Posted on 12/03/2007 8:14:31 AM PST by pabianice
[from the December 17, 2007 issue]
Any decline in violence in Iraq is welcome. But the relative quiet that reigns in Baghdad does not mean that the troop surge has been successful. This elementary point--which even some antiwar Democrats hesitate to make--now routinely elicits accusations of "defeatism" and worse from Republicans and their water carriers in the media. Yet it is the war party's triumphalism that deserves to be met with outrage. Did they think no one would notice that they have rewritten the script? The surge was supposed to improve security as a means to an end; the end was to find a political solution for Iraq's internal conflicts. In President Bush's own words, "Victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world--a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties and answers to its people." Does that sound like today's Iraq? The country is no closer to having a workable government or to reconciliation among hostile parties than it was when the surge began. A poll released in September showed 70 percent of Iraqis saying the surge has "hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development," and no political advances have followed the ebb in violence since then. One of the surge's tactics was to empower local militias, and as a consequence Iraqis may feel safer in their neighborhoods but they are further from having a central government with the ability to maintain law and order. The Shiite-led government, for its part, seems no more inclined to compromise on key issues than it was eight months ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
Instead of catching roaches, they now just keep them out.
Better approach although the MSM will never admit it.
TNR - Home of the Beachamp
I was duped. I began to think the “Nation” was heralding
victory but then I read the first paragraph.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It does indeed, and it isn't particularly difficult to read into this that The Nation is spinning desperately and knows it. The invocation of President Bush's objectives concerning political stability was hilarious - now The Nation has set the bar there? And is concerned that the conclusion of having done so is that we'll have to stay in Iraq for awhile?
Well, that's what you get when you move the goalposts - once in awhile the new spot isn't quite so comfortable, and running out Tom Hayden, of all people, to proclaim a new antiwar jeremiad is as risible as clinging to Bush's objectives. At what point do they simply admit they've run out of ideas and close up shop?
Probably never. It's delicious to see this bunch of Vietnam retreads watch their political cudgel turn into a twig in their hands. When they get to the point of claiming that Iraq has been a failure because all the children there don't have fuzzy puppies, call me.
Invested in defeat.
The Bastion Of Far Left Liberalism Admits Iraq Is Changing Course, ( SF Chronicle Admits it )
You can't really tell from an article whether it is The Nation or the New York Times, or the NYT from your local paper. It is all one and the same.
Doesn't David Corn (a splinter on the dildo of life) write for the nation? This article looks like his usual tripe.
“A poll released in September showed 70 percent of Iraqis saying the surge has “hampered conditions for political dialogue..”
Where do they get these polls? Who’s doing the polling?
I suspect the Nation polled its Al Qaeda friends.
They'll bitch about Iraqi cable TV being snowy and blurry during overflights.
The left HAS to discount any positive effects of the surge. It was their intention to run against the Republican nominee, linking him with the President and his ‘failed Iraq policies’. Since that is now being denied them, they have to make it SEEM like the surge is failing, so they can still use their ‘hate Bush’ playbook.
On August 8, 1862 Edwin Stanton (Lincoln Sec. of War) issued an order to “arrest and imprison any person or persons who may be engaged, by act, speech or writing, in discouraging volunteer enlistments, or in any way giving aid and comfort to the enemy, or in any other disloyal practice against the United States.”
I wish we would return to the good old days.
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