Posted on 07/17/2008 12:42:13 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
More on the we've won front from Michael Totten:
I’m reluctant to say “the war has ended,” as he did, but everything else he wrote is undoubtedly true. The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. That is a mathematical fact.Over the past few days al Qaeda has detonated several car bombs in Diyala. So, how is the war "over"?
Totten goes on to say that the violence may never actually peter off to nothing in Iraq, but reminds us that violence and terrorism are endemic to the entire Middle East.
It's not over in the sense that we can now come home. It's over in the sense that we've crossed a line where our victory is all but assured if we stay the course. Like U.S troops crossing the Rhine in 1945--there are still a few battles left in the failed Islamist insurgency, but there is little doubt what the ultimate outcome will be.
It may even be too late for Barack Obama to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Of course, that wouldn't be true had his "let's end the surge before it ever begins" strategy been adopted. But if (God forbid) he wins, he'll take office in January of 2009. Given current trends we should be in full peace keeping mode by then.
From the beginning the many reasons for my support of ongoing efforts in Iraq can be reduced to a single premise: America must win its wars.
Victory enhances national security, failure reduces it. The ten years following our surrendering Vietnam to the communists were a foreign policy nightmare. That single act emboldened and reinvigorated not only communists across the world, but also Islamist revolutionaries such as Ayatollah Khomeini who, rightly, saw that the U.S. would no longer keep its security commitments.
Ditto that in our initial response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. And the killing of our Marines in Lebanon. And in Somalia.
Losing emboldens our enemies, winning frightens them.
I'll end with these two quotes which have haunted me for years now:
When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.Liberals would do well to pay attention to them.
---Osama bin Laden, December 2001
We experienced the Americans through our brothers who went into combat against them in Somalia, for example. We found they had no power worthy of mention. There was a huge aura over America -- the United States -- that terrified people even before they entered combat. Our brothers who were here in Afghanistan tested them, and together with some of the mujahedeen in Somalia, God granted them victory. America exited dragging its tails in failure, defeat, and ruin, caring for nothing.
---Osama bin Laden, October 2001
fyi
Aren’t there more deaths in Democrat occupied Chicago than in Baghdad?
Ill. Gov: Chicago May Get Troopers, National Guard
******** ******************EXCERPT *********************
ABC NEWS AP Story
Excellent!
The war has been over since after the first few weeks of hostilities. We’ve been fighting to stablize the government and the peace for several years.
Quick war. New government. New economy. Functioning socieity. Power handed over to the locals. Small numbers of well funded locals and foreign infiltrators distablizing things and scaring the large majority in the middle who want stability and fear the great power abandoning them prematurely.
How many times in history has this been done? How many times has a nation of similar size and power been toppled and replaced with as little death and destruction?
Bush and the U.S. deserve lots of credit.
I am certain Obama will be grilled incessantly about the success of the surge every minute he is in Iraq with all the news anchors........
Well, Totten, violence is pretty endemic to some of our cities, too.
which is more peaceful now?
Iraq or Algeria?
Iraq or Algeria?
Which is more peaceful now?
Bagdad or Chicago?
This is not possible because Jorge has told us that Islam is a Religion Of Peace(TM)
Very, very few. That's part of the problem, actually. Many (not all) Dems are ideologues for whom the narrative is everything, that is, a more or less coherent story with themselves as the heroes and their political opposition as the villains. The Vietnam narrative (and not the actual events) was irresistibly attractive to them for this reason, which was why so many clung to it desperately and still do.
This isn't that, and it turns out that an attractive narrative is indispensable during an election year, so the choice is between clinging to the old story line and furiously denying evidence to the contrary or coming up with a new storyline, i.e. the war was won because of some Democratic policy or other. The problem with the latter is that Obama has already chosen to cast himself as the fellow who was against the war from the beginning, and his claiming credit for the victory is a stretch even the NY Times might find hard to swallow. Not to mention She Who Must Not Be Named lurking in the background with an "I told you so" smirk on her face.
Victory will be recognized as soon as it becomes advantageous for the ideologues in control of the media and the Democratic party to do so, and not until then. It may be grudgingly admitted to before that, which is what is happening now. Very grudgingly indeed, at least until that new narrative can be constructed.
Iraq's security 'remarkably better' ( Joint Chiefs chairman hints at drawdown )
It ain’t quittin time ‘til Big Uncle Sam says it’s quittin time!
Outstanding analysis (again)! Thanks. BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!
I think the Dems have a problem....
A “Thanks for the link!” BTTT !!
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