Liberal lies about Iraq

Insight Magazine ^ | 11/28/2005 | Mona Charen

[baystaterebel]

don't know if the war in Iraq is ultimately unwinnable, but what I do know makes me skeptical of those who say so.

I do know that since Vietnam, liberals have viewed every exercise of American military power (with the exception of those undertaken by President Bill Clinton) as preludes to disaster.

The very first question President Ronald Reagan was asked at his first presidential press conference concerned El Salvador. The question: Did he think it was going to turn into another Vietnam? Democrats invoked Vietnam with every other sentence during the long and nasty controversy about aiding the resistance in Nicaragua.

More recently, just days into the Afghanistan war, the New York Times ran a front-page lament calling that conflict a new "quagmire."

Liberals seem always to believe that America will lose its wars, and when it doesn't, that it should.

[baystaterebel]

Within the story is one soldiers account of the press in Iraq.

I have said it before and I will say it again. When these soldiers get back and start to tell the truth about Iraq, the democrats and thier screechy negative bullhorn we know as the main stream media will much to answer for.

There is only one way they can save face.

Defeat.

[Rocko]

Bump.

[Common Tator]

Click here for the 'tator take on our strategy in Iraq.

[razorgirl]

I do know that since Vietnam, liberals have viewed every exercise of American military power (with the exception of those undertaken by President Bill Clinton) as preludes to disaster.

The Libs were unhappy with the Balkan intervention also. Funny, they were critizing Clinton for NOT intervening in Rwanda...

Not much for consistency...

[Steve_Seattle]

"The Libs were unhappy with the Balkan intervention also."

The far Left opposed it because they always oppose the US, but many mainstream liberals supported it. Curiously, many supported it precisely because it did NOT meet one of the standard tests of legitimacy routinely applied to the Iraq war, i.e., protecting our national security. Because it failed to meet the national security test, many libs hailed it as our first "humanitarian war." And few libs complained that the war in Kosovo was not done under the auspices of the UN. And it's still a taboo - even unknown to most - that the primary reason for the war was to send a message to the Islamic world that we're good guys who will protect Muslims from bad "Christians." The PR stunt failed, as 9/11 proved so dramatically, and as we will see in the future as Muslim extremists hijack Kosovo, expel the Serbs, and use the region as a springboard for further mischief in Europe.

[Mo1]

The very first question President Ronald Reagan was asked at his first presidential press conference concerned El Salvador. The question: Did he think it was going to turn into another Vietnam? Democrats invoked Vietnam with every other sentence during the long and nasty controversy about aiding the resistance in Nicaragua.

It's the only line liberals know to say

[plangent]

Vietnam was unwinnable because of the McNamara Doctrine:

You may not win: you may only fight to a draw. You may not pursue the enemy into his territory. You may not search out and destroy the enemy; you must let the enemy come to you.

I haven't seen any indication that President Bush plays by McNamara rules.

[pleikumud]

Sounds like people still don't know what happened in Vietnam. We won, and reached a peace settlement negotiated by Secretary of State Kissinger and President Nixon. Then under pressure from Democrats, leftists, socialists, RINO's, and communists, Congress cut the funding which would have enabled South Vietnam to defend itself. As a result, the Communists from North Vietnam invaded the South again. They murdered hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese and Cambodians. So 58,000 of our troops were killed in Vietnam, and over 300,000 were wounded, but their sacrifices of life and limb were thrown away by liberals. Today, Democrats want to cut and run from Iraq, seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. The Democrats want to waste the lives of those who have sacrificed. The Democrats are allies of the terrorists.

[\/\/ayne]

In the old days deliberate misreporting and sensationalism was known as "yellow journalism." This was because during a time when newspapers blatantly lied, there was a popular one color cartoon called "The Yellow Kid." When it rained, the yellow got all over the paper.

Now we have new kind of misreporting, where extremist left wing journalists slant stories and omit facts in order to sway public opinion to a liberal agenda. I call this "Red Journalism."

[Lakeshark]

I don't remember one lib complaining that Clinton didn't asked for US Senate approval nor went to the UN for approval.

Nor did I hear anyone demanding we pull out, or stop slaughtering Serb civilians. You have to love leftist hypocrisy....

[PsyOp]

Here's another lie that needs debunking.

Comparing Apples & Oranges: Why The Training of Iraqi Security Forces is Taking So Long.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1532262/posts

[warsaw44]

Victoria Ping!

Great little story. Very well written with a few stories from our troops about the media bias they have personally experienced.

[jw777]

You had me at Liberal Lies. It's redundant.

[Yardstick]

Very good points. Especially about the time it takes to train officers. It's easy to thing, jeez, it only takes a few weeks or months to get a guy through basic training...so what's taking so long? But you can't forget the officers. Officers can't just be cranked out the way privates can.

Also about the division of the battalions. When one battalion becomes combat ready, it's divided it up into smaller units to be grown into new combat ready battalions. On paper, this looks like a combat ready battalion has been lost. But in reality it's a step forward and a sign of progress. The lost battalion will soon become several battalions.

It's so easy to overlook these kinds of things, even though they're perfectly obvious. It reminds me of economics. It's a matter of pure common sense, but sometimes the logic hides from you in plain sight.

[worst-case scenario]

Charen's article talks about a Marine Corps sgt, Todd Bowers, who was saved by his rifle scope.

This must be the same Todd Bowers that's discussed in this article in the Marine Corps Times where he describes the same incident. Except his comments there were about pressuring the Pentagon to reimburse the out-of-pocket payments for body armor and other health and safety gear that a lot of families have purchased. Charen doesn't mention this side of the Marine's story, unfortunately.

Apparently the Pentagon was authorized by some amendment last year to give back up to $1100 for the body armor, but hasn't paid a penny. Guess Bowers should have sent Duke Cunningham a silver candlestick if he wanted to get some of the money action. We can get multimillion $ contracts into the hands of some lobbyists' pals but we can't get $1100 into the hands of the parents who have to buy flak jackets and scopes for their sons and daughters getting shot at and blown up? How many more times do we have to read this same "body armor is non-existent or crappy" story before the Pentagon wakes up and fixes this?

[Aussie Dasher]

Liberals lie about EVERYTHING!!!!

[freema]

I beg to differ.

There is no need to wait until these soldiers get back.
And,
there is no way this scum can save face.

[Victoria Delsoul]

There was plenty of progress to report, if the press had been interested. When the battle of Fallujah was over, the Marines set up a humanitarian relief station in an abandoned amusement park. Together with Iraqis locally hired and trained for the purpose and with an assist from the Iraqi ministry of the interior, they distributed rice, flour, medical supplies, baby formula, and other necessities to thousands of Iraqis.

Thanks for pinging me to this article. It would be nice if the MSM would report the facts when it comes to the war in Iraq, but their leftist agenda gets always in the way.