Over in Salon, Sydney Blumenthal writes about an internal paper that the Department of Defense has quietly posted to its web site. Apparently a task force of experts from the military, the diplomatic corps, military-oriented businesses, and academia was put together to review progress in the war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq. Their conclusions were quite negative on how things have gone so far.

The task force discovered more than a chaotic vacuum, a government sector “in crisis,” though it found that, too: “Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation.” Inevitably, as it journeyed deeper into the recesses of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, the task force documented the unparalleled failure of its fundamental premises. “America’s negative image in world opinion and diminished ability to persuade are consequences of factors other than the failure to implement communications strategies,” the report declares. What emerges in this new Pentagon paper is a scathing indictment of an expanding and unmitigated disaster based on stubborn ignorance of the world and failed concepts that bear little relation to empirical reality except insofar as they confirm and incite gathering hatred among Muslims.

You can find the paper itself here (.PDF file), if you have a strong stomach.