I love this essay for its truthfulness but I continue to be annoyed at the American consensus of failure in Iraq.
The US has not at any point failed in Iraq.
Saddam removed from power: check
Casualties lower than predicted: check
Democratic elections for interim govt: check
Democratic elections for constitution (while EU fails): check
Democratic elections for permanent government: check
94% disapproval rate for Al Qaeda among Iraqi citizens: Hearts and mind checkmate
Continual failure of Al Qaeda to establish sovereign space in Iraq: check
Economic development in Iraq: check
Hand off of vast percentages of military bases: check
building of 200K plus army and police force: check
It takes more than Al Qaeda bombings of mosques and marketplaces to convince me this war is a failure.
All it convinces me of is their absolute cowardice. Anyone with a gun can kill children. Why do we term them “victors”?
C'mon, you have to ask? We don't, but for the American left, defeat in Iraq (or anywhere else for the US) is imperative. For the politicos, this is wholly intentional. One word: TRAITORS. For the minions and even average Americans, well, they are bombarded by the traitorous press and politicos, so of course that is what they believe.
There are few different answers to your thoughts.
1. Our opponents on the Left believe that they are so much better in solving life’s problems that anything, I mean ANYTHING, is acceptable for them to get their power back. As a result in their anti-Bushism they totally lost a big picture that many things we are trying to do in Iraq is exactly what they where advocating in opposition to “our SOB” policies and in their support for human rights, women rights, etc. This why they put themselves into a position that any success of Bush is a loss for them, everything else be damned.
2. Propaganda works. When the Left bombards people with the negative info and Bush administration does not even fight the info-war, they were able to persuade people that the Left’s biased view is indeed a fact.
3. It used to be that if you did not earn any enemies you did not do anything good. Now the mushy multi-culti thinking goes that if you have any enemies its all your fault. There are people in the world that I’d be appalled if they called me a friend, but Carterism wants to hug everybody. Its make some very useful idiots out of them. They call a view that evil and enemies exist simplistic. I think its more simplistic to think that evil and enemies don’t exist.
This one is an illusion, so long as the "democratic" elections choose shari'a law as the ultimate goal. It simply postpones the inevitable, consolidating militaristic muslim power while preparing for the next democratically-elected Saddam...
"Democratically" elected Nazi Germany was still Nazi germany, with everything that history shows us followed.
Shari'a law and secular government are permanently and terminally at odds, and can never coexist.