America’s War
Mark Steyn examines the war in Iraq and the political responses to it.
According to a report by the New York Sun's Eli Lake last month, Iran is supporting Shia insurgents in Iraq and Sunni insurgents in Iraq. In other words, it's on both sides in the so-called civil war. How can this be? After all, as the other wise old foreign-policy "realists" of the Iraq Study Group assured us only in December, Iran has "an interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq.''
Au contraire, the ayatollahs have concluded they have a very clear interest in fomenting chaos in Iraq. They're in favor of Sunni killing Shia, and Shia killing Sunni, and if some vacationing Basque terrorists wanted to blow up the Spanish Cultural Center in Mosul, they'd be in favor of that, too. The Iranians don't care who kills whom as long as every night when Americans turn on the evening news there's smoke over Baghdad. As I say in my book, if you happen to live in Ramadi or Basra, Iraq is about Iraq; if you live in Tehran, or Cairo, or Bei-jing, Moscow, Pyongyang or Brussels, Iraq is about America. American will. American purpose. American credibility.
There was a TV station somewhere — was it Thunder Bay, Ontario? — that used to show a continuous loop of a roaring fireplace all night, and thousands of viewers would supposedly sit in front of it for hours because it was such a reassuringly comforting scene. The networks could save themselves a lot of money by adopting the same approach: Run a continuous loop of a smoking building in Baghdad all night while thousands of congressmen and pundits and think-tankers and retired generals run around Washington shrieking that all is lost. America is way out of its league! A dimwitted tourist in a fearful land of strange people who don't watch "American Idol." Iraq is so culturally alien that not a single Sunni, Shia or Kurd has come forward claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole's baby!
The reporting of the war by the media is uniformly slanted so that literally nothing that happens is a good thing. As Steyn points out, when Mookie Sadr was reported to have briskly walked over the horizon into Iran, the New York Times called that a bad thing.
Steyn's point here is that the politicians in Washington are trying to play political games with Iraq. The media is helping with those games. The Democrats right now are doing everything in their power to inflict John Murtha's execrable "slow bleed" policy that will inevitably, regardless of how they try to dress the pig, lead to additional deaths of American Soldiers. All in hopes of making this war a political defeat for their opponents.
So "the Murtha plan" is to deny the president the possibility of victory while making sure Democrats don't have to share the blame for the defeat. But of course he's a great American! He's a patriot! He supports the troops! He doesn't support them in the mission, but he'd like them to continue failing at it for a couple more years. As John Kerry wondered during Vietnam, how do you ask a soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake? By nominally "fully funding" a war you don't believe in but "limiting his ability to use the money." Or as the endearingly honest anti-war group MoveCongress.org put it, in an e-mail preview of an exclusive interview with the wise old Murtha:
"Chairman Murtha will describe his strategy for not only limiting the deployment of troops to Iraq but undermining other aspects of the president's foreign and national security policy."
But the war is not the Republican's war. It is America's war. And if we lose, it will be America's defeat. And all Americans, regardless of political affiliation, will pay the price for that defeat.
Other Links to this Post
-
Wake up America — February 18, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
By jpe, February 18, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Pure silliness. American never wanted a war that wasn’t short and cheap. Before the war, they said they wouldn’t support a war that went on for a few years, and now they’re not. Their lack of support has nothing to do with the media and everything to do with the fact that they never would’ve supported a war that dragged on as long as this one.
By Kathy, February 18, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
Gaius, I can’t help but notice that you have said nothing so far about the WaPo article that reveals the horrifying conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The article mentions soldiers with brain injuries left to find their way from building to building themselves; 19-year-olds dying of alcohol poisoning because alcohol is sold to under 21-year-olds on site; wounded vets being housed in rooms infested with mice and cockroaches, with the walls covered in black mold, etc., etc.
You have written so much about irresponsible press leaks of sensitive information that could harm our national security. Don’t you think that articles like this are going to result in more of our soldiers getting killed in Iraq, because our press is signaling to the insurgents and terrorists about how abominably America treats its own veterans?
By syn, February 18, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
Kathy.
I’m an American who has often been to Walter Reed to visit those soldiers, try it out sometime and maybe you will find that Americans do not treat their veterans with abomination. Perhaps you do but I and the rest of America does not.
As a matter of fact Walter Reed is going to close and a new facility is being incorporated into Bethesda Medical since Walter Reed no longer serves our soldiers in the manner becoming to our veterans.
Get with the times woman!
By Kathy, February 18, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
By “America” I meant the government, not individual Americans. You would have been able to figure that out if you had read the WaPo article. And the government — this government, this administration — IS treating veterans abominably. Again, as you would know if you had read the article.
By Kathy, February 18, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
“As a matter of fact Walter Reed is going to close and a new facility is being incorporated into Bethesda Medical since Walter Reed no longer serves our soldiers in the manner becoming to our veterans.
Get with the times woman!”
Yes, Walter Reed is going to close — by 2011!! We are now in the year 2007 in case you didn’t know. Are you for real? Walter Reed will not be closing for ANOTHER FIVE YEARS! And how many years after that will it be before any new facility is even ready? You are telling me you think it’s acceptable for our veterans to be living with mice and cockroaches and black mold, left to fend for themselves with no one to help them, having to PROVE they were in Iraq before they can get help, when they’re walking around with SKULL injuries?
That is disgusting.
By ajacksonian, February 19, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
And who pays for the upkeep of WRAMC? Congress.
Who insures that money is outlaid for it? Congress.
Who has oversight on such outlays? Congress.
The money is handed to DoD by Congress to do what Congress directs. Congress directs billions of dollars of Pork into the budget. Why does Congress keep to its responsibilities and look after the care of those wounded and those in the VA? The Executive can only do so much, and if Congress doesn’t want to fund it, it does not get funded.
Oversight of the Executive is done by Congress.
Outlays and budgets are done by Congress.
Priorities are set by Congress.
Complaints? Direct them to Congress.