NY Times: A Groupthink of Their Very Own
by paradox
Last week Gail Collins and the nyt’s editorial staff, subject to scathing criticism in this pixel space many times before, said “We had a groupthink of our own.” But “Now that we are in Iraq, we must do everything possible to see that the country is stabilized before American forces are withdrawn.”
An admission of error with no accompanying list of precise remedies to prevent its reoccurrence in the future and no specific solutions to ameliorating any facet of the present incredible bloody mess we’re in is, regrettably, a simple invitation for more condemnation, which will commence shortly.
Gail Collins is a good person who has far more talent and accomplishments than this author. What is reflected in her team’s thinking and writing on the page is partly the result of many constraints that can’t be seen from the outside. Intellectual immaturity, unfortunately, is not an unknown phenomena in this author’s life history, to put it politely.
The reality of the matter is that when 892 of our soldiers have died with 5,394+ wounded and the reputation of the Unites States in utter ruins the nyt’s is going to be held accountable at The Left Coaster. Approximately 20,000 Iraqis are also dead in all this insanity, an act that was done in every citizen’s name in the United States as the result of this “groupthink.” The proposition that this horror show should just be passively accepted by ordinary citizens--even with their limitations and insignificance-- with no response is absurd.
The act of admitting error with no accompanying future remedy is the intellectual response of a teenager. In no way does Collins address the causes of “groupthink” and how the nyt’s will be avoiding them in the future. Logging into work tomorrow and pulling a stunt like that with no tactical solutions to the ensuing mess would get this author fired—without question. Not all American businesses are dysfunctional, rationalizing failures.
“..we must do everything possible to see that the country is stabilized.” This means precisely nothing—“everything possible” could mean reinstating the draft to getting the hell out of Iraq tomorrow. Stabilized? Jesus Christ, an extremely good argument can be made that the very best way to accomplish that is to leave—nothing could be more destabilizing to Iraq than the presence of 125,000 American troops.
Did it ever occur to the mighty very well paid brains at the nyt’s that Iraq cannot now be stabilized? That the Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, Turks and Al Queda totally control the bloodbath in ways that are impossible to foretell, except that every scenario gives extremely bad results?
Probably so, since they list not one possible helpful tactic to making the shameful current position of the United States better.
The current reputation of the United States and the New York Times is in tatters for precisely such intellectual immaturity as this, and as long as the Bush administration and Gail Collins insist on employing it the more likely the United States will fail and many more human beings will brutally die in vain because of it.