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Audacity of Truth
Whiner-in-Chief:
"[W]hether the grumbling is about Republicans on Fox or bloggers in pajamas, there's a word for what the president and his aides are doing. That word is "whining." And nothing [...] does more damage to Obama's credibility or authority than the sense that a popular president is becoming the whiner-in-chief."
- John Nichols, Nation Magazine - 10/12/09
Mark Steyn on Haditha
A must-read. He writes:
For three years, coalition forces in Iraq behaved so well that a salivating Vietnam culture had to make do with the thinnest of pickings: one depraved jailhouse, a prisoner on a dog leash with a pair of Victoria’s Secret panties on his head and an unusually positioned banana. “Just look at the way U.S. army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi,” wrote Robert Fisk, the dean of the global media’s Middle Eastern correspondents. “No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.”
Down, boy.
But now at last the media have their story. They’re off the leash. And, if the worst rumors are true, those 10 Marines will come to symbolize the 99.99 percent of their comrades who every day do great things for the Iraqi and Afghan people. In 2004, in the wake of Abu Ghraib, I wrote that “there is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites — from the deranged former vice president down — want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it’s pain-free, squeaky-clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we’re supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.”
Two years on, it’s even worse. If you examine the assumptions underlying speeches by professors, media grandees, etc., it’s hard not to agree with the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, that these days America can only fight Vietnam, over and over: Every war is “supposed to become a quagmire, which provokes opposition and leads to American withdrawal.” That’s how the nation demonstrates its “moral virtue” — i.e., its parochial self-absorption.
Last week, Cindy Sheehan said in Melbourne that “Bobby Kennedy was assassinated by the war machine in my country.” This week, Bobby’s son, Robert Kennedy Jr., said in Rolling Stone that Bush stole the 2004 election. Next week, it’ll be something else.
But there is more pain and more truth about America in those seven words of Martin Terrazas. A superpower that wallows in paranoia and glorifies self-loathing cannot endure and doesn’t deserve to.
Read the whole thing.
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3 Responses to “Mark Steyn on Haditha”
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This is a very well written article. I know we are growing tired of the Iraq war, but it is so far from being a “quagmire” I liken it to attempting to see Pluto with the naked eye. Is everything perfect, to quote that 3rd world thug who leads the U.N., “Hell No”. But is it Vietnam post 1973??? Not even close. Well except the reation from the anti-war left, it is the exact same, but what can you expect from people stuck in the 60s. I figure when we reach perfection in the “Great Society”, then I will start declaring a need for more perfect wars. The “war on poverty has been going on for over 40 years now and we have more poor than ever. And even if you would like to, ya just can’t blame GW for it.
If these people in Congress would just start doing the work of “We the People”, instead of concerning themselves with every flea on the buttocks of the world, we might see something get done for the better in this country. I am really seeing alot of pride in Congress, and pride just does not lend itself well to a servant. These people really do think they are more important to the world than the majority of world leaders. I mean, in all seriousness, look at some of the comments that was made by Senators in an attempt to defend this legislation. Who is Congress to give citizenship to the illegal aliens in this country, when we already have a set of laws to deal with that very situation. I don’t believe that they can just create a law that circumvents present and existing law, especially when the new law is contradictory to the old law. I am certain that this law will be challenged in court, and it will be found illegal. Then look at all the waste of creating it, arguing about it, and selling it to the people. Sorry to be rambling, but this topic has given me the perfect opportunity to express some thoughts. It is time for each state to put term limits on it’s representatives in DC. Maybe then these people will start to listen. Always – Lorica
Betsy’s Page links to this article on the Real Iraq by Amir Taheri.
In it are the following excerpts:
1) Since the toppling of Saddam in 2003, this is one highly damaging image we have not seen on our television sets—and we can be sure that we would be seeing it if it were there to be shown. To the contrary, Iraqis, far from fleeing, have been returning home. By the end of 2005, in the most conservative estimate, the number of returnees topped the 1.2-million mark.
2) In the final years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, the Iraqi dinar was in free fall; after 1995, it was no longer even traded in Iran and Kuwait. By contrast, the new dinar, introduced early in 2004, is doing well against both the Kuwaiti dinar and the Iranian rial, having risen by 17 percent against the former and by 23 percent against the latter.
3) Since liberation, however, Iraq has witnessed a private-sector boom, especially among small and medium-sized businesses.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as numerous private studies, the Iraqi economy has been doing better than any other in the region. The country’s gross domestic product rose to almost $90 billion in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), more than double the output for 2003, and its real growth rate, as estimated by the IMF, was 52.3 per cent. In that same period, exports increased by more than $3 billion, while the inflation rate fell to 25.4 percent, down from 70 percent in 2002. The unemployment rate was halved, from 60 percent to 30 percent.
4) In the past two years, by contrast, Iraqi agriculture has undergone an equally unprecedented revival. Iraq now exports foodstuffs to neighboring countries, something that has not happened since the 1950’s.
5) Finally, despite the impression created by relentlessly dire reporting in the West, the insurgency has proved unable to shut down essential government services. Hundreds of teachers and schoolchildren have been killed in incidents including the beheading of two teachers in their classrooms this April and horrific suicide attacks against school buses. But by September 2004, most schools across Iraq and virtually all universities were open and functioning. By September 2005, more than 8.5 million Iraqi children and young people were attending school or university—an all-time record in the nation’s history.
A similar story applies to Iraq’s clinics and hospitals. Between October 2003 and January 2006, more than 80 medical doctors and over 400 nurses and medical auxiliaries were murdered by the insurgents. The jihadists also raided several hospitals, killing ordinary patients in their beds. But, once again, they failed in their objectives. By January 2006, all of Iraq’s 600 state-owned hospitals and clinics were in full operation, along with dozens of new ones set up by the private sector since liberation.
Note from Baklava: There is so much more in this article. I hope you can read it.
All of that being true Bak, Iraq ia still a multicultural country, and one of the worst examples because there’s three, not just two, warring factions.
- No country or society in the history of man, of that make up, has ever been stable, avoided a civil/secular war, or ended in anything but chaos, without an ever present “Big brother” state to maintain order, and keep the inhabitants from killong each other. All of which means a protracted presense for US forces there, probably even more-so than Korea, and look how long we’ve had to stay there.
- The difference in Iraq is we represent at once, an opportunistic target for the Jihadists, who can play on the cultural differences and old scores, all the while screeching the “Infidels in the land of Islam” meme to keep the pot boiling.
- Maybe we can overcome history, and the human tendency to war between cultural differences, but I don’t personally hold out much hope, unless we can find a solution to the daily pot shots, and attrition that continues without pause. I’d tend to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst with Iraq, and even more-so with Iran.
- Bang