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March 1, 2006
What's Really Going On In Iraq: Discerning With Common Sense And Real Facts
Topics: Iraq
What's really going on in Iraq? Gloom and doom, or roses and glee? Or maybe somewhere in between as one would expect in a fledgling democracy springing out of a region known for turmoil since and in many ways stuck - in the middle ages, with anger and violence stoked by incompetent and self-serving leaders and fire-breathing imams praying for theocracies?
On February 27 we wrote in our post, "The Little Civil War That Tried But Couldn't - Residents Returning To Streets In Baghdad", that residents were already returning to the streets, and although one could say that it's way too early to make any note out of a day's events, and they'd be right, as hard as Iran and the insurgents tried and as much as they wanted one, trust us - a civil war wasn't going to happen over a blown dome. The Iraqis have more sense than that, and they've already proven their metal by voting with their lives!
And so it was also with the mosque bombing and the violent reactions that followed. However, again, contrary to the predictions, hopes and dreams of the "demagogues, appeasers, and the media", as the military predicted and we've previously noted, Iraq is not in a civil war, and more likely than not it will move forward over what will be looked back upon as another bump in the road to democracy.Here's a couple of pieces that I believe provide real common sense insights into the realities on the ground in Iraq:
At War With Ourselves: Victor Davis Hanson writes that we're in Iraq. Let's not lose at home.
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.No War In The Streets: Ralph Peters writes that the reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period. He says, "Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough? And as for normal activity, he notes that yesterday, he crisscrossed Baghdad, visited communities on both banks of the Tigris and logged at least 25 miles on the streets. And with the weekend curfew lifted, he saw traffic jams, booming business -- and everyday life in abundance.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.
(...) ... the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week's strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets. The transition is working.Under a category I'd call "somewhat neutral," we have this:(...) Most Iraqis want better government, better lives -- and democracy. It is contagious, after all. Come on over. Talk to them. Watch them risk their lives every day to work with us or with their government to build their own future.
Up close, Iraq gets blurry: Max Boot at the L.A. Times asks "ARE WE WINNING or losing in Iraq?", and goes on to note that "liberals and conservatives safe at home have no trouble formulating glib answers to that fundamental question. The former can always point to setbacks, the latter to successes. The picture becomes blurrier, the future murkier when you spend time in Iraq, as I (Max Boot) did last week.
(...) ... just when the situation seems to be improving, a spectacular act of violence such as the mosque bombing will bring the country to the edge of the abyss. As Jones noted ruefully during a 30-minute ride between his base and the giant U.S. logistics hub near Balad, "You can go days without anything bad happening, and then you find 47 dead bodies." Which is more important -- the signs of progress that mostly pass unheralded, or the continuing woes splashed across newspaper front pages? I left Iraq more uncertain than when I arrived.Now, after glimpsing into the realities in Iraq through windows of sanity and common sense, let's take a look at a typical piece that represents the reporting of our mainstream media, one viewed through a window obscured by political agendas, bias, and blinded by believing their own self-serving intellectualisms:
Although this particular piece appears at a left-wing website, it is in fact representative of what we see and hear on cable news and read in print and online media, written by liberal journalists in the so-called mainstreat, our "intellectual elite."
This piece is by Robert Dreyfuss, author of "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam" (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005), and a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. If these aren't card-carrying credentials for a man on the left with a liberal agenda bias, one doesn't exist. Here's what he has to say about Iraq (as you read it, think about the excerps of the previous examples that I have characterized as "glimpsing into the realities in Iraq through windows of sanity and common sense", and compare):
(TomPaine.com) With 1,300 dead Iraqis-- and counting -- since the bombing of the Golden Dome last week, Iraq remains poised at the precipice of destruction. It's anyone's guess as to whether the crisis will revert to its previous state of mere insurgency and grinding daily violence, or plunge into a multi-sided religious civil war. If the latter, a thousand more dead Iraqis each week -- or more-- might be a routine occurrence. Either way, however, one thing is clear. Already dead is the Bush administration's hope for a neat drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq as Election 2006 approaches. Voters who go to the polls in the United States in November will be staring directly into the face of the catastrophe of the Bush-Cheney Iraq policy.Wow, are we talking about the same war in the same country? Making sense out of Iraq requires common sense and sanity, not the insertion of a personal political agenda, something the left is absolutely incapable of doing. As a hyscience author will be writing on later, it was the intellectual elite that was so in favor of Stalin and Hitler, and the Islamofascists have trully found a common ground and friendship with our intellectual elite of the left. What the American media and our friends on the left fail to realize, they're playing with our lives and theirs, and the future of a civilization that allows them the right and freedom to be so very wrong, and that should the Islamist win, they may very well have neither their freedom or their lives. The problem is that they would have contributed to the demise of the freedoms and lives of the rest of us, as well.Bush and Cheney had hoped to rescue their failure in Iraq by four interlocking measures: first, the creation of an independent Iraqi military and police force that could take on the insurgents; second, a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq to placate U.S. domestic opposition to the war; third, the establishment of a modicum of security in Iraq, enough to allow economic reconstruction to proceed; and finally, the cobbling together of some sort of credible Iraqi government. Let's take those four, one by one.
There's much to be said in the rest of us standing much taller and being much more vocal, than we have in the past. Freedoms aren't free, we have to fight for them. And believe me, this war is very real indeed!
Posted by Richard at March 1, 2006 9:27 AM
Articles Related to Iraq:
- Costs Of Illegal Aliens Approaching Cost Of War In Iraq - Apr 22, 2008
- Iraq Today: By The Numbers - Apr 08, 2008
- WSJ: 'The Petraeus Effect' - Apr 08, 2008
- Report: 'Saddam Transferred WMDs To Syria' - Apr 07, 2008
- Iraqi Christians: Exodus, Ethnic Cleansing and Identity Annihilation - Apr 07, 2008
- Defeatacrats And Surrender-Media Screwed Again - This Time By Sadr Surrender - Apr 07, 2008
- Al-Qaeda Terrorist Leader Arrested SW of Mosul By Iraqi Police; Name Witheld - Mar 29, 2008
- More WaPo Shameful Shrills For The Enemy - Mar 29, 2008
- Michael Yon On Iraq - Mar 28, 2008
- Obama Wrong On Al-Qaeda In Iraq And Iran Connection - Mar 19, 2008
