Nov 14 2007
Grudging Acceptance Of Success In Iraq
Driving into NASA this morning I was listening to a local DC radio show (Grandy & Andy on 630 AM) which was quite stunning in its discussion about Iraq. Fred Grandy (Love Boat and US Congress candidate) is the shows more left leaning commentator and he was of the opinion (which I agree with) that we should admit we are ‘winning’ the effort in Iraq. Not the we have victory, but we are definitely on the path to it. His point was the results of the Surge are clear and undeniable: Iraq has changed course from ‘lost'(Sen Reid) winnable.
He was also rightfully derisive on the Dems latest plan to dig their hole deeper and go for a stunning 42-0 vote loss on rashly pulling troops out of Iraq in return of funding their needs. To have such a left-leaning commentator be so fed up with the delusions of the left was impressive. The funny thing was the more conservative commentators were less willing to go that far – for good reasons I guess.
But what I heard is just one example of the dawning realization that Iraq is turned around we can find now coming out in the media. Some are simply grudging acceptance without the ability to give credit to the Administration for taking the steps needed to change course in Iraq. For example check out this person’s attempt to acknowledge the changes and still defy addressing what brought the changes about:
All in all, violence in Iraq has dropped precipitously since late summer. With Al Qaeda declared dead, former Sunni resistance fighters wearing American-supplied uniforms, and the Mahdi Army lying low, killings in Iraq are way down. The security situation in Iraq is far better than it’s been at any time since 2005. Many American antiwar critics, who are invested in the notion that no good news can come out of Iraq and who (secretly or openly) revel in the Bush administration’s Iraqi failures, are reluctant to admit that things are getting better.
Perhaps they worry that, if the situation in Iraq improves, the prospect of Democratic gains at the polls next November will diminish. Perhaps they’ve convinced themselves that Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian divide is so enormous that partition is the only solution, and that Iraq doesn’t deserve to be a country anyway. Perhaps their distaste for President Bush (which I share) is so all-consuming that they fear any improvement in the situation will be credited to the President — something they can’t tolerate.
If so, that’s perverse.
The fact is if we had followed the Surrendercrats suicidal plans we would not be where we are today in Iraq. al-Qaeda would now be in control of much of Iraq, because the Iraqis needed are Surge in resources to give them the ability to throw off al-Qaeda’s bloody iron grip. Another example is from a person who was a journalist and is pretty blunt about the SurrenderMedia’s attempts to hide the progress:
Those who argue that the media play up bad news from Iraq and play down good news picked up some added ammunition for their argument recently when many major news organizations buried or ignored the news that U.S. troop deaths in Iraq in September were at their lowest monthly level since March 2006.
…
We discussed the media’s handling of the declining-deaths story in my Politics of Mass Communications class at American University recently, and most of my students, many of whom are war opponents, still came down on the side of playing the report on Page 1.
“If you are going to put stories on Page 1 when the U.S. death toll goes up, it is only fair to put them on Page 1 when the deaths go down,†one student said.
I then asked the class if burying or ignoring the story indicated an anti-war bias on the part of the editors or their papers. While some students said yes, especially the conservatives, most attributed the decision to poor news judgment. They were being generous.
Professional journalistic standards would dictate the actions of the media to date are really undermining the profession. I am not surprised to see some of those who still hold those standards high becoming disappointed in the SurrenderMedia’s actions.
I should note there are also some conservatives, like me, willing to be honest and up front about where the trend lines are going in Iraq. Like Fred Grandy, they are not going to be intimidated into being overly cautious in determining where we are going in Iraq given the trends:
But as of Veterans Day 2007, I think one can claim a very real expectation that next year, the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in the Iraq war. In five years, we will have overturned Saddam Hussein’s government, killed, captured or driven out almost all al-Qaida terrorists, suppressed the violent Shiite militias, induced the Sunni tribal leaders and their people to shun resistance and send their sons into the army and police and seek peaceful resolution of disputes — and we will have stood up a multisectarian, tribally inclusive army capable of maintaining the peace that our troops established.
We are starting the process of reducing our troop levels now because of the sea change in Iraq. And more and more people are coming to the realization we made enormous progress in the Muslim world with our efforts in Iraq. al-Qaeda is rapidly becoming an enemy of Muslims, or at least a disliked and feared option. The changes cannot be ignored. Success from imminent failure cannot be ignored. The Dems mistakes cannot be ignored. And they will not be.
And we can thank the Dems for making this all possible. Their efforts to push a GOP filibuster on funding our continued success in Iraq will provide a national stage for all the good news in Iraq be presented and explained to the American people. Were would the GOP without Pelosi and Reid being so stubbornly bad on this issue?
AJ: you have got to be kidding. Lose a cloture vote and not pull the bill from the floor??!!! Give the Republicans a chance to shutdown the government while supporting the troops and their mission in Iraq. The closing down the Senate over a funding bill is stupid. It will make it on the MSM news shows (CBS, NBC, CNN) and Fox will run 24/7 on the story. Plus it will highlight that the Democrats are getting nothing done just to force defeat in Iraq. It will also give the Republicans a chance to argue that victory is not only possible but probable. When given a choice between victory, stalemate or defeat, I think the American people will chose victory.
The Democrats run the real risk of being seen as out of touch.
Ah, well, apart from the fact that the Glorious Surge had very little to do with the decline in violence (remember, Iraq violence went up, not down, because of the surge, which caused General Petraeus to lie and say that casualties were down when they were up; finally casualties dropped in September, due to non-Surge-ical factors), and apart from your confusion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq with the real Al-Qaeda, you don’t quite get the point:
If Iraq violence is “better than it’s been at any time since 2005,” then we’re right back in 2005 when Iraq was horribly violent and in a civil war, and when it was also the right thing for us to leave. (Oh, and when you guys were also telling us that we were “winning” and claiming that Bush and Rumsfeld were gods on earth.)
That’s the cool thing about having actual national-security principles: they don’t change based on the body counts of the moment. Now that Iraq is a horrible place with hundreds of people dying per month, as opposed to a horrible place with thousands of people dying per month, it remains right for America to leave. Whereas conservatives want America to stay, even though it is not in our strategic interest (and even though the occupation is doing more to fuel violence than reduce it), because conservatives, unlike liberals, don’t want America to be safe or secure.
A great article on Iraq and U.S. Foreign Policy, Jihad, etc. by the a writer at the Jeruselum Post:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=C37B688C-5B5E-476F-BE51-8BC198037B20
Very complimentary on Iraq.
Vets for Victory Action Alert–Phones Numbers To C…
Call the members listed below – tell them playing politics with our troops is unacceptable and you want the troop bill funded without troop withdraw language….
DBB:
You do not know what you are talking about.
We get people like Dbb here who are so eager for defeat that they concoct it. Pathetic. Speaking of national security principles and the lack thereof we have Democrats supporting the war when it was advantageous to them and turning on it when it suited their purposes. So much for principles.
dbb looks like yet another soothsayer sockpuppet. modus operandi the same – show up, spout off ridiculous nonsense such as “the surge didn’t work even though the numbers said it did!” without a single piece of corroborating evidence, and deny that Al Qaeda in Iraq is somehow something completely different than Al Qaeda, even though even Bin Laden and Zwahiri have contradicted this notion.
pathetic – why does he bother?
on a serious note, I am continually surprised that Dem’s still seem to favor the Partition option. Let me be the first to admit that I originally (in 2004) believed partition was the best option. However, there is no denying that *No One* in Iraq wants it! How can anyone possibly suggest a plan that is adamantly opposed by EVERY party and every player in the country in question? The left loves to complain about American “Imperialism” and then when asked for a viable option, they go for the most imperialistic and heavy handed option out there. Just goes to prove how utterly incapable they are of dealing seriously with this situation.
The dems are so desperate today that Media Matter just came out with a release of no it’s no 0-40 loses, it’s 0-39 plus a veto.
Counting paper clips now for category of losses to distract from the fact they are losing big, wasting time and emboldening the enemy forces in Iraq and elsewhere.
Their continual defeatist measures do have external effects including loss of blood which should be on their hands.
I seem to recollect that Fred Grandy WAS a Congressman. For about two terms, but a Congressman just the same.
I love the use of the word “precipitously” and the negative conotation that comes with the fact that deaths have gone in Iraq smells like a Freudian slip to me.
Yes, Fred Gandy was a House Rep. from Iowa, he quit because he could not reconcile the fact that his constituents wanted lots of Pork and Entitlements but don’t raise taxes!
these base are belong to us!
these base are belong to us! finally registered
Mike M
You are right – Grandy was a Republican Congressman for 8 Years. He may have changed since than but I don’t think that much.
AJ are you sure he is left leaning?
Here is what Wikipedia says about his political life.
Prior to college, he was the roommate of David Eisenhower (grandson of President Eisenhower) at Phillips Exeter Academy and later was best man at Eisenhower’s wedding to Julie Nixon. He also served as a speechwriter for Congressman Wiley Mayne (R-Iowa).
Grandy, who campaigned as a Republican, won the election in 1986 by 3,000 votes. Although he tried to distance himself from his acting career, he told People magazine, “If there were no Gopher, there would be no Fred Grandy for Congress.”
During his four terms in Congress, he served on a variety of committees, including House Ways and Means, Agriculture, Standards of Official Conduct, and Education and the Workforce. While a member of Congress, Grandy won eight ‘Watchdog of the Treasury’ awards
pjo
Wiki also says –
In 1994, he entered the race for Governor of Iowa against incumbent Terry Branstad; he lost the election by 4%.
He may have left to run for Governor too.
I don’t know where to put this, it’s about media lies that are
eventually found out, and this was and is a huge one, but it’s
not a big story now. AJ, you might be interested.
Quite a few years ago, TV broadcasters flashed picture of
a small Palestinian boy, sheltering with his father behind some
barrels, being shot and killed by supposedly Israeli troops.
Because of a slander/libel case running now in the French Courts,
the French TV company that originated all the broadcasts has
been ordered to show the court the entire 27 minutes of film they
have, not just the fifty-five seconds transmitted.
Well, they produced 18 minutes to the court and it is obvious
that the boy didn’t die, nor was he hit by gunfire. It was a
set-up – and like the fake bombed ambulance pictures
originated by the Lebanese Red Crescent in the 2006 war,
it had immense success.
Here’s the report from the court
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/
One of the most interesting facets is that the French TV company
allowed three additional minutes out into syndication along with
the 55 sec segment they broadcast. It is reported that even those
three minutes cast doubt on the whole thing because even after
the boy is declared dead, he is seen to be moving around.
So complicity in faux news seems widespread.
OK, sorry to disrupt your thread.