Rewriting History 101

Frank Rich has an opinion piece in this morning's New York Times proclaiming that we cannot win in Iraq because we've already lost. Here are some choice statements from Rich's piece.

"The Iraq-Vietnam parallels at this juncture are striking."

"As bad as things may seem now, they can yet become worse, and not just in Iraq.

"The longer we pretend that we have not lost there, the more we risk losing other wars we still may salvage, starting with Afghanistan."

Who would have thought a newspaper run by an avowed far left liberal that hires a former theater critic to comment on world events would be so quick to proclaim the war in Iraq a failure? I mean, it's only been the position the Times has taken since late columnist R. A. "Johnny" Appel, Jr. proclaimed the war in Iraq was a quagmire...on day 2 or 3 of Operation Enduring Freedom.

I know it's not a surprise that the faux left believes we've failed in Iraq and risk failing in Afghanistan. What is surprising is the number of people who believe it as an article of faith that we're losing without taking a moment to look at the whole picture. What the faux left doesn't want us to know is that we have made incredible progress in Iraq that isn't being reported because it's not "sexy" enough for print or broadcast media to report.

Fortunately, I'm not in the print or broadcast media yet, so I have the freedom to state the truth. Here is a brief list of the successes we've had in Iraq.

* toppled a brutal dictator who defied the UN, killed political opponents, and had women and children raped or killed on a whim

* gave the Iraqi people the opportunity to vote for their leaders for the first time in decades

* took out a known link to international terrorism

* restored order and basic services to most of Iraq

* restored rights to women to seek employment and education without fear of government reprisal

Have things gone perfectly? No. There are no perfect wars and there never will be. But does anything that falls short of perfection in war mean we've failed? Absolutely not. That's something the faux left has to suppress to make their point seem valid. Amid the talk of body counts and insurgent strife is the faux left's underlying belief that we are the worst country in the world and that we deserve to fail. In order to get people to believe that we've failed, the faux left has launched a campaign to hype some facts, suppress others, and distort still others.

Why else do you think Rich made reference to Vietnam in relation to Iraq? It's not a throw-away line. It's there to create a link between a war that has been seen as an American failure and the current war, which will make the point that we've failed in Iraq. The connection is, at best, strained, but the faux left doesn't want you to know that. They want you to take it as an article of faith, as something that can't be debated by anyone with any knowledge. But ask yourself this.

If the faux left really had the truth on their side, why would they work so hard to suppress it when it doesn't support their position?

Class dismissed.