there’s been a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks — which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington’s attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have “never been closer to defeat than they are now.”
There has been total silence about Iraq from the media because developments there since the surge have not been in keeping with the dominant narrative. This war was NEVER like Vietnam, but the media insisted it was. The Bush administration has more than its share of blame to answer for, mainly for: the pathetic job they did explaining why we were going to war; the fact that they seemed to have really believed a bizarre fantasy about turning the Arab world into a bastion of democracy; for the fact that they went to war with NO plan for what to do after Baghdad fell; they adapted far too slowly to the realities on the ground; it took them forever to get the right leadership in charge of the military effort on the ground; and other failures. However, fortunately politicians sometimes do the right things, even when they don’t understand what they are doing or why.
The WP is gonna be in trouble for dissing the metanarrative!!! Those with BDS will say it’s going soft on the Repubs afore the Demos have won the Presidency!
MSNBC was on the TV at the workout center today, and the Democratic pundit was talking about how wrong McCain was on Iraq, you know, the “re-surgent Al-Queda” and all of that. Of course, the MSNBC news talker never batted an eye, nor corrected the obvious lie in the talking point.
You’re right, it was never like Vietnam, which already had been fighting for their independence against the French for decades. The rest of your analysis is right on, Chris Taylor — except the last sentence! Iraq has been a blood-letting MESS which has left the US reputation and esteem in tatters world wide, and the people of Iraq still can’t even get reliable electrical service. The horrendous economic fallout (enormous deficits, a falling dollar) is barely starting to affect us here at home. Some legacy, GW!!! Thanks a lot!!!
All of you need to read the following, and read it carefully. It is by Victor Davis Hanson, a man who tells it like it REALLY is, and does not see thru rose colored glasses. This is one to be passed around as well, except like so many “Anglicans” (and others) who think they have no sin, most will not like what he says. I say he is right on.
[url=http://www.townhall.com/columnists/VictorDavisHanson/2008/05/29/all_about_me]All About Me[/url]
Here is the ending:
[blockquote]……Our present problems were not really caused by an unpopular president, a spendthrift Congress, the neocon bogeymen, the greedy Saudis, shifty bankers or corporate oilmen in black hats and handlebar moustaches — much less the anonymous “they.â€
The fault of this age, dear baby boomers, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.[/blockquote]
MSM is ignoring the [i]now[/i] success in Iraq because it might actually show that we are beginning to succeed there, which is [i]not[/i] what Democrats want the voters to KNOW.
Those who agree with #1’s litany of “what happened” in the run-up to the Iraq war and its early years need to read [url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/War-and-Decision/Douglas-Feith/e/9780060899738/?itm=3][i]War and Decision[/i][/url] by Douglas Feith. You won’t read reviews of it in the major left-leaning newspapers because it contradicts their preconceived ideas. However, the book is heavily sourced and Feith is [url=http://www.dougfeith.com/]helpfully[/url] putting a lot of his source documents online.
Generally speaking only one point of view has been presented in the public sphere over the past six years, a view heavily prejudiced against the American government. It would be good for the other side to be included in the discussion, especially with the situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq now improving so much that even the Washington Post has to admit it.
Say, mon petit chou, do you prefer the reputation we had of a giant would could be struck with impunity?
I know this is only a rhetorical argument, but it is an argument: what the hell kind of a Global War on Terror leaves Saddam Hussein running Iraq?
Note one word that is strikingly missing from the Washington Post editorial: “McCain”. Not even a passing mention of the fact that he was right all along about the “surge”, right about what it would take to turn the tide in Iraq, right about the need to stay rather than pull out, and even according to the WP in the last paragraph (amazing here), right about the folly of arbitrary withdrawl deadlines.
No, the media is still very much in the bag for Obama. This was the WP trying to provide air cover for him to “evolve” his policy on Iraq. A genuine acknowledgement that the “Iraq war is unwinnable” camp was wrong would have, with even a shred of fairmindedness, at least mentioned Sen. McCain.
#1:
[url=http://www.waranddecision.com/]Here[/url] is the link for the documentation on Feith’s book, [i]War and Decision.[/i] The one I gave in #6 above is to Feith’s personal website, not the book site.