NYT must-read: A calm Iraq, unrecognizable

And so they did, with a series of offensives against the Qaeda insurgents in and around Baghdad in 2007 and then, earlier this year, in Basra and in Baghdad against the Mahdi Army.

So when teachers go on teaching schoolchildren, and hippies go on hollering that “war never sloved anything,” can we beat them with an axe handle?

Along the way, the Americans got a huge break: The leaders of Iraq’s large Sunni tribes, which had included many insurgents, decided to stop opposing the Americans and join them against Al Qaeda.

Wow. What-a-stroke-of-luck. Who could have ever thought that would happen when we began kicking bad-guy butt? The offensives and the “huge break” are mentioned in the same paragraph, but completely unrelated /sarc off.

And when did it cease to be called “Bush’s surge?” The press used to love to call it “Bush’s surge,” (Google it) but now it’s just “the surge.” I wonder what could have happened to make the difference….

I’m tired of these articles. The lefties who attacked and attacked Bush for his policies on Iraq are being forced to admit that Iraq looks a whole lot better then they ever imagained that it could, but they never give credit where credit is due. They don’t mention Bush at all or the fact that he stood up to Congress and opinion polls to make this happen, they give a sentence or two to the Surge (that they insisted before would never work), they don’t mention the troops, they act like we suddenly just got a really lucky break that just happened to correspond with the Surge and accomplished exactly what the Surge was intended to accomplish. They mention neither McCain’s nor Obama’s previous opinions on the surge (because they probably agreed with Obama).

Oh, and then they have to throw in “but it could all fall apart at any time,” and then stress that point…and then illustrate it…and then mention it again…because they don’t want to look too hopeful for Iraq, I mean, how would they defend that at their cocktail parties? And it could still all go into the crapper (fingers crossed).

And at the end we get a nice little tribute to the Iraqi people. The wonderful people who didn’t stand up to Sadam Hussein, who didn’t win their own liberty, who would side with whomever had the most guns & biggest explosions. But, again, not one word about the troops or the president who forced freedom down these people’s throats. And not one word about that freedom either. Just “things back to normal,” like they would have been before the mean old Americans came in an messed everyting up (you see, if freedom isn’t that important, then life under Saddam wasn’t really that bad).

This last bit turns the whole piece into, not a story of a successful liberation of an oppressed people but the blood, sweat and tears of a great nation, but a story of a people’s resiliency in the face of an American war.

29Victor on September 21, 2008 at 12:27 PM