Hayden smacks down warmongering writer for distorting Kerry's plan

[ProSense]

Tom Hayden
05.03.2006

where is george packer? does he favor the war forever?

George Packer writes more eloquently about Iraq than anyone in the establishment, usually for the very influential audience who read the NY Times magazine, the New Yorker, etcetera. His special talent is writing persuasively and gracefully about how impossible it is to withdraw from Iraq. His function is to freeze liberals where they are, which his crowd thinks is better than supporting withdrawal.

In fact, withdrawal is virtually taboo, delegitimizing, for anyone seeking a mainstream forum. In fact, the spectrum of "serious" debate nearly eliminates the option of withdrawal altogether. Like Packer, we apparently are to accept the tragic burden of justifying a war which is unjustifiable, but which will somehow become more tragic if we stop the justifications.

Packer's latest pronouncement as a key gatekeeper of acceptable opinion is a subtle assault on Sen. John Kerry in the May 8 New Yorker. Packer credits Kerry for "having found his voice" in his recent anti-war speech, but then criticizes Kerry for calling for withdrawal by the end of the year. "But abandoning Iraq is an exasperated rush will leave ordinary Iraqis far more vulnerable to the murderous conduct of the militias and the insurgents than they are now", Packer writes, in a declaration more inelegant than his usual prose. Without an "American buffer", he warns, there will be a wider war and a "larger safe zone for jihadis."

Snip...

In this case, he cleverly alters Kerry's proposal by leaving out the international summit Kerry has proposed to address peacekeeping, reconstruction and other issues concerning the transition to a post-war period. Kerry thus is categorized as an uncaring advocate of "out now", unlike Packer who at least cares about the killing he seems to support forever.

Snip...

While distorting and dismissing Kerry for "finding his voice", Packer applauds the recent op-ed by Leslie Gelb and Sen. Joe Biden calling for a devolved, tripartite Iraq - Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite - with a weakened central government to assure the fair share of oil revenues and other matters. This is the longstanding preference of numerous neo-conservatives, and Israeli officials, to put an end to Arab nationalism. By redefining Iraqis along tribal, not national lines, by weakening the central state apparatus, a threat to stability (oil stability, Israeli stability, presumably) would be removed from the Middle East.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/where-is-george-packer-d_b_20323.html