Some other analysts do not object to Mr. McCain's portraying the insurgency (or multiple insurgencies) in Iraq as that of Al Qaeda. They say he is using a "perfectly reasonable catchall phrase" that, although it may be out of place in an academic setting, is acceptable on the campaign trail, a place that "does not lend itself to long-winded explanations of what we really are facing," said Kenneth M. Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
In an academic setting, there's time for the truth. But out on the campaign trail amidst the unwashed masses? Deception is perfectly fine, of course!
Where do they find these people, and why does the NYT keep giving them time?
This isn't hard. Al Qaeda is a specific group with specific goals, tactics, and strategies. Using its name as a "catch phrase" when speaking to the citizens of the country is only acceptable if you believe that the people don't need such details when deciding how to vote. But last time I checked, this was still a republic, with the government deriving its power form the consent of the governed. It might be easier for people like McCain and Pollack if they didn't need to involve the people in the affairs of state, but that's not how our system works.
George Orwell had it exactly right: language is everything in politics. If we choose to misuse language, we are on a very fundamental level choosing to lie.
Later in the article, the NYT provides the details that make this clear. Sadly, they never circle back around to examine what this evidence tells us about McCain's claims and his campaign. Instead, they leave it, as they so often do, framed as an unreasonable "he sad/she said" dispute. But why? If even McCain's supporters admit that he is using a "catch phrase" that doesn't accurately depict reality, they have already admitted that his statements are not true. Sure thing, his people try to spin his misrepresentations as a positive thing, but even they are not willing to dispute that his statements are in fact false. By their own admissions, that is beyond dispute.
Here, for the record, is the relevant portion of the article that sets out the facts:
But some students of the insurgency say Mr. McCain is making a dangerous generalization. "The U.S. has not been fighting Al Qaeda, it's been fighting Iraqis," said Juan Cole, a fierce critic of the war who is the author of "Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi'ite Islam" and a professor of history at the University of Michigan. A member of Al Qaeda "is technically defined as someone who pledges fealty to Osama bin Laden and is given a terror operation to carry out. It's kind of like the Mafia," Mr. Cole said. "You make your bones, and you're loyal to a capo. And I don't know if anyone in Iraq quite fits that technical definition."
Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is just one group, though a very lethal one, in the stew of competing Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iranian-backed groups, criminal gangs and others that make up the insurgency in Iraq. That was vividly illustrated last month when the Iraqi Army's unsuccessful effort to wrest control of Basra from the Shiite militia groups that hold sway there led to an explosion of violence.The current situation in Iraq should properly be described as "a multifactional civil war" in which "the government is composed of rival Shia factions" and "they are embattled with an outside Shia group, the Mahdi Army," Ira M. Lapidus, a co-author of "Islam, Politics and Social Movements" and a professor of history at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an e-mail message. "The Sunni forces are equally hard to assess," he added, and "it is an open question as to whether Al Qaeda is a unified operating organization at all."
Three paragraphs and you've got the basics. But for some reason, Pollack thinks that's too much for the American people to handle.
You want elitism? That's your elitism right there.
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