One of the things writ­ing the U.S. media roundup on [IraqSlogger](http://www.iraqslogger.com) allows me to do is get a high dud­geon up over the crap that passes for analy­sis on op-​ed pages … or sloppy writ­ing in the mid­dle of report­ing. (Michael Gor­don of the *New York Times* has been [raked over the coals](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/08pubed.html) for his indis­crim­i­nate use of “al Qaeda” to describe most Iraqis with a Kalash­nikov, but thank­fully that seems to have been reined in.)
Oth­ers have been less care­ful. On Fri­day, Leslie Sab­bagh of the *Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor* writes that Petraeus warned of “greatly increased sec­tar­ian vio­lence” if the U.S. pulls out too soon. It’s a fairly run-​of-​the mill story, with stats show­ing a drop in attacks against civil­ians and an increase against U.S. troops. Pretty much what you’d expect, but there is some sloppy lan­guage in here. Sab­bagh writes of a “quick with­drawal,” but few peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton are talk­ing about any­thing hasty. They’re talk­ing about the start of a with­drawal sooner rather than later — one that might take six months, a year, what­ever — not a pell-​mell rush to the bor­der.
Sab­bagh does it again, writ­ing, “The prospect of any hasty removal of US troops has (Petraeus) con­cerned.” But the gen­eral actu­ally said, “If we pull out there will be greatly increased sec­tar­ian vio­lence, human­i­tar­ian con­cerns.…” Petraeus makes no men­tion of the speed of the pull­out; he ques­tions the wis­dom of a pull­out alto­gether. The mil­i­tary com­mand and the Bush White House seem to be envi­sion­ing a long-​term pres­ence in Iraq that will last years, but reporters are think­ing of a evac­u­a­tion, Saigon style. Those are two very dif­fer­ent ideas. Reporters need to let the read­ers know when Petraeus, Bush, et al. are try­ing to reframe the debate as a choice between a hasty, unplanned retreat and an indef­i­nite pres­ence. What’s actu­ally being talked about is either an indef­i­nite pres­ence or an orderly with­drawal with proper force-​protection over a period of time, but which begins sooner rather than never.
But for an egre­gious exam­ple of high weird­ness, check out the *Monitor*‘s pub­li­ca­tion of [an op-​ed by Andrew Roberts](http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p09s01-coop.html), author of “A His­tory of the English-​Speaking Peo­ples Since 1900.” In this extra­or­di­nary op-​ed, Roberts argues that “the English-​speaking peo­ples” (ESPs) of the world are the ones best able to stand up to rad­i­cal, total­i­tar­ian Islam because Anglo­phones have never been invaded or fallen under the sway of fas­cism or com­mu­nism. “Coun­tries in which Eng­lish is the pri­mary lan­guage are cul­tur­ally, polit­i­cally, and mil­i­tar­ily dif­fer­ent” — read, “bet­ter” — “from the rest of ‘the West,’” he writes. “They stand for moder­nity, reli­gious and sex­ual tol­er­a­tion, cap­i­tal­ism, diver­sity, women’s rights, rep­re­sen­ta­tive insti­tu­tions — in a word, the future.” Yeah! Suck it, Ger­many, Spain and Italy! (Who have all com­mit­ted troops and suf­fered casu­al­ties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and else­where since ⁹⁄₁₁.)
Seri­ously, this offen­sively nativist tract must come as a sur­prise to the those non-​English-​speaking peo­ples of the world (poor sods), but maybe they’ll be con­tent to bask in the warm pro­tec­torate of the US-​Canadian-​British-​ANZ imperium. There is just so much wrong with this op-​ed — such as say­ing the inva­sion of South Korea by North Korea was a “sur­prise” attack for the world’s ESPs when it sounds like it was more a sur­prise to the South Kore­ans. And his rep­e­ti­tion of the whole ESP phrase is grat­ing. Finally, he just up and ignores the con­tri­bu­tions of Ger­man sol­diers in Afghanistan and the French Navy in patrolling the vital sea lanes through­out the Ara­bian and Indian oceans. And he trots out the old, “Al Qaeda can’t be appeased because the French would have already done so” trope. WTF? Is this a joke?
There’s much more — so much more. I’m leav­ing out the pablum from such lumi­nar­ies as Bill Kris­tol — “the Bush pres­i­dency will be seen as a sucess” — and the *Wall Street Jour­nal* edi­to­r­ial page. I mean, we all know what’s the score with those guys. But I expected a bit more from the *Mon­i­tor*.
Finally, my lat­est col­umn for [Spot-on.com](http://www.spot-on.com/) is avail­able. In it, I take up — what else? — [the 1^st anniver­sary of the Israel-​Hezbollah war](http://www.spot-on.com/archives/allbritton/2007/07/lebanons_war_one_year_later.html). (Some peo­ple call it the July War, but since half of it hap­pened in August, I’ll stick with my appel­la­tion, thanks.)
That’s all. More to come!