In the wake of the Monica Goodling Congressional testimony, James Joyner laments the lack of adult supervision in the Bush Administration Justice Department.
Joyner has a valid point, but did he just notice the problem now?
Regardless of one’s position on the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, this does not sound good:
Staff Sgt. David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents. [. . .]
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomberís body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
ìI thought, ëWhat are we doing here? Why are we still here?í î said Sergeant Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the First Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. ìWeíre helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.î [. . .]
On April 29, a Delta Company patrol was responding to a tip at Al Sadr mosque, a short distance from its base. The soldiers saw men in the distance erecting burning barricades, and the streets emptied out quickly. Then a militia, believed to be the Mahdi Army, which is affiliated with the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, began firing at them from rooftops and windows.
[Sgt. Kevin OíFlarity] and his squad maneuvered their Humvees through alleyways and side streets, firing back at an estimated 60 insurgents during a gun battle that raged for two and a half hours. . . .When the battle was over, Delta Company learned that among the enemy dead were at least two Iraqi Army soldiers that American forces had helped train and arm.
Following this post from last month, the Chronicle’s Richard Justice continues to lead the cheerleading (see also here) for the Houston Texans:
Times have changed. The Texans have this city’s best owner in Bob McNair. They have competent people in charge, especially GM Rick Smith. They’ve got a core of talented under players around which to build, and for the first time, they’ve got veteran leadership. The Texans seem headed for respectability in Gary Kubiak’s second year on the job.
Interestingly, Justice’s effusive praise of the Kubiak-Smith regime sounds remarkably similar to the following September 12, 2004 article ($) extolling the talents of the now disgraced Charlie Casserly and Dom Capers:
The Texans have made good use of their honeymoon. They’ve drafted wisely and spent shrewdly on free agents. They’ve assembled a front office admired around the NFL. Their players seem to be quality people. [. . .]
The danger for them is that their greatest strength could become their greatest weakness. They’ve done so many things right and have built such a model operation that it’s impossible not to put expectations on a fast track. [. . .]
So far, it’s impossible not to be impressed with what the Texans have done. They are run as efficiently as any sports franchise I’ve ever been around.
Just before the start of training camp, Casserly gathered his employees and thanked them for all their hard work. Then he went down the list of different departments and explained some little thing each had done that made the team – and the organization – better.
That’s the kind of thing the people who run sports franchises almost never do, and it left every person who was mentioned proud to be associated with the Texans.[. . .]
Capers believes it’s vital to emphasize doing things right because “if you ever slip, you can never get it back.”
So far, the Texans haven’t slipped in any significant way.
That sunny appraisal of the Casserly-Capers regime was immediately before Year Threee, and Justice held on to that view well into the disastrous 2-14 Year Four when most reasonably well-informed folks had concluded that the direction of the franchise needed to change. Of course, Justice eventually embraced a disparaging view of Casserly and Capers as if he had doubts about the two from the beginning.
Justice may be right about the current direction of the franchise under Kubiak and Smith, but it’s worth noting that the chronic left offensive tackle problem has not been resolved, the pass rush remains unproven, no receiver has emerged to force teams to back off double teaming Andre Johnson, the running back position has no gamebreaker and a porous defensive secondary has not been upgraded. A little more objectivity from Justice about the Texans’ situation may allow his analysis of the team to age a bit better.