Iraq War: Democrats’ Glaring Omission
I strongly believe we learn more about your presidential candidates by what they don’t say and when they don’t say it than from what they do say and when they say it.
When the campaign for the nomination by the Democratic Party to put up their nominee for President of the United States has been going on as long as this one’s been going on, you’d think by now we would have heard everything there is to hear about the Iraq War.
Not so.
In their fight for moral supremacy the Democrats have been blind to all the reasons we’re at war in Iraq and they’ve been blind to all the accomplishments accrued thanks to that war. Also, the Democrats have been blind to how much they’ve hampered America’s goals in our global war on terror. Thanks in part to the Democrats, we’re in a much stickier position vis-a-vis Iran than we otherwise would have been by now.
But focusing right now on what the Democrats (instead of the word Democrats, feel free to insert the word Obama) haven’t said about the Iraq War, you can see not only how short-sighted they are, but also how blind they are. Remember, I’m not just talking about the Democrats here. Don’t forget their allies, most members of the EU and Hamas included:
The Democrats’ Glaring Omission
by Abe Greenwald
After years of telling us the war on terror was creating more terrorists, the mainstream media has mysteriously woken up to the fact that Islamic extremism is on the wane. Newsweek is the latest publication to run a support-for-jihad-is-fading piece. Readers of CONTENTIONS should by now be familiar with the evidence: Iraqis have turned against radical clerics, Pakistani voters have rejected Islamist leaders, Turkey’s ruling AKP party is trying to modernize Islam, etc. The critical thing is the shift in Islam, not the acknowledgment from Newsweek, of course.
But there is an important omission in the sudden coverage of moderate Muslims: No one talks about the effect of the Iraq War. The MSM can dodge the issue all they like, but the fact remains that the Coalition’s toppling of Saddam facilitated the first organized rejection of fanatical Islam in the Middle East. Back in November 2005, while everyone stateside was crying fiasco, a group of Sunnis in Anbar province joined forces with a clutch of U.S. Marines and began to wrest their country back from al-Qaeda and its sympathizers. That effort grew into a statewide political movement that saw AQI on the run within two years. The Sunni Awakening in itself would not have been enough to stave off the deadly threat of extremism in Iraq. Without Prime Minister al-Maliki’s commitment to take on fanatical Shia militias, both the indiscriminate killing and the political torpor would have continued to hamper any truly national progress.
Both efforts continue to this day. And the fragile achievements they’ve engendered have allowed Iraqis to choose freedom over servitude, industry over stagnation. To think the emerging freedoms of the new Iraq have played no role in the ideological modernization of a region that’s been politically and religiously stymied for the better part of a century is to bury your head in the sand. To point to Iraq as a hindrance in this development is pathological. The MSM cites Scott Mclellan’s “revelation” that George Bush’s motivation for invading Iraq was to transform the Middle East as if that were an ignoble pursuit. And at the same time they rave about the transformation of the Middle East.
The point of all this is not to say “I told you so.” The benefit of the truth is that it’s true regardless of when the New York Times or Newsweek or the New Yorker decides to admit it. And the point is not to give George W. Bush his due. America moves forward by the lights of its collective ideals, not by the reputation of its individuals (despite what Obama fans think). Rather, the point is the soldiers.
The thousands of men and women who’ve given everything–so that the insurmountable challenge of Islamofascism could be surmounted–have been dogged by American cynicism at every step. While protecting us and liberating others all Americans in uniform have heard from their homeland is that their mission is wrong, misguided, impossible. Now that we’re seeing the fruits of their effort, is it too much to ask that we acknowledge their contribution? This fight is ongoing, and it’s never too late for Americans to realize that supporting the troops means more than saying you support the troops. It means acknowledging the rightness of their mission, regardless of one’s partisan distaste for various personalities. The Muslim world is indeed changing–and it’s time we do the same.
