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“THEY WERE RIGHT”
Some left-leaning journalists are experiencing second thoughts. Here’s Mark Browne of the Chicago Sun-Times:
Maybe you’re like me and have opposed the Iraq war since before the shooting started—not to the point of joining any peace protests, but at least letting people know where you stood.
You didn’t change your mind when our troops swept quickly into Baghdad or when you saw the rabble that celebrated the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, figuring that little had been accomplished and that the tough job still lay ahead.
Despite your misgivings, you didn’t demand the troops be brought home immediately afterward, believing the United States must at least try to finish what it started to avoid even greater bloodshed. And while you cheered Saddam’s capture, you couldn’t help but thinking I-told-you-so in the months that followed as the violence continued to spread and the death toll mounted.
But after watching Sunday’s election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?
It’s hard to swallow, isn’t it?
Browne’s conclusion: “If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance. Maybe I’d have to vote Republican in 2008.â€? And here’s the NYT’s John Burns being interviewed on PBS:
I must say, I’m sure in the chow halls across the country today American troops were feeling a tremendous sense of satisfaction after all that they have gone through here. And I have also no doubt that in the command centers, stories written by people like myself that had been posted, commanders would have taken a good deal of satisfaction.
I think that we… those of us who took a rather dire view of the possibilities of this election—not the election itself, but what might happen—have to say quite honestly that they got quite a lot about this right, and we got quite a lot about it wrong. They always said that we can do this.
They were fearful, of course, that there could be major insurgent actions. And there were. They were eight or nine suicide bombings in Baghdad alone. But they also said we can get this done, and you’ll see, there will be a very substantial turnout. Well, they were right.
Among the wrong were The Age, the New York Times, and, as usual, Aaron McGruder. These people need editors or something. Burns also has news for the civil war boosters:
How many times did voters say to me—and I believe to many other reporters who began their interviews with them by asking them, as we so often do, are you Shiite, are you Sunni or are you Kurd—they would say to us, what is that to you? Why are you people so obsessed with that?
I must have heard that several dozen times yesterday—people who said, can’t you get it straight in your mind that we are Iraqis first, and then Sunnis or Shiites second? And this is really very interesting. There is a sense amongst Iraqis that Americans arrived here with an obsession about the ethnic breakdown of this country.
Well now. A breath of honesty from the Windy City. But what’s this “What if” crap? The facts stared him in the face for two years and Browne only now has second thoughts? The guy’s on track for a chair at plumbing school.
Hey, Otter. How was the WMD issue “a complete fiasco?” The only fiasco I saw was the MSM’s utter disregard for the facts and history as it “reported” on the matter.
Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2005 02 02 at 11:38 AM • permalinkMaybe I’d have to vote Republican in 2008
I appreciate the honesty here, but let’s vote for the right reasons, and penance ain’t one of them.
jorgen—please! Let’s not get into that old and stupid argument, and start throwing UN resolutions back and forth. That one has been bickered to death. Believe what you will, and I’ll believe what I will.
What counts here are results—a successful Iraqi election (in spite of what the Sunni clerics are whinging about), which will hopefully turn into a success Iraqi government.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 02 02 at 01:18 PM • permalinkThe Iraqi elections have caused a few to discover a ripple in the “Bush is stupid and Iraq is a quagmire” Matrix they’ve constructed for themselves. Will they take the blue pill or the red pill?
Posted by Randal Robinson on 2005 02 02 at 02:04 PM • permalink“There is a sense amongst Iraqis that Americans arrived here with an obsession about the ethnic breakdown of this country.”
I wonder if that’s because Americans are so obsessed about race in their own country?
That aside, maybe some parts of the Reality-based Community are finally basing themselves in reality?
Well, reading John Burns closely—and I have seen him interviewed before, and he has been one of the better MSM reporters in Iraq—but his hubris is overwhelming.
First he posits that in some command center they’ll have Burns’ reportage up on the wall—so the commanders can congratulate themselves? Or Burns? WOW! Someone tell Burns that the guys in the command centers stopped reading and viewing the Western media a long time ago. The commanders already know what’s going on—they’re the ones “doing it.”
Perhaps a picture of Burns with a few darts thrown in it.
Next up, Burns says that on election day Iraqis responded with questions about his inquiry as to their religious/ethnic orientation. Can this possibly be the first time Burns received this response? Or is it just the first time he noticed?
No wonder the soldiers and commanders don’t watch the MSM—apparently, neither should we.
Spot on Forbes, not only has the Iraqi front-line long ignored MSM reporting as fanciful at best, much of the Western populace has too.
Why bother with MSM when we have access to civilian and soldier blogs out of Iraq. MSM at large has wilfully missed the boat and they know it. In a word, irrelevant.
Even Jon Stewart isn’t quite so sure of himself anymore, apparently.
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2005 02 02 at 03:33 PM • permalinkI’d like to think the legacy media are getting it, and no doubt a few are. But I’m afraid we’ll be seeing a lot more inflammatory headlines blaring across our TV screens, like this from CNN Headline News last night: “Rough Month in Iraq.” Hell, CNN couldn’t even wait two days before resuming their defeatist blather. Sigh…
No second thoughts for our one and only reborn Labor Leader Beazley.
Link.Perhaps he’s still in some time warp, or another fantasy world?
Amazing!
(I fixed the url-code, making it a link. You know, it would really help if people simply used the formatting buttons to paste code, especially if it’s long urls like that. Otherwise they break the page. Andrea Harris, Administrator.)
To be fair to Journalist John Burns he did say in a 7:30 Report interview from Iraq on March 3rd 2004 that, “the US has done some very good things here. If you wanted to pick a group of generals, more intellegent, more capable, more understanding of the hearts and minds aspects of war, you couldn’t do better than the generals I see here. I’m very impressed with them.” He went on to say that, “the civil administration is spending billions of dollars of American taxpayers’ money to try and restore this country. And they are having some effect, as I mentioned, on electricity, oil, they are building a police force, they are building an army. They have caught well over 40, I think 44 or 45 of the 55 on their deck of cards, the most wanted people.”
Given these statements, I’m surprised Burns was ever asked back again!It’s fixed. Acer had put in the linking tag for showing the entire url, but it was a mile-long and he really should have used the full linking tag. Use the formatting buttons above this box, people! I can’t hover over this site 24/7 to fix mistakes. Though if anyone is willing to pay me a full-time salary to do this instead of slogging off to the office at work… But I’d still need to sleep, wouldn’t I.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 02 02 at 09:35 PM • permalinkJudging by the number of posts I have seen on several international politics newsgroups along the lines of this headline:
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote:
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terrorby Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967)
- which all try to imply that the election means very little and it’s all going to end in disaster for everyone concerned anyway, I would not expect the majority of the Left to admit they may have been wrong any time soon.
But then there’s nothing new in that - plenty of them still have not admitted there was anything wrong with Marx’s ideas either.
JPB
Any lefty simplistically spouting “They were right” following an ostensibly successful election, forgetting every reason they opposed the war to begin with in the process, should be on the right anyway.
I’v never believed in cut-and-run, and hope that the fledgling democracy is a success, but that’s about making the best going forward, not OK-ing the missing WMDs, 6 figure bodycount, or the dropped ball in the real war on terror.
Posted by Martin Pike on 2005 02 02 at 11:06 PM • permalinkBut after watching Sunday’s election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?
Parse this statement carefully, and then tell me that the left-leaning MSM isn’t racist. And if you still don’t get it, try this:
“... seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the little brown people…”
Honestly, even when Bush tells them outright what the strategy of the war is some people still cannot comprehend it. Martin writes “...the dropped ball in the real war on terror.”
Iraq is the real war on terror. The terrorism that struck us repeatedly, and that we finally resolved to counter after 9/11, grows out of the dysfunctional political culture of the Arab world. This is a political culture where there is nothing but tyranny or at best authoritarianism. To fight the Islamist terrorists we must reform that political culture. The first step was the liberation of Iraq, because there is the place where is the best chance of change taking root, due to the character of the people there. America has injected the virus of liberty into an area previously dominated only by tyrants. The contagion will spread, it is spreading already. But Iraq had to be the first.
In terms of military strategy Iraq also puts an American army in the central position between the three most important terrorist-supporting states in the world, Iran, Syria, and the Wahhabist Entity. Pressures overt and covert can now be brought to bear on them.
Afghanistan was the sideshow, a necessary one, but not the decisive theater. Iraq is the central front.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 02 03 at 01:02 AM • permalink“There is a sense amongst Iraqis that Americans arrived here with an obsession about the ethnic breakdown of this country.”
Not that lefty-types would be obsessed with race, or anything. I mean, after all they’re the only ones who argue for set asides, quotas, affirmative action, reparations, etc.
And… nevermind. It’s just too daggummed frustrating.
I dunno what the CNN rough month story was about, but I do know that the 106 US casualties in January was the third highest since March 03. Have a look at http://icasualties.org/oif/.
I agree with Michael Lonie’s point about Iraq being the first stop - and I think Bush’s Union speech spells out who is next.
But while the coalition is busy taking democracy to the Middle East, there are those “legitimate citizens” of western countries who may be seeking to undermine our “tolerance” with this sort of argument for sharia law by stealth:-
[W]hat such a large segment of the Canadian minority believes as a precept of their faith/religion ought to be fully recognized if the Charter’s provision respecting freedom of religion are [sic] to have any real meaning. . . . Failing [to incorporate Islamic law concerning apostasy and blasphemy into the laws of Canada] will be a flagrant breach of equality rights. . . . Failing to interpret the guaranteed rights and freedoms of Muslims in accordance with the true spirit of multiculturalism results in the effective denial of this fundamental philosophy of the Canadian constitution. This is a tragic departure from that cherished “tolerance� (the real tolerance) which is the distinguishing quality of a cultured people.
Hmmm!
See the whole story at Jihad Watch/Dhimmi Watch.nwab, January was a bad month for Coalition casualties; practically everyone expected the days leading up to the election to be violent, and they were. It’s very sad indeed. The moments during last night’s State of the Union speech where the Iraqi freedom fighter hugged the mother of the fallen US Marine was one of the most moving things I’ve ever seen.
Still and all, “Rough Month in Iraq” seems a very odd, sweeping, and irresponsible characterization for CNN to make, barely two days after the Iraqis voted for the first time in fifty years.
The President did send Syria a pointed message last night, didn’t he? [Butch gloats here.] If I were The Boy Assad, I’d be soiling my Skivvies.
Comments on comments:
6-figure casualties: really? This keeps getting repeated, but what’s the source? Or is it a convernient matching of numbers to parallel Saddam’s body count in order to deligitimise the invasion?
Missing WMDs: missing or not found? Since their focus was on advanced biological weapons, isn’t it just possible that these test tube-sized packages have proved a little harder to find - and a little easier to move - than conventionals? There was no serious argument prior to the invasion that Saddam was not in posession of such.
The real war on terror: Well there seems to be a decrease in the frequency and scale of global attacks and the command structure of AQ is seriously fragmented, so it doesn’t look like a failed mission just yet. And haven’t current events proved that Iraq is most certainly a hotspot for the formation and funding of terror?
It’s not all rosy, but to assume these three elements represent failure seems like an exaggeration.
Underscore:
Lancet
Don’t be silly- THEY’RE NOT THERE. Even the uberhawks admit this now.And the war on terror had nothing to do with attacking Iraq. Iraq was virtually secular, and in fact the war attracted terrorists there from Jordan, Saudi etc, as well as fuelling recruitment.
Michael says: “even when Bush tells them outright what the strategy of the war is some people still cannot comprehend it”
Oh, ok, sorry, I’ll take his word from now on. Just as soon as you start taking Pilger’s =)
Posted by Martin Pike on 2005 02 04 at 12:00 AM • permalinkMartin,I hate to shake you out of your chattering class fantasy world but I’ve studied 4 years of econometrics and statistics and the lancet study is a crock.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 02 04 at 01:09 AM • permalinkHere’s a response to Brown if you are interested.
LIBERAL WIMPS FOR WAR
Transfixed by the illusion of our worldwide supremacy, we are blind to dangers closer to home: our civil defense is nonexistent, the threat of biological warfare remains to be seriously addressed – and, worst of all, the constant inflammation of the running sore of Islamist radicalism, kept open and bleeding by the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, is swelling our enemies’ ranks. Our actions in the Middle East lubricate the terrorist-producing machine, recruiting for bin Laden and his allies hand over fist.
They aren’t all lying down.
Yes I remember Lancet as being the source now. As was pointed out in the linked article, it sort of got buried in the election avalanche. If its veracity is accepted then it’s certainly something that has to be acknowledged in any debate.
WMDs: I don’t really care what “uberhawks” might say. Saddam wanted them, Saddam had ‘em and they were real small. The fact that none were found (despite frequent claims that they would be planted by the US anyway) is a weak argument against the invasion. The WMD history is clearly there.
No I totally agree that an invasion of Iraq was not a direct consequence of terrorist attacks (and I tend to think that for political reasons a little subterfuge was used by the Coalition of the Willing to enable minimal support for military action). The strategy is far more complex and long-term than that. And it partly involves the fact that the UN has been completely impotent in preventing further spread of WMDs to lawless regimes and terrorist cells in alliances of convenience. Its empty threats have in fact given succor to these bastards.
Assuming 100K to be a realistic figure, then this massive loss of life is the most compelling argument against the invasion. Of course this still needs to be weighed against the possibility of even greater future losses due to inaction.
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I don’t see why this has to be an issue of “Bush right” versus “Bush wrong”. The WMD issue was a complete fiasco, but Bush and Rumsfeld stuck it out instead of running away, and we’re now a huge step closer to having this turn out to be a net win. So, good!