Saturday, November 03, 2007
The Left's Alternative Reality
Here's a blog posting about Nancy Pelosi, rapidly becoming irrelevant House Speaker, criticizing on Thursday this week the President's accomplishments in office. Wait, don't tell me--tax breaks for the rich and a Vietnam like quagmire in Iraq. Am I right? Bingo.
"He is the President of the United States already talking about his library -- what is he going to have in the library?" she asked. "A tax cut for the wealthiest people in the country at the expense of the middle class and a war without end that is a total failure?"
(Emphasis added).
I'm going to assume she is talking about Gulf War II in Iraq. We all still remember her counterpart in the Senate, vivacious and affable Harry Reid, saying last April: I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.
(Emphasis added).
Is that the truth, have we lost the war? Is it a total failure?
Not according to these stories:
1) The Petraeus Curve in the London Times on line; (Money quote:
All of these attitudes have become outdated. There are many valid complaints about the manner in which the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, managed Iraq after the 2003 military victory. But not to recognise that matters have improved vastly in the year since Mr Rumsfeld's resignation from the Pentagon was announced and General Petraeus was liberated would be ridiculous. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have to appreciate that Iraq is no longer, as they thought, an exercise in damage limitation but one of making the most of an opportunity. The instinct of too many people is that if Iraq is going badly we should get out because it is going badly and if it is getting better we should get out because it is getting better. This is a catastrophic miscalculation. Iraq is getting better. That is good, not bad, news.)
2. Thousands Return to Safer Iraqi Capital at AP; (Money quote:
In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.
[...]
More than four months after U.S. forces completed a 30,000-strong force buildup, the death toll for both Iraqis and Americans has fallen dramatically for two months running. ) and,
3. Iraqi Islamic Party: “Al Qaeda is Defeated” by Michael Yon. (Money quote:
“Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated,” according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe. Speaking through an interpreter at a 31 October meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad, Sheik Omar said that al Qaeda had been “defeated mentally, and therefore is defeated physically,” referring to how clear it has become that the terrorist group’s tactics have backfired. Operatives who could once disappear back into the crowd after committing an increasingly atrocious attack no longer find safe haven among the Iraqis who live in the southern part of Baghdad. They are being hunted down and killed. Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans.)
Oh, and this graph too, which seems pretty irrefutable.
There is none so blind as he (or she) who will not see. That's certainly the left on Iraq.
"He is the President of the United States already talking about his library -- what is he going to have in the library?" she asked. "A tax cut for the wealthiest people in the country at the expense of the middle class and a war without end that is a total failure?"
(Emphasis added).
I'm going to assume she is talking about Gulf War II in Iraq. We all still remember her counterpart in the Senate, vivacious and affable Harry Reid, saying last April: I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week.
(Emphasis added).
Is that the truth, have we lost the war? Is it a total failure?
Not according to these stories:
1) The Petraeus Curve in the London Times on line; (Money quote:
All of these attitudes have become outdated. There are many valid complaints about the manner in which the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, managed Iraq after the 2003 military victory. But not to recognise that matters have improved vastly in the year since Mr Rumsfeld's resignation from the Pentagon was announced and General Petraeus was liberated would be ridiculous. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have to appreciate that Iraq is no longer, as they thought, an exercise in damage limitation but one of making the most of an opportunity. The instinct of too many people is that if Iraq is going badly we should get out because it is going badly and if it is getting better we should get out because it is getting better. This is a catastrophic miscalculation. Iraq is getting better. That is good, not bad, news.)
2. Thousands Return to Safer Iraqi Capital at AP; (Money quote:
In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.
[...]
More than four months after U.S. forces completed a 30,000-strong force buildup, the death toll for both Iraqis and Americans has fallen dramatically for two months running. ) and,
3. Iraqi Islamic Party: “Al Qaeda is Defeated” by Michael Yon. (Money quote:
“Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated,” according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe. Speaking through an interpreter at a 31 October meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad, Sheik Omar said that al Qaeda had been “defeated mentally, and therefore is defeated physically,” referring to how clear it has become that the terrorist group’s tactics have backfired. Operatives who could once disappear back into the crowd after committing an increasingly atrocious attack no longer find safe haven among the Iraqis who live in the southern part of Baghdad. They are being hunted down and killed. Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans.)
Oh, and this graph too, which seems pretty irrefutable.
There is none so blind as he (or she) who will not see. That's certainly the left on Iraq.
Labels: Democrat Wilful Blindness, Iraq Successes
