Real Progress - Real Victory

Marc Schulman:

At 4:02 PM EDT, the AP announced that 2,000 members of the US military have now been killed in Iraq.

Brace yourself. The onslaught from the Left will now begin.

The Left has been unable to provide any real options or solutions since the beginning of this conflict which started on September 11th, 2001. Skeptical of Afghanistan, the U.S. Military led a Coalition that tossed the medieval Taliban out of power within weeks, just as the word "quagmire" was being uttered from their lips. They now have a democratically elected government, and have represented the more peaceful front in the War on Terror.

Iraq, when viewed against Afghanistan, has been much more problematic. This is predominantly due to the very nature of the previous regime's control over Iraq and its strategic location and influence in relation to the remaining terror supporting regimes in the region. Even those who supported the most optimistic of post invasion assessments, which didn't clearly anticipate a large scale insurgency that would fight this hard, were willing to abandon it when the going got tough. The Administration and the U.S. Military, regardless of earlier preconceptions that ran the gamut, buckled down and resolved to fight it out to the best way they knew how: they innovated, improvised and built their policy around empowering the Iraqis.

The media, who has the mouthpiece, has been able to frame the public debate over the results of the war. They implicitly claim that positive results are only those with zero defects. They do not and have not been able to grasp that military campaigns like Afghanistan and Desert Storm are the exception rather than the rule. The fact that Operation Iraqi Freedom has demanded a bigger price in blood and resources versus the previous examples is not the result of ineptitude or "bad planning." It has to do with the very nature of the conflict: Operation Iraqi Freedom is the crux where the United States meets the fascist and terrorist supporters to gain the clear upperhand going into the future of this war. The enemy we face is determined, intellegent, cold-blodded, wholly ruthless and have decided that they will fight to the death in Iraq. No amount of additional troops or tactical fighting will change that we were going to have to spill our own blood in order to fight it out.

Now, war opponents would argue that this is why we shouldn't have gone into Iraq. I argue that this is precisely why we should have. The battle between the Radical Islam and its opponents is an historical inevitability. Our leadership has been smart enough to realize this, and with great courage and political risk, decided it would rather this fight occur on our terms versus another blantant provocation equal to or greater than September 11th. However, the Islamic Radicals' strategy is pinned on the skeptics view that we will do anything, including bugging out of a clearly, strategically advantageous position, to avoid casualties.

The United States has worked miracles in Iraq. Shifting from a lightening-quick strike force which crushed the strongest army in the region for the second time in a decade, to an occupying force under the watchful eyes of a dubious and even treacherous world-eye, has yielded much slower, but clearly substantive progress. The U.S. decided that the only recipe for success was to empower the Iraqi people to take their country back from the murderers and thugs that previously ran it, while in turn combating the even more blood thirsty murderers who allied with them. This was done militarily (training a Security Force), politically (elections) and civily (reconstruction of infrastructure).

Going back to my first sentence, I claimed the Left has been unable to produce any viable and real solutions to our problems. They have done nothing but snipe and snap the whole way. Here are just a few of the major examples.

The First Elections were Illegitimate - The Left claimed the Sunnis were "disenfranchised" so they didn't participate and thus rendered the results illegitimate. However, after months and months of negotiations, the Sunnis came to the political table for the first time, "coincidentally" at around the time that the Iraqi Security Forces, in combination with U.S. troops, were securing terrorist and insurgent strongholds in Western Iraq. The security situation has improved, and the fact that the Iraqi Forces have demonstrated that they are capable of fighting against their oppressors, has caused many to look to the political situation for results.

The Second Election and Civil War - The Left claims the Sunnis have too much blood on their hands to live peacefully with the Kurds and Shiites and, ideologically, none of these people are capable of getting along. Additionally, the Left continues, the Sunnis voted against the Constitution and won't support it. Although it remains to be seen if their ideologies can coexists without a strongman at the top, the signs towards stability have certainly been encouraging. Moderate voices are being heard, and although the predominantly Sunni areas voted against the Constitution, they all became part of the political process and voted.

Look at how many people voted with fervent passion against George Bush in the last election -- regardless of the threats people made, there wasn't a mass exodus to Canada, nor were there any serious threats of secession (even in San Francisco!). Many people around the world have learned to live with political disappointment, and the signs in Iraq are promising, but ultimately, we'll have another litmus test to see how the Sunnis respond to the political process in the January parlimentary elections.

Iraq has a constitution, a strengthening and functioning governing body, better security, and an enemy that is being beaten internally and externally. The enemy is not in its "last throes," they're too suicidal, determined and blood thirsty to count them out yet. But, my examples are real and tangible victories, while the Left will continue to point to "symbolic" and arbitrary setbacks such as "2,000 Dead Milestone." Regardless of the news reports that constantly shout doom and gloom, the 2,000 members of our military will be remembered for the valor and courage it took to hunker down and bring freedom to people under the upturned nose of a large amount of the world didn't think they deserved it.

And to that, I can only say "thank you."

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Here are some more well written essays by some friends that put the sacrifice of 2,000 of our soldiers into perspective. If you see any others you like, email them to me, or post them in the comments and I'll put them on the main page.

The Colossus: The 2000 - Part 1

Jayne Doodles: Milestones

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at October 25, 2005 08:17 PM | TrackBack