Dark Days for Who?

The media is already trying to set the stage for a HUGE LOSS! that the President is inevitably going to face:

Facing the darkest days of his presidency, President Bush is frustrated, sometimes angry and even bitter, his associates say.

With a seemingly uncontrollable insurgency in Iraq, the White House is bracing for the political fallout from a grim milestone that could come any day: the combat death of the 2,000th American G.I.

Granted, this story comes from the NY Daily News, however it is representative of a rather large contingent of media folks who, for purely partisan political reasons, have yet to figure out that the war is actually being won.

Before I give evidence to the contrary, let me point out where they are heading with their reporting. All along the Left-leaning media has hid behind the canard that they want to pull the U.S. out of Iraq because they "support the troops." This fallacy erroneously gives the claimant the "moral highground," since they are the ones who really care about the troops, because they are opposing those that support a war that sends other people's children to die for oil, imperialism, middle-eastern popcorn, whatever.

So, the debate from their standpoint, can only involve emphasis on the deaths of our own. Nevermind that terrorists have taken to blowing up cars in the middle of packs of children. When a story is written about car bombs killing children, its focus is towards the ineptitude and inability of our troops (whom they support, remember?) to do anything to stop it. The "seemingly uncontrollable insurgency" is a monster of which the American paper tiger cannot contain. We can only sit back and watch these evil nihilists kill, kill and kill.

The media's intentions have been exposed, but does it doesn't a priori mean that the war is being won. What evidence can I bring to the table that supports my claim that the war is really been won?

Michael Yon, an independent reporter who has been writing about the battle against the insurgency in Mosul, reported on the Iraqi election that just occurred. He does not describe a picture through rose colored glasses:

I WAS IN BAQUBA during Iraq's January elections, having hitched a ride with the U.S. Army to a polling site. There were bombs exploding, mortars falling, and hot machine guns. The fact that the voting was going great despite the violence was something few people expected. Until that day, I'd been skeptical about Iraq. Not fashionably cynical, merely skeptical. We could all hear what President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and other elected leaders were saying, but they are politicians. We also could hear the end-of-the-Iraqi-world predictions by so many others. But nobody really knew what the Iraqi people had in mind, and the Iraqis were the people who counted most.

The millions who voted sent a message: Serpentine lines of ebullient Iraqis risked their lives--dozens died--to have a say in their futures. People who voted dipped their right index fingers into purple ink and cast their ballots. The image of Iraqis proudly holding their stained fingers aloft became a symbol for the success of the election. In Baquba, many voters asked me to photograph them as they left the polling places, all smiles and purple fingers.

The courage of the Iraqi people that January day planted a seed of confidence. These were not timid or cowering souls. There I was: an American alone in a dangerous Iraqi city, at the very polling site that soldiers were wagering would be bombed. One after another, Iraqis came and shook my hand, showing me their children, laughing, smiling, saying over and over, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I felt like an honored guest, and I felt a twinge of shame that I'd been less confident in the Iraqis than they were in themselves. The voice of the Iraqi people had risen above the clamor of insurgent violence.

What escapes the war skeptics is that courage can be displayed by a group of people that didn't land on the beaches of Normandy or Iwo Jima and, for that matter, by a group of people, whom most skeptics have argued on a continuum were either incapable of standing up to Saddam Hussein or were willing subjects of his tyrannical rule (See Michael Moore's depiction of Iraq in Fahrenheit 911 with children peacefully flying kites in Iraq pre-invasion). The same heroism that was displayed by the Allies in WWII, is the same brand of courage that is being demonstrated on multiple levels within Iraq, by the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi Security forces have surpassed the 200,000-man mark. The Iraqi security forces have been instrumental in the Western Iraqi campaign designed to choke the insurgency's supply routes from Syria into Bagdad. American troops strike quickly, knocking the terrorists off balance, while Iraqi troops enter and hold territory (mostly towns and cities). Key in this process is that as the Iraqi Forces have demonstrated to the populace that they are willing AND able to fight the blood-thirsty terrorists, tips revealing terrorist safe-houses and planned attacks have been flooding in.

This process has been happening for the better part of two-months now and the results have been tangible. Here Yon, in the same article linked above, demonstrates this and offers some much need perspective:

We left, drove here and there, and landed at a different unit: the 170th MPs from Fort Lewis. This unit was responsible for supporting 20 polling stations. Sergeant First Class Dilbert French mentioned some minor SIGACTS that were not worth jotting down. (SIGACT is military jargon for significant action; anything that significantly affects friendly or enemy forces.) "Is it like this all over Iraq?" I asked. I could hardly believe it. Where are the mortars? The IEDs? The homicide bombers and car bombs? No snipers? Surely the ground must be shaking in Falluja or Ramadi, and what about Mosul, Baquba, and Basra? What about Tal Afar? French checked the secure computer for all of Iraq. The whole country looked quiet. "The media is going to be very disappointed," chuckled one soldier, and I laughed along with him.

By 6:30 p.m., when we visited Arizona National Guardsmen serving as the 860th MPs, all was quiet except for a couple of rockets that exploded harmlessly in a field. Some of the 126th MPs from the New Mexico National Guard told us that two car bombs had exploded in the morning, but there were no known casualties, and if there had been casualties, they probably would have known. There was something special about the New Mexico National Guard. They seemed very proud, and they talked about one of their fallen, Sergeant Marshall Alan Westbrook, who had been killed by an IED just down the road two weeks before. They said that over 2,000 people had attended Sergeant Westbrook's funeral in Farmington, New Mexico. Some soldiers did not grasp the importance of this day in Iraq, but I had the feeling that the 126th did.

Unit after unit that we visited was proud that nothing was happening in their sector, and now that the polls were closed, it was just a matter of securing the ballots.

We then visited the 504th MP Battalion from Fort Lewis, who had a poster with detailed cartoon instructions on one of the doors: "Turn Your Hamster into a Fighting Machine." Basically, just tape a knife to its back. Mellinger burst out laughing and walked away, and I stood there laughing uncontrollably while reading the whole set of instructions.

We walked into the TOC--the tactical operations center--of the 504th, and the board was quiet. Nothing.

And that was it: 7:03 p.m. The four Humvees from the 42nd MPs drove away in the darkness, and we drove home. This was the finest, most complete mission I had ever gone on.

Next morning, I got information from the Army that there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq, and in January there had been 108. There may be some garble in the numbers (there usually is). There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

Very few of us that have been supporting this war have thought this would be a bloodless affair. Many of us knew damn well that this was going to a hell of a fight. Granted, I didn't figure that it would be this long in duration, but more bloody during the initial invasion, but nonetheless, knew that it was going to be costly in good men and women.

The Left-leaning media has decided that the 2,000th body count marks a significant metric that proves Iraq has been the quagmire they have been barking about since U.S. troops were caught in a massive sandstorm during the initial invasion. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Once the American-led coalition shifted tactics to face the insurgency, they knew the only way to secure the country was to give it back to the people. Instead of sending another 100,000 troops, they began the slow and tedious process of training the Iraqi people to stand-up to these murderous terrorists themselves. We can fight the terrorists, but what good does that do if the Iraqi people are unable to fight?

The people, in turn, have risen to the occassion. They braved attacks to vote in January, and they continued to pour into the streets in greater numbers to vote a few weeks ago, under signficantly improved security provided mostly by their own people. This is not exactly the sign of a "seemingly endless insurgency." The insurgency has not been able to gain one strategic objective since the war began, more and more of them are ending up dead or behind bars, while the Americans are well on their way towards empowering the people of Iraq to take control over security as well as its own rule.

Unfortunately, the Left is fighting not against George Bush, but against hard reality. In the future, I predict that it will be clearly shown that the collective acts of courage demonstrated by the Coalition troops and the Iraqi people will be on par with any of the greatest acts of courage in history. The Left was on the wrong side of the Cold War, and it looks like they are continuing to go 0-for.

The days are getting dark indeed, but only for those that have hoped that Iraq would fail.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at October 24, 2005 08:21 AM | TrackBack