Posted on 06/08/2005 7:07:54 PM PDT by CHARLITE
We've been told repeatedly by those on the Left — which includes most journalists — that Bush Lied! when he gave the danger posed by Saddam's WMD programs as one of the reasons for going to war with Iraq. Did the UN lie, too? Is the UN lying now? When did Karl Rove go to work for Kofi Annan?
Two themes have dominated media coverage of the war in Iraq: that the casus belli was illegitimate (which is why we hear so much about WMD that hasn't been found and so little about mass graves that have been found), and that the cause is hopeless.
Journalists constantly compare the war in Iraq to the Vietnam war. This may be because Vietnam is the only war with which they are familiar, the study of military history not being foremost on the agenda of most scribes. More likely it's because it suits their ideological purposes to compare Iraq to the only war America has ever lost.
Those who have studied military history think a more apt historical parallel is with the battle of Okinawa, which concluded 60 years ago this month. Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific war. More than 12,000 Americans were killed (along with 101,000 Japanese soldiers and about 100,000 Okinawan civilians), and 38,000 wounded in two and a half months of fighting.
The first parallel between Okinawa then and Iraq today is that it was clear when the battle of Okinawa began on April 1st, 1945, that the U.S. would win World War II. It has been clear since the elections in January that the insurgents would lose in Iraq.
They are attacking Sunni Arabs, obliterating in the process their base of support.
"The insurgents know how to kill, but they no longer know who to kill!"
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
But reality always wins out in the end and the reality is we are winning big time.
Oh boy, this canuck has a major quibble over that one. The writer of this piece needs to read up on the American objectives in 1812 and then ask himself why my neighbours and I are not American citizens.
My hubbie was Canadian (I don't hold it against him), and he thinks it's just a way to keep the average Canadian in line by whipping up anti American sentiment through half baked propaganda from the CBC. And he may be right; It's been my experience that the average Canadian (and I'm not talking about you specifically, Squawk 8888) knows less about the War of 1812 than the average New York Times reader knows about the War of Iraqi Liberation.
The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and Britain. The essential U.S. objective of the war was to force Britain to actually start treating the United States as an independent sovereign country instead of acting as though American Citizens were still British colonists. That end was achieved in 1814 with the treaty of Ghent. And an exclamation point was added to the treaty some few days later by Andrew Jackson in New Orleans.
The war of 1812 was not fought between the United States and Canada because in 1812, Canada, as a country, did not exist! Canada wasn't even a unified dominion until 1867, and only finally became its own independent political entity in 1982 (yes, you read it correctly, nineteen hundred and eighty two).
More to the point, in 1812, the United States was really just a bit player in international politics. So were the British Canadian territories. On the international scale, the War of 1812 was primarily the U.S. contribution to the then ongoing war between Britain and Napoleonic France. The United States would not have entered that war had Great Britain not interfered with U.S. shipping or imressed U.S. citizens into service to fight for Britain against the French. Since Napoleon managed to cut Britain off from her regular source of timber in Scandinavia, Britain's only real concern about her Canadian territories was as timber supply for her navy.
Fortunately for Canada, and the rest of the world for that matter, Napoleon chose to invade Russia in 1812, leading to his ultimate defeat by Britain and her allies. Had Napoleon not made that mistake, he very likely would have prevailed against Britain, and France would have reclaimed her Canadian North American territories (a stated objective of Napoleon). In other words, the real question you should be asking yourself is: Would you be happier today as a citizen of the United States or New France? Personally, given the choice between being a Quebekkie or a U.S. Citizen, I'd be singing "Yankee Doodle" every time.
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