Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Fallujah, Juan Cole and Intellectual Dishonesty
Juan Cole is at it again. “It does not matter that some Fallujans are trying to kill Marines. You cannot punish the entire city for that. … Although about 1/3 of Fallujans have reportedly left the city, that would leave 200,000 or so inside.” If I wanted to be an ass, I would say that they are being collectively punished because they are collectively guilty. However, the fact of the matter is that the city as a whole is not being “punished”. The fighting as a whole has been fairly localized and by pointing out that 200,000 are still left in the city Cole is being deliberately deceptive. The majority of those in the combat zones have fled. Another thing that is particular irksome is that while Cole and others stress the number of combatants to give the impression that the US is using “a jack hammer to crack a walnut” and that the rest of population is completely without guilt, they invariably fail to mention the large number of people connected to the guerrillas in some form. Such a policy is direct contrast of to his usual policy of debunking the ridiculous claims of Rumsfeld and others that the insurgency is limited to terrorists and thugs. Indeed this is what Juan Cole said in regard to claims that Sadr ‘only has 10,000 militia men under his command. “In fact that is the size of his formal militia. Muqtada's movement is like the layers of an onion. You have 10,000 militiamen. But then you have tens of thousands of cadres able to mobilize neighborhoods. Then you have hundreds of thousands of Sadrists, followers of Muqtada and other heirs of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr." Yet another form of intellectual dishonestly engaged in by Cole is to say that what is happening to Fallujah is an extreme response to what happened to those four contractors. This is ridiculous. The Americans did not go into Fallujah because of what happened to the contractors. Fallujah has been a source of trouble for over a year now and what happened to the contractors was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Juan Cole is at it again. “It does not matter that some Fallujans are trying to kill Marines. You cannot punish the entire city for that. … Although about 1/3 of Fallujans have reportedly left the city, that would leave 200,000 or so inside.” If I wanted to be an ass, I would say that they are being collectively punished because they are collectively guilty. However, the fact of the matter is that the city as a whole is not being “punished”. The fighting as a whole has been fairly localized and by pointing out that 200,000 are still left in the city Cole is being deliberately deceptive. The majority of those in the combat zones have fled. Another thing that is particular irksome is that while Cole and others stress the number of combatants to give the impression that the US is using “a jack hammer to crack a walnut” and that the rest of population is completely without guilt, they invariably fail to mention the large number of people connected to the guerrillas in some form. Such a policy is direct contrast of to his usual policy of debunking the ridiculous claims of Rumsfeld and others that the insurgency is limited to terrorists and thugs. Indeed this is what Juan Cole said in regard to claims that Sadr ‘only has 10,000 militia men under his command. “In fact that is the size of his formal militia. Muqtada's movement is like the layers of an onion. You have 10,000 militiamen. But then you have tens of thousands of cadres able to mobilize neighborhoods. Then you have hundreds of thousands of Sadrists, followers of Muqtada and other heirs of Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr." Yet another form of intellectual dishonestly engaged in by Cole is to say that what is happening to Fallujah is an extreme response to what happened to those four contractors. This is ridiculous. The Americans did not go into Fallujah because of what happened to the contractors. Fallujah has been a source of trouble for over a year now and what happened to the contractors was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
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