At War With Ourselves

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008030 ^ | Victor Davis Hanson

[mal]

Last week the golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra was blown apart. Sectarian riots followed, and reprisals and deaths ensued. Thugs and criminals came out of the woodwork to foment further violence. But instead of the apocalypse of an ensuing civil war, a curfew was enforced. Iraqi security forces stepped in with some success. Shaken Sunni and Shiite leaders appeared on television to urge restraint, and there appeared at least the semblance of reconciliation that may soon presage a viable coalition government.

But here at home you would have thought that our own capitol dome had exploded. Indeed, Americans more than the Iraqis needed such advice for calm to quiet our own frenzy. Almost before the golden shards of the mosque hit the pavement, pundits wrote off the war as lost--as we heard the tired metaphors of "final straw" and "camel's back" mindlessly repeated. The long-anticipated civil strife among Shiites and Sunnis, we were assured, was not merely imminent, but already well upon us. Then the great civil war sort of fizzled out; our own frenzy subsided; and now exhausted we await next week's new prescription of doom--apparently the hyped-up story of Arabs at our ports. That the Iraqi security forces are becoming bigger and better, that we have witnessed three successful elections, and that hundreds of brave American soldiers have died to get us to the brink of seeing an Iraqi government emerge was forgotten in a 24-hour news cycle.

[tonycavanagh]

re :The long-anticipated civil strife among Shiites and Sunnis, we were assured, was not merely imminent, but already well upon us. Then the great civil war sort of fizzled out.

Or drawing breath for the next stage.

The fact is we are in this for the long haul and it may never improve Iraq may indeed end up being partitioned.

[Coop]

And it may improve. So why not hope for the best, especially if you translate that hope into open support for the incredible mission our troops and the Iraqi forces are performing?

[Tolik]

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON:    We're winning in Iraq. Let's not lose at home.

...If many are determined to see the Iraqi war as lost without a plan, it hardly seems so to 130,000 U.S. soldiers still over there. They explain to visitors that they have always had a design: defeat the Islamic terrorists; train a competent Iraqi military; and provide requisite time for a democratic Iraqi government to garner public support away from the Islamists.

We point fingers at each other; soldiers under fire point to their achievements: Largely because they fight jihadists over there, there has not been another 9/11 here. Because Saddam is gone, reform is not just confined to Iraq, but taking hold in Lebanon, Egypt and the Gulf. We hear the military is nearly ruined after conducting two wars and staying on to birth two democracies; its soldiers feel that they are more experienced and lethal, and on the verge of pulling off the nearly impossible: offering a people terrorized from nightmarish oppression something other than the false choice of dictatorship or theocracy--and making the U.S. safer for the effort.

The secretary of defense, like officers in Iraq, did not welcome the war, but felt that it needed to be fought and will be won. Soldiers and civilian planners express confidence in eventual success, but with awareness of often having only difficult and more difficult choices after Sept. 11. Put too many troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we earn the wages of imperialism, or create a costly footprint that is hard to erase, or engender a dependency among the very ones in whom we wish to ensure self-reliance. Yet deploy too few troops, and instability arises in Kabul and Baghdad, as the Islamists lose their fear of American power and turn on the vulnerable we seek to protect.

In sum, after talking to our soldiers in Iraq and our planners in Washington, what seems to me most inexplicable is the war over the war--not the purported absence of a plan, but that the more we are winning in the field, the more we are losing it at home.

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

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[FreedomPoster]

>>the more we are winning in the field, the more we are losing it at home.

And that right there, is the part about this war, that is most similar to Vietnam.

[mo]

just means we've been negligent here at home.....

[SusaninOhio]

While I hate to start the day thinking about the used-to-be-mainstream-media and their chronic slanted reporting, until the President COMMUNICATES more with the American public, they will still have a huge audience.

[maica]

You know that he is in front of cameramen and reporters every day. He takes questions every day. What they choose to share with the public is their control over what Americans learn from the President on a daily basis.

When Clinton was in office, he strolled out to a podium in the Rose Garden just about every afternoon. His face and his message led the news almost every night. Because the media wanted Americans to hear Clinton's message.
Every half-hour radio news would use the audio clip of the day for the next 24 hours. So it is natural for Americans, who rarely hear Bush's voice, to think he is not saying anything publicly.

What kind of interaction with the public
****until the President COMMUNICATES more with the American public****
do you think would work best t get past the bottleneck?

[tonycavanagh]

re :So why not hope for the best, especially if you translate that hope into open support for the incredible mission our troops and the Iraqi forces are performing?

1) wars are not won by hope.

2) Its best to be realistic from the start, that way you plan accordingly and there are no nasty surprises which seems to happen on quite a regular basis.

4) Aways prepare for the worst.

4)Did my last tour out there 2004.

[CBart95]

Thank you for the helpful and hopeful outlook. At times we here at home seem myopic and dragged down by our sources of news and information.

The best thing that ever happened to VDH was going there and being exposed to the wonderful tangible vision and energy of our troops and the IRAQI people.

I heard a Pod-cast of him with Hugh Hewitt over the weekend. The man has been magically transformed with hope and the possibility of success.

[CBart95]

So now you have your choice:

Tony C's "Have a Crappy Day"

or VDH's "We are winning this one!"

I get enough "REALISM" from Chris(the toad) Matthews and the loserCrats.

How 'bout you?

[afnamvet]

>>the more we are winning in the field, the more we are losing it at home.

And that right there, is the part about this war, that is most similar to Vietnam.

Absolutely correct.

[knews_hound]

What is most amazing to be about the entire Golden Temple episode is that the MSM sees a tragedy and thinks only of defeat.

I said from the first announcement that the head hackers stepped in it big time.

Rather than a spark for civil war, this is actually their worst nightmare.

They have had the unintended side effect of galvanizing the population. We have from the beginning, needed a common enemy. The head hackers have always had a small part of the population as allies, using their religious motives, so called, to win support.

By showing a level of barbarity that even the Iraqis were aghast at, has tipped their hand.

The fight will be won, as long as we keep or eye on the ball.

Cheers,

knewshound

http://knewshound.blogspot.com/

[Dan(9698)]

4)Did my last tour out there 2004.

My Son was over there in 2004, and just got back from another tour.

He says that the recently completed tour was more like R&R compared with his first.

Things have vastly improved between 2004 and now.

[tonycavanagh]

re :My Son was over there in 2004, and just got back from another tour.

Very happy to hear that, hopefully the training of the Iraqi Security forces will really pay of and your son wont have to do anymore tours.

[Coop]

1) wars are not won by hope.

Hope goes a longer way toward victory than pessimism.

2) Its best to be realistic from the start, that way you plan accordingly and there are no nasty surprises which seems to happen on quite a regular basis.

Who's not being realistic? The only ones I see fitting into that category are the ones that expected Iraq to be stable after a few weeks.

4) Aways prepare for the worst.

I agree. But you and I are not operational planners. We're fans on the sidelines here.

4)Did my last tour out there 2004.

Thank you for your service. So you should know exactly how it feels to have public doubts swirling about. I was fortunate during Desert Storm, that with the exception of some blowhard Dem politicians and reporters, we had mostly public support. War is difficult enough for our military members and their loved ones without having to endure all the doubts.

[Dan(9698)]

... your son wont have to do anymore tours.

His next assignment is Research and Development, and they don't have overseas deployment.

He won't be over there again.

[Freee-dame]

You know that he is in front of cameramen and reporters every day.

Most of the reports I have heard about President Bush's overseas trip have been about protesters. There are always protesters when an American president travels overseas. What the trip is about does not seem to be of interest to the ancient MSM. All news about the economy is bad news or good, but news... It is discouraging.

[mo]

until shareholders in mainstream media companies sue for the consequences of journalistic malpractice on their holding's values, their business viability will remain intact.

[FreedomPoster]

Ping; didn't mean to ping you to the same thread, on that other one.