backup), but here's an excerpt:
Saw a press conference yesterday - a journalist asked Stuffles about reports that the Taliban was going into the mountains to mount a guerrilla war. "Are we prepared for such a war?" he asked. What a stupid question. It’s a knee-jerk reiteration of the Meedyalete’s favorite trope: we got spanked in Vietnam, and hence would get spanked again whenever we tiptoe "in country." Nicholas Von Hoffman’s stupendously wrong column this week had the same idea: We are, he said, "increasingly fogged-out and disoriented by the unconventional struggle of people who don’t fight by the rules taught at the Army War College." Yes, I’m sure the last 30 years at the Army War College have been spent ignoring the lessons of Vietnam, because they’re all stupid, and they want troops to die.
The real question would be "how are we prepared for such a war," which leads to a discussion of the balance of forces, the Taliban’s supply-line problems, the fact that our troops will be better fed, warm in the winter, eagle-eyed in the night, connected to a highly responsive logistical network, and on the offense instead of the defense.
But that’s not what the reporter asked. Perhaps later he wondered why he asked such a stupid question. Perhaps his colleagues did as well. And perhaps this helps explain why the Meedyalete are also in a state of despair: having spent all their lives snickering at the concept of "military intelligence" as an oxymoron, some now have a sneaking suspicion that the men and women who assemble an army halfway across the world might actually be as smart as the people who put together newspapers halfway across town.
If such a thing is true, then there is no God.
Saw a press conference yesterday - a journalist asked Stuffles about reports that the Taliban was going into the mountains to mount a guerrilla war. "Are we prepared for such a war?" he asked. What a stupid question. It’s a knee-jerk reiteration of the Meedyalete’s favorite trope: we got spanked in Vietnam, and hence would get spanked again whenever we tiptoe "in country." Nicholas Von Hoffman’s stupendously wrong column this week had the same idea: We are, he said, "increasingly fogged-out and disoriented by the unconventional struggle of people who don’t fight by the rules taught at the Army War College." Yes, I’m sure the last 30 years at the Army War College have been spent ignoring the lessons of Vietnam, because they’re all stupid, and they want troops to die.
The real question would be "how are we prepared for such a war," which leads to a discussion of the balance of forces, the Taliban’s supply-line problems, the fact that our troops will be better fed, warm in the winter, eagle-eyed in the night, connected to a highly responsive logistical network, and on the offense instead of the defense.
But that’s not what the reporter asked. Perhaps later he wondered why he asked such a stupid question. Perhaps his colleagues did as well. And perhaps this helps explain why the Meedyalete are also in a state of despair: having spent all their lives snickering at the concept of "military intelligence" as an oxymoron, some now have a sneaking suspicion that the men and women who assemble an army halfway across the world might actually be as smart as the people who put together newspapers halfway across town.
If such a thing is true, then there is no God.
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