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Congress, Media Could Talk U.S. Into Iraq Defeat
Roll Call, via Real Clear Politics ^ | May 21, 2004 | By Mort Kondracke

Posted on 05/21/2004 8:08:21 AM PDT by So Cal Rocket

The American establishment, led by the media and politicians, is in danger of talking the United States into defeat in Iraq. And the results would be catastrophic.

The media - unperturbed by mistakenly likening both the Afghan war and last year's invasion of Iraq to Vietnam - focuses overwhelmingly on the bad news coming out of Iraq. There is plenty of bad news - but there is also much good, and it is being almost completely ignored.

Some Members of Congress - either out of a passion to defeat President Bush, pique at not being listened to by the Bush administration, or simply a need to hear their own voices - are declaring the war "unwinnable" or "a quagmire," or are demanding an "exit strategy."

Both the media and Congress are obsessed with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. It is awful, but both institutions are treating it as if it were the most important occurrence of the war.

The decapitation of Nicholas Berg - which, it merits reminding, required several cuts of the knife to stop his screaming - was a front-page story for just one day. Only one newspaper that I know of, the Dallas Morning News, plus the Weekly Standard magazine, made the point that Berg's murder is "why we fight."

By now, Abu Ghraib has been a lead story for weeks. And Congress has gone so far as to pull top U.S. commanders back from the battle zone to grill them about it - just as America's enemies are launching what they hope will be the Iraqi equivalent of the 1968 Tet offensive, hoping to undermine the June 30 handover of power to Iraqis.

In 1968 - by no accident, a U.S. presidential election year - the Viet Cong launched a massive countrywide offensive in South Vietnam, invading the U.S. Embassy complex in the process.

By every military measure, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces devastated the Communist forces. (It's all recorded in the late Peter Braestrup's masterful book "Big Story.") Yet the U.S. media reported the episode as a U.S. defeat, helping convince the American establishment that the war was unwinnable.

In this respect, there is a real danger that Iraq could become like Vietnam - a self-inflicted defeat. Public support for the war is down, and even conservative columnists such as David Brooks and George Will are implying that Bush's aims are unachievable.

Although everyone says they support American troops in Iraq, soldiers have to wonder whether the country is fully behind their mission. Iraqis, too, have to be wondering: Will America stay the course?

President Bush surely will. He strikes me as being as resolute as George Washington was at Valley Forge, Abraham Lincoln after the early defeats of the Civil War, and Franklin Roosevelt in the darkest days of World War II. They didn't have "exit strategies," either.

But if Congress and the media raise doubts that Bush can "finish the job," then Iraqis - who already have good reason to doubt American resolve, given our performance during and after the 1991 Gulf War - will lose all faith that they can have a stable country.

This is not to suggest that Bush is blameless. History may agree with today's critics that Bush was utterly wrong about Iraq: that Saddam Hussein was a containable threat, that war was unnecessary and that the idea of building a democracy in the Arab world was wildly idealistic and unattainable.

Indeed, even before history is written, the situation in Iraq may lead to Bush's defeat in November. He has surely bet his presidency on a successful outcome, and right now the polls indicate he will lose.

But it's utterly vital that Americans give the enterprise every chance of success. The consequences of failure will be disastrous-not just for Bush, but for Iraqis, for America, for the Middle East and for civilization itself.

If Iraq descends into chaos, Iraqis who have sided with the United States will be butchered. For some time, America will cease to be seen as the leader in the world, no matter who is president. The forces of evil - Islamic fanatics and Saddamist killers - will be ascendant in the Middle East. The forces of democracy and liberalism will be defeated.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has an important role to play here - one that he sometimes fills well and sometimes not.

The Massachusetts Senator has said, "We have to succeed in Iraq" and, "We can't cut and run." He favors sending in more troops and has pledged to support Bush's latest request for $25 billion to sustain military operations.

At the same time, Kerry voted against Bush's previous request for $87 billion, and last week he blasted Bush for running an "extraordinarily mismanaged and ineptly prosecuted war." He has demanded the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The rule for him, and for other politicians, ought to be this: Criticize constructively, recommend alternative policies, but don't harp on Bush's "mismanagement."

My model for the political handling of the war - and, yes, on lots of other issues, readers of this column may have noticed - is Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.).

On April 26, Lieberman delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution in which he literally "pleaded" with his fellow politicians "to stop the bickering, to overcome the mistrust, to appreciate how similar are our current goals in Iraq and to work together to achieve them.I am calling for a bipartisan political truce on the homefront that will greatly help us achieve the victory that we all desire on the battlefront."

A truce does not imply an absence of criticism, as Lieberman and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) demonstrated in an op-ed in Monday's Washington Post. In the column, they called for a "significant" troop increase, a detailed post-June 30 plan for Iraq, and a speedup of Iraqi elections from next January to this fall.

This is a hard time in Iraq - perhaps, as Tom Paine once said, a "time to try men's souls." On the other hand, after the head of the Iraqi Governing Council was murdered this week, Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rabai - a figure considered close to Grand Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani - declared that "these gangsters and terrorists will have to kill 25 million Iraqis who are longing for freedom, democracy and prosperity."

Sistani, arguably the dominant political actor in Iraq, is clearly siding with the United States against upstart Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr. That's good news. Americans should know more about it - and take heart.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dems; iraq; iraqwar; kondracke; mediabias; mortkondracke
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1 posted on 05/21/2004 8:08:22 AM PDT by So Cal Rocket
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To: So Cal Rocket

Mort can be way off target sometimes, but in this case he is right-on.


2 posted on 05/21/2004 8:21:38 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: So Cal Rocket; Lando Lincoln; quidnunc; .cnI redruM; Valin; yonif; SJackson; dennisw; ...

Mort Kondracke:

The American establishment, led by the media and politicians, is in danger of talking the United States into defeat in Iraq. And the results would be catastrophic.

... there is a real danger that Iraq could become like Vietnam - a self-inflicted defeat. Public support for the war is down, and even conservative columnists such as David Brooks and George Will are implying that Bush's aims are unachievable.

Although everyone says they support American troops in Iraq, soldiers have to wonder whether the country is fully behind their mission. Iraqis, too, have to be wondering: Will America stay the course?

President Bush surely will. He strikes me as being as resolute as George Washington was at Valley Forge, Abraham Lincoln after the early defeats of the Civil War, and Franklin Roosevelt in the darkest days of World War II. They didn't have "exit strategies," either.

But if Congress and the media raise doubts that Bush can "finish the job," then Iraqis - who already have good reason to doubt American resolve, given our performance during and after the 1991 Gulf War - will lose all faith that they can have a stable country.

...

But it's utterly vital that Americans give the enterprise every chance of success. The consequences of failure will be disastrous-not just for Bush, but for Iraqis, for America, for the Middle East and for civilization itself.

If Iraq descends into chaos, Iraqis who have sided with the United States will be butchered. For some time, America will cease to be seen as the leader in the world, no matter who is president. The forces of evil - Islamic fanatics and Saddamist killers - will be ascendant in the Middle East. The forces of democracy and liberalism will be defeated.

....

This is a hard time in Iraq - perhaps, as Tom Paine once said, a "time to try men's souls." On the other hand, after the head of the Iraqi Governing Council was murdered this week, Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rabai - a figure considered close to Grand Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani - declared that "these gangsters and terrorists will have to kill 25 million Iraqis who are longing for freedom, democracy and prosperity."

Sistani, arguably the dominant political actor in Iraq, is clearly siding with the United States against upstart Shiite leader Moktada al-Sadr. That's good news. Americans should know more about it - and take heart.

     Nailed It!

     Moral Clarity BUMP  !

This ping list is not author-specific. You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me.

3 posted on 05/21/2004 8:22:51 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: So Cal Rocket

Of course, Kondracke is right. He fails, however, to take the next logical steps. The major media, the Democrat Party, most universities, Hollywood and A.N.S.W.E.R. are all part of the Socialist faction that was left seething with the fall of the Soviet Union. They are anti-American instinctively and could care less for our troops. For them to do other than what they are doing would force them to face the realization that they have been wrong about virtually every major issue of at least the last sixty years. They are far too self-absorbed to do that.


4 posted on 05/21/2004 8:25:23 AM PDT by Inwoodian
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To: So Cal Rocket
The media... focuses overwhelmingly on the bad news coming out of Iraq. There is plenty of bad news - but there is also much good, and it is being almost completely ignored.

Imagine how much better it would be for America, for Iraq, and, ultimately, for world stability, if we could get the Left in this country to pipe down. We don't even need them to get on board with the WOT if they don't want to. We just need them to stop actively opposing our efforts to stabilize the Middle East, and to stop cheering on our enemies.

5 posted on 05/21/2004 8:38:55 AM PDT by Starve The Beast (I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused)
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To: Tolik
The media ratings and he said she said point counterpoint, crossfire formats may cost us this war. In addition folks like Bill O'Reilly have no business practicing politics let alone geopolitics. The 24 hour 3 cable news outlets are undermining my tax dollars and sacrifice not to mention my country.
6 posted on 05/21/2004 8:44:14 AM PDT by Helms (Yasser Arafat Quoting The Militant Religion of the Koran: Terrorize Your Enemies)
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To: So Cal Rocket

To these whiners

A “Col Jeesup's rant” I think it's time for Donald Rumsfeld to have a few words with ABCNBCBCCNN:

"Liberals, we live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, ABCNBCCBCCNN?

"I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for prisoners at Abu Ghraib and curse the Commander-In-Chief, you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that prisoner intimidation at Abu Ghraib, while tragic, probably saved lives and that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives."

"You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at ABCNBCBCCNN you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use then as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punch line in a propaganda headline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to TV media who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

I would rather you just said "thank you," and you go back to reporting the real news. Otherwise, I suggest that you get off that elitist throne, put down the microphone equipment, push away from the feeding trough, waddle your fat ass outta my sight and SHUT YOUR MOUTH! Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."


7 posted on 05/21/2004 8:47:36 AM PDT by CHICAGOFARMER (Citizen Carry)
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To: CHICAGOFARMER

Until our Republican congresscritters go on full attack this is a possiblity!


8 posted on 05/21/2004 8:50:24 AM PDT by rrrod
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To: TaxRelief; Huber; Liz
Forces of darkness versus forces of light.

What more possible evidence do we need to substantiate their war on flyover country?

Elite US Media needs humiliation and defeat and 11/04/04 represents that opportunity.

Will a 4/5 point win represent a mandate?

9 posted on 05/21/2004 8:55:54 AM PDT by Helms (Yasser Arafat Quoting The Militant Religion of the Koran: Terrorize Your Enemies)
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To: CHICAGOFARMER
Funny you mentioned "A few Good Men". It is amazing what real talent can do. Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin are leftists, BUT really talented. Nicholson as well, I think. Sorkin wrote Jessep's speech that became bigger than the movie. It always amazes me how real talent cuts through the person's own bias and build up of BS. One of those moments...
10 posted on 05/21/2004 9:03:24 AM PDT by Tolik
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To: So Cal Rocket

Oh, I see another Viet Nam.


11 posted on 05/21/2004 9:12:32 AM PDT by freekitty
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To: CHICAGOFARMER
So why doesn't a group of Washington republicans say this loud and clear for all to hear.Speak you use the word LIAR
12 posted on 05/21/2004 9:26:45 AM PDT by patriciamary
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To: Helms
Elite US Media needs humiliation and defeat and 11/04/04 represents that opportunity.

Oh, I just can't wait to see 'em eat crow.

13 posted on 05/21/2004 9:34:02 AM PDT by Liz
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To: freekitty

WE WILL NOT TIRE...WE WILL NOT FALTER...WE WILL NOT FAIL..


14 posted on 05/21/2004 9:36:49 AM PDT by MEG33 (John Kerry's been AWOL for two decades on issues of National Security!)
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To: Starve The Beast

If we could shut down the left for just a few months we could win this damned war. We won't have a chance till the fall. I'm not pessimistic about the election. But I'm very sure I need to work my butt off to keep the socialists out.


15 posted on 05/21/2004 10:25:28 AM PDT by johnb838 (When I hear "Allahu Akhbar" it means somebody is about to die.)
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To: CHICAGOFARMER
Wow! That is tremendous. I hope you don't mind if I put it on my profile (with credit of course)

You Can't Handle The Truth bump.
16 posted on 05/21/2004 10:29:10 AM PDT by johnb838 (When I hear "Allahu Akhbar" it means somebody is about to die.)
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To: So Cal Rocket
The consequences of failure will be disastrous-not just for Bush, but for Iraqis, for America, for the Middle East and for civilization itself.

If John Kerry is elected president this November, as far as I'm concerned, this country — indeed Western civilization — will deserve everything it will get from the Islamofreaks. I will no longer give a rat's butt about any of it and will turn inward to just focus on me and mine.

17 posted on 05/21/2004 10:32:43 AM PDT by Wolfstar (Does anyone know what the meaning of IS, is in Clinton-speak?)
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To: johnb838

Go for it


18 posted on 05/21/2004 10:42:04 AM PDT by CHICAGOFARMER (Citizen Carry)
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To: So Cal Rocket

Mort said that? About 40% of the time we agree with him.

In this case, 100 percent.


19 posted on 05/21/2004 11:27:38 AM PDT by Vets_Husband_and_Wife
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To: Vairy

Mort at his best...even though he is a dem.


20 posted on 05/21/2004 12:01:09 PM PDT by MEG33 (John Kerry's been AWOL for two decades on issues of National Security!)
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