Apr 08 2007
The Confusion On The Left Over Iraq
I guess too many on the left have not had to face a hard challenge that took years to work through and succeed on, because their constant mistake on the Iraq war is their myopic and stangnant view of current conditions as those to be in place forever. Al Qaeda wants us to lose in Iraq – they are throwing everything they have at that goal, including the mass murder of Muslims by the most brutal of methods – including chemical weapons attacks. And what this has accomplished is nothing but anger from Iraqi Muslims who are now fighting to get al Qaeda out of the country. The battle for the heart of Islam had to come out of all of this if peaceful democracies where to be the result. But this long view escapes way too many on the left, and especially confounds the liberal media. Take this NY Times piece and some amazing disassociations from reality:
If popular confusion shapes the policies coming from Washington right now, it is at least an understandable reaction to the near-impossible situation we currently face. On the one hand, there is the brutal and undeniable fact that the U.S. has disastrously bungled its entire undertaking in Iraq. Even the best outcomes now imaginable — like de facto partition and routine terrorism but no civil war — bear more than a passing resemblance to what were once considered disastrously bad possibilities.
Sadly this is what I mean by myopic views. The bloodshed is due to al Qaeda trying to win, and their blunt, brutal approach is the car bomb, now integrated with chlorine tankers. The fact is 80% of the country is stable and quiet and under democratically elected governance. That was the goal and it has been achieved. Yes, al Qaeda will continue to try and tear down democracy – but that is not our failing – it is theirs. And the worst case scenarios are much worse than this – they just do not exist and never came true. The claims we would have tens of thousands of body bags never came true. While we lose too many each day, our losses are miniscule compared to previous military compaigns of this size or nature. In Vietnam we lost as many in a day as we have lost in all 4 years.
There was going to be an uprising in the Arab street against us. It did not happen. As the story points out the vast majority of Iraqis do not wish us to leave yet:
A recent poll commissioned by ABC News and partners has 78 percent of Iraqis opposing the U.S. presence and 51 percent approving of attacks on U.S. troops — but only 35 percent calling for immediate withdrawal. If supporting violence against the same soldiers you wish would stay is not confusion, then nothing is.
People in a war zone are conflicted – big surprise. What is shocking is the confusion this sows on the left. The fact is the Surge is producing results and is targeted on the final 20% of the country which is home to 80% of the violence. And it is working. Al Qaeda stepped up its attacks and is now slaughtering Muslims at a horrific pace to try and keep them under their control and direction. The result is Sunni insurgents changing sides and now openly attacking al Qaeda. Same is happening in Pakistan.
You can focus on the slums of Sadr City and say Iraq is a quagmire – but that is not being honest to yourself of Iraq. If you ADD into the picture the peaceful and productive Kurdish regions in the south and all the Shiites are doing outside al-Sadr’s militia there is more hope than despair in Iraq. But you have to be brave and honest enough to look and face all of reality. The fact is the left has been trying to surrender since Joe Wilson claimed he had found out about the faked documents on the Niger deal, which were never part of the Iraq equation and which he theoretically could not know about for 7 months after his infamous trip. Since that time all the left has predicted much more dire results than this. There was too be a pile of dead and the Arab countries aligned in a final war against Israel. Their doom and gloom predictions failed to come true then and they will fail again.
It is a war and is tough and takes determination and lasts longer than a TV season and requires human sacrifice of the most cherished kind. It is the same as all wars, except this time our blood is not running in the streets by the gallon. The fight over the path of Islam is the reason for the bloodshed, now we await the answer to which path that will be and to whether we have peace in our life times. It is not all up to us, it just impacts us on which way it goes. Surrender now and we face generations of war with Islamo Fascists.
The congregation of the left is full of strange bedfellows: communists, socialists, fascists, code pink, academicians, former hippies of the 60s, environmentalists, animal rights, the whales, the caribou and that little fish in Oregon that was more important than the livelihood of local farmers, the media, NEA,. All these people have one thing in common, besides the destruction of the US that is, and that is they are all idealists. And idealists never think about the results of their actions. They get these wonderful ideas like for instance keeping the levee area of New Orleans pure for the wildlife but this action causes the destruction of the levees and of NO. Or banning plastic bags in San Francisco which will cause people to use paper bags or no bags at all. And don’t cut down trees that are ready to fall down thereby limiting the planting of new trees. Don’s cut the brush in the forests thereby limiting horrendous forest fires. You never hear a peep from them when forest fires wipe out miles of forests. They never change their minds about this issue. That might limit their donations. Don’t work or build where endangered species live therely limiting progress. These people are against the Iraq war but can’t seem to realize what it would mean to let the terrorists tet control of Iraq with its oil fields and strategic location. Idealism can be a wonderful thing but not when end results are not considered or understood.