Rush Limbaugh: Left Invested in American Iraq Defeat

RUSH: This next story made page A-22 in the Washington Post yesterday. "On the Streets of Iraq, Scenes of Joy and Determination" is the headline. "For the cooped-up children of bomb-weary Baghdad, referendum day was a winner, no matter what the final outcome. A security ban on private vehicles, invoked to keep would-be bombers from reaching targets, had a blissful side effect: The boys and girls of Baghdad took back the streets for a day," and it goes on and on and on to describe what a pleasant day the Election Day was in Iraq. If you look at this, folks, perhaps the most amazing, awe-inspiring, positive and triumphant story of the past two years, and it's on page A-22 of the Washington Post. We have paid for this achievement. We have paid for this achievement with the blood of our sons and daughters and their families. This has to be recognized and celebrated. It's a disgrace to bury this on page A-22. They go on and on and on to discuss how this still may yet fail, this victory may not mean much. In fact, MSNBC this morning just couldn't get over the fact that due to the constitution likely passing, that civil war will break out because of the Sunnis.

So the way this has been shaped in the mainstream press is: "There's no way Bush can win. There's no way the Iraqis can win." If the constitution fails, it fails, and if it wins, it fails, because the Sunnis aren't going to like it and it's going to have to be rewritten in four months to please them or there will be a civil war. All this reporting is just the same as the reaction to my op-ed. The facts and the reality facing these people escapes them because of their template, and because of their prism and their mind-set. This whole Iraq war, the whole Iraq excursion, the whole Iraq idea is going to fail. It has to be fail! Too much has been invested in its failure by us in the mainstream press and by their willing accomplices in the Democratic Party. So however it turns out, it is a failure. It's going to fail because it's Bush's war and it's an unjust war and it was unnecessary and Bush lied to take us to war and all of the clichés that we have heard from Democrat propagandists from day one. So now we've had every element that we have targeted in terms of the development of this country has taken place and on time. We turned the country over to them, called "sovereignty," on the date we said we were going to do it.

The elections took place on the date we said they were going to take place, and the turnout was high, stunning everybody, and in the immediate aftermath of those elections, many columnists, Chicago and Los Angeles are writing, "Hmm, maybe Bush was right after all," to which I said, "No, no, no, no, no. Maybe you were WRONG after all." The template here is that you have been wrong on every forecast and prediction that you've made about Iraq. Bush has been right on every one. The turnout in the constitutional vote yesterday was higher than even the vote back in January. So, the timetables continue to be met, and yet with each successful timetable, we get closer and closer to abject failure. We get closer and closer to doom and gloom. Grab audio sound bite #2a, Mike. Every time that there is a success in Iraq -- after we captured Saddam, after the first election, now after a peaceful vote on the constitution -- Democrats say, "Well, the next election, that's the really important one. The next event, that's the really important. Everybody knew this was going to happen." Here is a montage of guests from the Sunday shows. We got Senator Feinstein (D-CA). We've got Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek. We've got Joe Klein in Newsweek. We've got Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE). We've got Senator Joe Biden (D-DE). It's a short little montage, about 17 seconds, but it makes the case.

KLEIN: What we're looking for here is like a three-cushion bank shot in December.

HAGEL: What's going to be critically important is this election coming up in December.

RUSH: Just go back to last week and it would all hinge on what happened yesterday. "Oh, yeah, the insurgents, terrorists are going to blow everybody up! Why, if their turnout isn't big and if the vote doesn't come out, oh, this country is doomed! They're not ready for democracy." Now, this one happened, "Oh, we've got to look forward to the next one." We're going to find failure wherever we can. The Associated Press in a story over the weekend, in a brilliant illustration of how to turn a positive into a negative: "Sunnis Appear to Fall Short in Iraq Vote -- "Iraq's landmark constitution seemed assured of passage Sunday after initial results showed minority Sunni Arabs had fallen short in an effort to veto it at the polls. The apparent acceptance was a major step in the attempt to establish a democratic government that could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Opponents failed to secure the necessary two-thirds 'no' vote in any three of Iraqi's 18 provinces, according to counts that local officials provided to The Associated Press. In the crucial central provinces with mixed ethnic and religious populations, enough Shiites and Kurds voted to stymie the Sunni bid to reject the constitution.... But the outcome could further divide the nation, with many Sunnis fearing the new decentralized government will deprive them of their fair share in the country's vast oil wealth. Large numbers of Sunnis voted "no," and some of their leaders were already rejecting the apparent result."

Sheik Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a prominent cleric with the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said, "If the constitution was passed, the attacks will definitely rise against the occupation forces, and the security situation is going to be worse." Yeah, we know this. This is how these things happen. Folks, we're missing the whole point here by focusing on something as simple as failure. The left is trying to focus on failure, but can I talk to you about failure? Can I ask you a real question? What do you think happens if we lose in Iraq? What do you think it means to the left? Let's put it this way. They're the ones eager for us to lose. They want Bush to lose. They think they win when Bush loses. Remember, whatever is bad for America, is good for them. Whatever is good for America is bad for them. I'm talking about politically. They can't stand successes for this country, particularly in foreign policy. Bad news for them. They haven't been on the right side of the war on terror or the war in Iraq since the initial vote, and they're all trying to act like they never voted for it in the first place or that Bush lied to them. So they're invested in failure. Well, let me ask you a question. I want you to think about this during the break. What does failure mean to the left? Because I think I know. They are so shortsighted, they are so head-buried-in-the-sand on this that they have a skewed definition of failure. Let's put it this way. Forget the word "failure." Let's say we "lose." Let's say that we ultimately lose in Iraq; let's say that what happens is defeat, which is clearly what many in the American left hope for, it's what they've been agitating for. It's what they're trying to say is happening with each successful event in Iraq. What does defeat mean to them? I'm talking about strategically. What does it mean to them?

RUSH: Now, to be fair, the New York Times did front-page the big news out of Iraq. The Washington Post didn't -- page A-22 -- but the New York Times did. "Early Signs Show Iraqis' Approval of Constitution," and the story goes on to say that even in big Sunni-dominated cities, "the constitution failed narrowly." Failed narrowly! They still had to use the word "fail" in there. But get this paragraph, the first sentence: "But the meaning of the relatively low level of violence remains unclear." Rather than celebrating the low level of violence, the New York Times is down there: "Why the hell didn't it happen? We wanted violence! We wanted anarchy! We wanted this place to look like New Orleans on the day of this election. We didn't get it! Why weren't they violent? The level of violence was unnoticed." Maybe because they were prepared for it? Maybe because the insurgency is not as strong as you in the media think? I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but maybe it's not that huge, just like what happened in New Orleans wasn't nearly the way we were told it happened for a week to ten days afterwards. Even in big Sunni-dominated cities a lot of votes for the constitution. It "failed narrowly." Now, the New York Times gets even with itself for writing a positive story by having this: "Administration's Tone Signals a Longer, Broader Iraq Conflict," and the Democrat criticism is all over the place. There's a guy from the Brookings Institution who says democracy is not the answer. More troops, no! More democracy, no! But, wait, Bush sucks! That's the bottom line of it.

"Others take a harsher view. Kenneth Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and now a scholar at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, said Mr. Bush's new tone reflected 'the fact that their whole theory about how this is going to work out isn't working, and almost certainly isn't going to work.' He added, 'The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproven on the ground every day.'" Carl Levin was on Meet the Press yesterday, too. He said that democracy in the political situation is key, and the Brookings guy seems to disagree. If you ask me, they had a huge bit of democracy going on in Iraq over the weekend. What do these people think they're looking at? And here we have a companion story where they lament the fact that the violence was low and the reason for it was "unclear." I'll tell you, folks, this is why we cannot trust these people to be in charge of US national security. They are not interested in success. When they look at success they see a political problem for themselves. They have to start defining everything as a failure, even now after the constitution in Iraq passes, "Ah, that's even worse. That's worse than it failing because now people are going to be really upset. It's going to lead to civil war." Any bets that it doesn't? What do you think these insurgents have been trying for all this time? And, I'll tell you what, with as horrendous and outrageously incorrect as the post-Katrina reporting in New Orleans was, and with other examples such as that that we could cite with the mainstream media now just not seeing things and not getting it -- and, remember, the bias is not so much how they report and what they report. It's also what they leave out, what to them is not news. So it's a combination of things. I just am loath to trust them. And by the same token they'll say Calypso Louie's event and make it the biggest thing that ever happened.

Now, I asked you on Friday -- I asked you to make a bet -- Where do you think the turnout will be bigger, in the Iraqi elections or at the Millions More March? And guess what? There were thousands at the Millions More March -- and that's not tens of thousands, and that's not hundreds of thousands, and that's not a million. It was a very, very small turnout, and yet that gets a lot of ink as well, and in fact is given more credence and more meaning and more substance than the constitutional vote in Iraq yesterday. So I ask you to think about this. To the Democrats and to the left in this country: How do you think they define failure? And by that I mean: What do you think they think will happen if we fail? What does it mean and then what happens next? And the answer to this, I mean, there's no guessing. I know what the answer is. I may not be phrasing the question. I'm not asking for you to take a guess because it's unknown. There is a known answer. I know that they think there's... Let me put it this way. (interruption) What? Oh, that's not the right way to put it. They believe we're going to fail. What does that mean, and then what happens after that? What will be the result, let's put it that way, what will be the result of our failure or defeat? (interruption) What? Don't tell (interruption). No, no (interruption). Well, well, but that (interruption). Snerdley says the Democrats come back to power. Yeah, yeah, yaw but that's obvious. I'm talking about what will be the mechanism they think will get them there. I'll tell you, the answer, folks, is very simple, and it is frightening in its shortsightedness, as far as the left is concerned. Let me grab a phone call while you think about this for a while. John in Austin, Texas. You're next on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Would you be willing to live under the constitution that they voted for Saturday in Iraq?

RUSH: The flawed premise is that they're not electing a constitution for Americans to live under, and we are not forcing an American-style democracy on them. I thought when this all started that what everybody was upset about was that we were pushing an American-style democracy on a bunch of Arabs and Iranians or Iraqis and Islamic people, and that was unfair. Now they're coming up with their own constitution --

CALLER: So in fact -- okay, well, I'll get to the point of my question then is you think that that constitution represents something that you can call democracy?

RUSH: Wait a second. Now, wait a second. See, you've got to be very careful with the words you use when you ask me a question, because what is democracy?

CALLER: I just happen to agree with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and James Madison on that. So if you want to disagree with us that's fine, Rush, but democracy is mob rule.

RUSH: Whoa, there you go now. Slow down. You're presuming I'm going to say and think things that you can't yet know. Now, what I would call happening in Iraq yesterday, at this stage of the game, yep, it's a democracy.

RUSH: No, no, no. Majority rule. You get into mob rule later. The mob over there is the insurgency that didn't vote.

CALLER: No. The mob is the ones who vote themselves goodies of the public treasury. Mob rule, that's what we've got here, Rush. You can't recognize it?

RUSH: Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot we were talking about the United States mob rule. I thought you started out asking me if I would like to live under the Iraqi constitution, and now you want to talk about the mob rule of the Republicans in Washington. Sir, do not try to trick this host. We're too shifty; we're too smart, and we've heard from you. I know where you're going to go before you go there. I know what you're going to say before you say it. I know what's in your warped mind before you do. Let me just me just get to the nub of this with you, sir. Was that Ronnie Earle on the phone? Was his name Ronnie Earle? That was John in Austin, okay. All roads lead to Travis County. I thought it sounded like Ronnie Earle. I have a cochlear implant. I sometimes confuse voices. I thought it might have been Ronnie Earle. But he asked me this question and, of course, didn't let me answer it because they're afraid of the answer. Would you want to live under this constitution with Islamic rule and this and that, and my answer to that is, let me ask you people on the left a question. If this constitution is so bad and if this constitution establishes the kind of Islamic government that we have in Iraq or we see in Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, then tell me: why is it that Zarqawi and Zawahiri didn't vote for it? Tell me why they're trying to blow it up? If this Iraqi constitution establishes the kind of militant regime that they want, why are they trying to stop this? Why aren't they running for president and getting the votes of the people? You people on the left are intellectually embarrassing. You are beneath contempt at times. You just continue to amaze me. Your rage and your hatred has clouded your ability to be reasonable and to see things as they are -- and, I might add, to stay on track when you call this program. I mean, I can veer off with you whenever you go because as I say I know where you're going before you do, but you just don't sound good when you call here.

RUSH: Frank in Trenton, New Jersey. Frank, welcome to the program. Nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, dittos. Regarding your question about what happens if we lose in Iraq, I think the left will think that the world becomes safer because --

RUSH: Oh you're close! You're very close. You're very, very, very, very close. Because why? Tell me why.

CALLER: Because the US will become weakened in its status as the world's lone superpower, so therefore --

RUSH: And it is the US which provokes all this violence and unrest and hatred around the world because of our size. You're exactly right, but let me start a little sooner than that, because I want to explain this answer to you in just as simple way as possible. The left defines victory in Iraq for them as the troops coming home. They're basing their opposition on this loss of life isn't worth it. They have the run-up, the body count, the dead in Iraq, and as it reaches a number like 1,500 or 2,000, they start the countdown, and they herald it. They've tried to turn public against the war based on that. They have tried to turn public opinion against the war based on a number of things and in a number of ways. So it seems to me that they're defining victory for themselves as bringing the troops home. Remember, now, their template is Vietnam. The left is looking to the past to find their glory today. They think that there was much glory, presumed glory in their past. So Iraq today is Vietnam. The entirety of the Bush administration is Watergate; Hurricane Katrina is the Great Depression. They can only look to the past to find greatness in themselves, presumed greatness. They cannot chart a course for this country for the future. They can't tell us what it is, and if they have one, they can't be honest about it. So quite simply, they think that they can make hay, make points, win an election by promising to get the troops home -- and if we get the troops home, they will consider that a victory. In truth, it is a failure, if the troops come home before the mission is accomplished, and here's why -- because you are exactly right.

They think that once the troops come home we will be able to go back to a pre-9/11 existence in this country, and they think that by doing that we will all be safer and prices will come down, and, "Oh, we'll have the occasional terrorist hit, but we'll not be faced with a constant barrage and threat from terrorism because we will have pulled out of their region and they will know that we are now changing tack, that we have no intention of taking over their part of the world." The truth is or the reality is that, were the Democrats to secure enough power to actually bring the troops home, it would be the worst possible thing that could happen to this country. If anyone thinks that the terrorism that we faced in the pre-9/11 days will simply return to that level or maybe even a little less, you have to have a rude awakening, because losing by bringing the troops home and caving without the mission being accomplished over there would result in the terrorists being emboldened.

Folks, the terrorists' objective is not just to drive us out of the Middle East, to drive us out of Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever, they don't like us. Their objective is to kill us. Their objective is to do away with our way of life. There were 20 years of terror attacks before 9/11. Some of them were pretty vicious, some of them were pretty serious, but they all occurred elsewhere, other than the 1993 World Trade Center bombing which we laughed about because these guys were such bumblers that they got caught by not returning their rental van. So we laughed a little bit about that one. Of course that was the Clinton administration where the image of everybody's just happy as can be, nothing is going wrong, and we're going to have a great eight years was being cast and set, and so no serious effort to deal with terrorist attacks during that decade occurred. By the way, as nothing was done was done to deter future terrorist attacks after each one during those 20 years, particularly the eight years of the Clinton administration, what then happened? 9/11. Folks, if we, quote, unquote, "lose" this as the Democrats seek for us to lose it, by, you know, apologizing, bringing the troops home, saying, "We've bitten off more than we can chew here," the terrorist attacks on this country and around freedom-loving civilizations around the world are only going to increase. The recruitment of new terrorists is going to expand geometrically and exponentially.

They will have forced the great Satan, the world's lone superpower, out of Iraq, and it will be because somebody like Hillary Clinton or John Kerry or whoever is going to run the Democratic side will succeed in winning the presidency and embark on that policy. That's what the left wants. I mean, if you listen to them talk, the Democratic Party, it's, "Bring the troops home! We've got to get the troops home. This is unfair. It's unjust. It's not worth this loss of blood, this loss of life. Nothing is worth this. Bush lied to get us in this. There's no real problem here that we haven't caused and made worse ourselves. So if we just show them that we're not like Bush, why, we'll be able to go back and pick daisies and grill hamburgers and hot dogs every afternoon of the week, never, ever again having to worry about another terrorist attack," when in truth it will be worse than ever if that happens. I mention all this only because the circumstances in Iraq are clearly advancing in a positive way, and yet the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the mainstream press are doing everything possible to make as many people as possible think that it's leading to failure, to calamity, more death, more terrorism, more destruction. The exact thing -- that exact thing -- would be the result of Democrats succeeding with their foreign policy on the war on terror.

I mention all this only because the circumstances in Iraq are clearly advancing in a positive way, and yet the Democrats and their willing accomplices in the mainstream press are doing everything possible to make as many people as possible think that it's leading to failure, to calamity, more death, more terrorism, more destruction. The exact thing -- that exact thing -- would be the result of Democrats succeeding with their foreign policy on the war on terror.

The left seems to think that Iraq is like Vietnam, what they fail to recognize is that after we abandoned the Vietnamese, the Viet Cong didn't have any intention of coming to the United States to kill us.

http://newsbusters.org/node/2144

Media Forget History of American Constitution When Reporting on Iraq's
Posted by John Armor on October 12, 2005 - 14:26.

And... after we left Vietnam, Polpot when on a killing spree in Cambodia, killing millions. Same thing will probably happen there if we leave too early.

Those of us who have lived through the VietNam era remember all to well the hatchet job done by the media and the anti-American movements. They convinced America, based on the false testimony of those like John Kerry, "Hanoi" Jane and a willing Congress, etc. to abandon VietNam and the US military. Too many of us are still around and that wound will never be healed.

And tragically, too many of you were blamed for not doing what the left prevented you from doing. The NVA and VC could have been eliminated in weeks were it not for the likes of sKerry, Hanoi Jane and Cronkite.

What does defeat mean to them?

It means the same thing that the Vietnam war did - that the U.S. must never be allowed to take an action, especially not a military action, that is not approved in advance by internationalists and in the interest of the advancement of internationalism and the detriment of nationalism. That internationalism was identified with world socialism for a very long time and still carries that cachet.

What that implies in practical terms is that a U.S. failure in any policy represents a step toward an idealized future, the exact mechanism of which is theoretical and murky but believed in with all the fervor of a religious fanatic. The left has lost its collective vision of where it is going; all that remains is a certainty that where it is must be wrong.

They sure are invested in an American defeat. They've opposed this thing from the start. A defeat would allow them to say, "We told you so." Big boost for the Left's belief in it's own infallibility.

We shouldn't allow the Left to get away with lying about the situation in Iraq.

likes of sKerry, Hanoi Jane and Cronkite.

If you're going to just toss names around toss the right one - Lyndon Johnson. Johnson would not allow the military to do what it needed to do to win the war. Our military could have bombed N. Vietnam into oblivion in 2 weeks time.

I seriously believe that everytime a troop is brutally murdered, a 2008 democratic anti-war candidate smiles

Everytime a trop is killed, most Americans (who care) winces. We should not be there any longer. The Iraqis know how to fight. They now know how to vote. We need to take the training wheels off, or they will forever be a crippled state, sucking down the US treasury.

I believe that most citizens in this country would be supporting this war almost 100% were it not for the lies and propaganda of the left supplied to us by their lap dog media.

Of course the same thing will happen over there!.......Where is the loving,caring, compassionate,liberal ,left on that matter? Well..... if we succeed over in Iraq that puts a win in the Bush column and a win for our country. That doesn't fit into the lefts political ambitions or agenda.(to embarrass, and weaken Bush)so.......they could care less if innocents are slaughtered over there if we pull out now as they want,just like they didn't give a hoot when we pulled out of Vietnam!Hypocrits, all of them!

we should leave when it makes sense for us to leave, and not one day sooner. when we are sure that IRAN will not try to subvert a legally empowered government in Iraq, well THEN we can leave...

I believe that most citizens in this country would be supporting this war almost 100% were it not for the lies and propaganda of the left supplied to us by their lap dog media.

Josef Goebbels would have given his right arm to have this kind of media ally in World War II America.

we should leave when it makes sense for us to leave, and not one day sooner. when we are sure that IRAN will not try to subvert a legally empowered government in Iraq, well THEN we can leave...

There's no need for Iran to subvert anything... we seem to have allowed a very Iran-friendly constitution to be voted on. It made sense to have given them a constitution that made sense for our purposes last year, had them vote on it, and then left.

Unfortunately, the path we've chosen to take leaves us there indefinitely..

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