Reporters are terrible reporting military actions

Nicholas Kristoff has done great work, often on his own, on Darfur – but he needs a military advisor to keep his credibility in line. He stepped in it the other day out of frustration and illustrated why so much of the commentary about military actions from the MSM is so bad – they really have no idea what they are talking about. It also explains how they often respond the way they do to the “fog of war” when things don’t go quite as planned. They never do, but they expect the military to be perfect.

One measure we could take would be to enforce a no-fly zone from the air base in Abéché, Chad. The president of Chad says he would be happy to have Americans do this, and it would be easy: instead of keeping airplanes in the air, we would simply wait until a Sudanese plane bombed a village, then strafe that plane on the ground afterward. (The first time, we would just damage the plane; we would destroy any after that.)

That is an impossible mission. Even Lex couldn’t make a strafing run like that. If you want action like that, I want to hear about your acceptance of POWs (ours) deaths (ours and theirs and their Chinese advisors) and the deaths of civilians (because that will always happen). Also I want your support when the “known unknowns” and the “unknown unknowns” happen after you start a war – which is what you are doing. Remember, the movie The Four Feathers took place in Sudan. These people aren’t that different.

If he really thinks any of this is possible, he needs to get some military friends to help him out to better understand the reality of warfare and the physics of breaking things and killing people. NK, drop me a line, I will be happy to help out next time, and stop you from walking around with your zipper down. Your heart and head are in the right place here.