The Common Ills: So you spin and get caught and you're lightly chided?

Tuesday, June 09, 2015

So you spin and get caught and you're lightly chided?

Last week, Antony Blinken publicly asserted that over 10,000 Islamic State fighters had been killed in airstrikes. The Deputy Secretary of State used the questionable number in an effort to promote the notion that -- despite the fall of Ramadi -- the coalition was 'winning.'

Mitchell Prothero (McClatchy Newspapers) offers an analysis which includes:

But the casualty numbers are impossible to confirm independently and suggest that, at best, the Islamic State is a far larger organization than American officials initially imagined, and it is having no difficulty recruiting new members from across the world. Pledges made last year that Iraqi forces would soon mount an offensive to take back Mosul are now considered to have been unrealistic.
President Barack Obama on Monday acknowledged that the Islamic State’s recent gains show a shift in strategy is needed. “They’re nimble and they’re aggressive and they’re opportunistic,” he said of the group, also known as ISIL or ISIS.
Speaking at the close of the G-7 conference in Germany, Obama said he had asked the Pentagon for a plan to accelerate U.S. military efforts to train and equip Iraqi forces. “We don’t have, yet, a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of Iraqis as well,” Obama said. “The details are not worked out.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.

com/2015/06/08/269204/islamic-state-still-standing-after.html#storylink=cpy

I don't understand the 'delicacy' of the press.

From the moment Blinken announced the numbers, there were a number in the press pushing back. Days later, everyone's still tip-toeing.

If a Bully Boy Bush official had been caught spinning like that, it would be a major story for days and days and lead to examinations of the overall strategy (or 'strategy') and critiques and so much more.

Barack's nebulous 'plan' leads to light and airy commentary passed off as critiques and analysis.

The following community sites updated: