When Winning Isn't News
July 8th, 2008 by Admin
I got this from Investor's Business Daily:
Iraq: What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq.
London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul, found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks — a big change for the better from a year ago.
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates, which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad — an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq.
But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks" that signaled political progress.
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to consider this historic event a big story.
Instead, we get headlines of small incremental US Soldier death tolls.
Posted in Military Perspective
Love the title – this is right on the money (no pun intended)! Our disloyal media can't tell us this. It would ruin their whole plan which is to say "neener, neener, neener" to the 'dumb & stupid military', the Bush Administration & specifically Pres. Bush – never mind the disloyalty to the country, which apparently is a little thing in their little minds. Can you say RANT!?! Sorry…
Oiy, Cj….i was hoping that this afternoon would keep you free to help your invalid wife paint….I can't wait to see what comments you'll be filtering the rest of the night off this one!
emily
The London Sunday Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch) and the Investor's Business Daily are both right-wing conservative mouthpieces that cater to large corporations.
What else would you expect such papers to say?
CF, you know why I like you? You prove my point about the left. You say that The London Sunday Times is a right-wing conservative mouthpiece. The LST reports stories about success in Iraq. Thus, Success=Right Wing and Failure=Left Wing. I appreciate your assistance in proving what I've been trying to say about this war for awhile now. I just love being "right".
It is a sad day in our country when the left won't even admit that we are winning in Iraq! Don't they want us to defeat Al-Quaida?! Are politics more important to them than our country?! They want President Bush to loose regardless of the consequences for our country….shame on them.
CJ, I like your response to CF! Ha!
Donna:
While you are having a good chuckle, perhaps you can define what you mean by "winning in Iraq."
That's something considering Al Qaida wasn't in Iraq when Hussein was in control.
I'd question the veracity of the 12,000 number too. The US State Department claimed the numbers to be just over 1,000. And US intelligence organizations estimate the group is responsible for anywhere between 2 and 12% of attacks.
British newspapers also reported on wide scale election fraud in Florida in 2000. So were they lying then or are they lying now?
look at today's USA TODAY's headline email and you will be throughly PO'd
Steve, Steve, Steve. I wish I simply had the time…
Here's a little ASP history lesson for you. Enjoy the reading the "critical facts" behind what you learn:
soldierspersp...o-terrorism/
Once you read that, check this one out that I wrote in 2006 (quotes are mine):
soldierspersp...-hear-about/
I mean, really. Is it truly that hard to be happy that we're winning? It is that hard to accept we may be doing good things over there? What virus prevents you turds from admitting that we're kicking ass over there? Instead, you continuously resort to six year old arguments about how we never should have gone to begin with!! Grow up!! Thinking on this, you people just make me sick.
CJ:
Any betting man will tell you that while the numbers may look "good" today, tomorrow those same numbers will be in the pits. We are but one good Lebanon style attack, where we lose about 200 or so in a single pop, before we pack our bags and go home. We will never "win" in Iraq; just not possible. Folks are correct to say we never should have gone in the first place!
I guess CF missed the posting about the yellow cake that we just cleared out of Iraq. Nope, we should have just left it there for Saddam to use.
Thanks for sharing the GOOD NEWS CJ.
And now you know why I listen to the BBC and NPR… and occasional doses of Michael Yon.
We are winning in Iraq. Hope it stays that way. Wish GWB didn't start the thing because the folks that trained and financed the downing of the WTC are still at large and Afghanistan doesn't look to good these days, albeit better then when the Soviets were in charge.
Sorry, but I'm not going to complement the driver for driving us into the ditch, but I'll give the General his due for getting us out.
NY-David
"We will never "win" in Iraq; just not possible. Folks are correct to say we never should have gone in the first place!"
CF this just further proves that you have absolutely NO contact with any one over there, despite your claims to the contrary. You haven't a clue of what is going on there from a boots on the ground perspective. And rest assured its not a perspective you will be seeing on your beloved left wing blogs and MSM.
I'm sure that somewhere down deep you are an incredibly intelligent person, but on this you just are so utterly clueless.
Al Qaidi cells are in Saudi Arabia. Much of their finincing comes from Saudi's. The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Why haven't we invaded Saudi Arabia?
Steve, why do you use empty logic? Are you saying you support an invasion of Saudi Arabia? I didn't think so, so your argument is a moot one.
It depends. If the reason for the invasion of Iraq was revenge for 9/11, then yes we should have invaded Saudi Arabia. If the reason was to topple a dictator and bring democracy to the people, Saudi Arabia would have served that purpose just as well. If the reason was to secure oil for the US, again, Saudi Arabia would fill the bill.
When I was in, we had Saudis in training with us. Let me tell you, as a people, they are soft and weak. The Iragis have been hardened by years of war, bombing and sanctions, they are used to hardship. The Saudis are not. Hopefully, we put a back door into the military hardware we have been selling them for years. Use it to shut down their air force, ADA and any other high tech equipment. Then hit their electrical plants. A couple of days without AC and they would be done.
I hope you didn't think I was a pacifist or some kind of peacenik just because I think the invasion of Iraq was wrong.
Steve of course in your world, Iraq wasn't in defiance of 17 UN sanctions, and thumbing its nose at the world. To the best of my recollection, Saudi Arabia has never been in violation of UN Sanctions making your logic ridiculous.
[start of sarcasm]
Of course, never mind that there were in fact five different terror cells that are a part of the Al Qaeda terror network who had some of their members in Iraq before we invaded as well as working with Saddam's government.
After all, the suspicion that Iraq was harboring members of Al Qaeda wasn't one of the reasons why we went into Iraq to remove Saddam from power anyway.
[end of sarcasm]
Also, just to point this out. News is out of the ordinary. It's an event that doesn't usually occur under normal circumstances. If these characteristics are what defines news, then how would reporting success at the responsibility of our troops be news?
Also, how on earth did you get the wacky idea that we went into Iraq to avenge the 9-11-01 terror attacks on the WTC, Pentagon, and those hijacked jets?
I was pretty sure that Bush(as well as Rice, and Powell) said to a worldwide audience that they didn't believe that Saddam was behind 9-11 months before our Congress voted to authorize military action in Iraq.
We never said it was to avenge 9-11. We said Saddam's government was harboring terrorists from the Al Qaeda terror network, and they were.
"Of course, never mind that there were in fact five different terror cells that are a part of the Al Qaeda terror network who had some of their members in Iraq before we invaded as well as working with Saddam's government."
A terrorist cell normally consists of between 3 and 5 people. 5X5=25! Wow, 25 people who may or may not have been Al Qaeda who were in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The region were Hussein had virtually no power. While Bin Laden roams free….good move.
"Wow, 25 people who may or may not have been Al Qaeda"
Dumb statement. 9/11 required less than half that!!
Steve said; "A terrorist cell normally consists of between 3 and 5 people. 5X5=25! Wow, 25 people who may or may not have been Al Qaeda who were in the Kurdish region of Iraq."
Yeah, I doubt Egyptian Islamic Jihad(which is one of those cells that I was talking about) has just 3 to 5 people in it, and I don't think that they have any ties to the Kurdish Iraqis.
EIJ is not just a terror cell, they're also are a political movement, consisting of thousands of loyalists who are radical and dangerous in their ideologies.
For years they have been a part of the Al Qaeda terror network, and they have helped collect funding, and weapons for AQ. They also help AQ carry out attacks too.
Just to add, EIJ is one of the terror cells cited in the I.D.A. report which did have ties to Saddam's Ba'ath government as well as members in Iraq. Pretty interesting report, it's just too bad that McClatchy News and the NYT spun it around and said that it concluded the opposite.
They said the report concluded that there were no links between Saddam's Ba'ath govt. and Al Qaeda. Apparently, they wanted just people to look at their article's title and form a conclusion on this subject without reading the actual report.
After all, anyone who actually takes the time to read the report would probably conclude the same thing that Bush did before the war. That Saddam and Al Qaeda did not collaborate with each other on the 9-11-01 attacks, but they did have ties and some of them took place in Iraq.
However, you don't have to just read the report to know that the NYT and McClatchy's conclusion of the report was bogus, you could also take into account the fact that the report's author's publicly spoke against McClatchy as well as the other news outlets who've parroted the same conclusion without actually reading the report.
I am starting to believe the US media is more the enemy than Al Qaeda.