Right, Meet Left.

One of my favorite bloggers, TigerHawk, is often critical of the NYT for various things that appear in The Paper of Record. For example, here, dripping with distaste at having to praise the paper. I am not being [un]critical of the NYT in this post.

Right, Meet Left.

Hands not ideologies or party wings. As in, "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" (original meaning, now modified). Even this modified meaning is not really applicable here. The two NYT articles The War on Error and Death in the Pacific are in the same edition, same section (Sunday Book Review) and are on the same topics (War & America).

The left hand, knows exactly what the right hand is doing. Only, what does the left hand make of what the right hand is doing?



The War on Error reviews No End in Sight, a book accompanying a 2007 documentary film. Death in The Pacific reviews Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-45, a book.

IN THE FRIST case we are told that for No End in Sight (the book) its creator took the material from the film and added new information to include, "additional interviews...[and] his own interpolated commentary and a charming introduction". But still no primary source or first-hand information from key decision makers who still refuse to speak to him.

According to this narrative a series of mistakes, caused by knot-headed ideologues in DC caused Iraq to fall to pieces. The big mistake being disbanding the Iraqi Army. The closer is, "Where do we go from here". It is, afterall, a quagmire. All very 'conventional wisdom'.

IN THE SECOND readers are told that Japanese brutality brought out American ruthlessness. From refusing to pickup Japanese survivors at sea to sinking ships that might have been transporting Allied POWs to fire-bombing Japanese cities. America's "Bomb and burn ’em till they quit." policy won the war.

NOW, MANY POINTS could be made in regard to these two articles. For example, those who oppose the American intervention in Iraq often refuse to accept any comparison what-so-ever to any conflict other than Vietnam. That would be wrongheaded. I think most, if not all, wars begin with a lie. WWII was no exception:

"USS Reuben James (DD-245) sunk after being torpedoed by German submarine U-562 south of Iceland, 31 October 1941."

And it's not as if there were no mistakes made in the Pacific either. Would we not consider Pearl Harbor a massive intelligence failure (like failing to see there were no WMD in Iraq in 2003 or, failing to foresee the insurgency)? Or, what happened in the Philippines to be a result of massive incompetence (akin to the CPA)? Even futher, what about American diplomatic incompetence with regard to the end of the war with Japan and missed a chance to end the war without the use of atomic weapons which were ultimately indecisive.

SO SOME QUESTIONS might be: Why does this war require anything other than ruthlessness? And why will articles like Death in The Pacific and books like Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-45 not be written about Iraq in 60 years time?