Posted by
on Sunday, January 28, 2007 5:00:40 PM
We're constantly lambasted by the Left over Iraq. They don't like the fact we invaded. They lie about the former Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. What they don't want people to know is exactly what the guys at Strategy Page put together. The Top Ten Myths About Iraq, and boy I can just see the Left seething over this. Here are a couple of key points that are made, and I recommend readers read the entire thing:
The War in Iraq is Lost. By what measure? Saddam and his Baath party are out of power. There is a democratically elected government. Part of the Sunni Arab minority continues to support terror attacks, in an attempt to restore the Sunni Arab dictatorship. In response, extremist Shia Arabs formed vigilante death squads to expel all Sunni Arabs. Given the history of democracy in the Middle East, Iraq is working through its problems. Otherwise, one is to believe that the Arabs are incapable of democracy and only a tyrant like Saddam can make Iraqi "work." If democracy were easy, the Arab states would all have it. There are problems, and solutions have to be found and implemented. That takes time, but Americans have, since the 18th century, grown weary of wars after three years. If the war goes on longer, the politicians have to scramble to survive the bad press and opinion polls. Opposition politicians take advantage of the situation, but this has nothing to do with Iraq, and everything to do with local politics in the United States.
When the truth hurts, it's brutal, and nothing is more truthful than that last part. As we've been saying for some time, this nation was sick of World War II after a couple of years. We got sick of Vietnam quickly, and mostly due to the antiwar Left in this country. We're seeing the same things repeated from Vietnam today about Iraq. For the last three days, or so, we've been talking about how the Left and the wobbly GOP in the Senate have been doing their damndest to stop the president from sending additional troops to Iraq. Shades of Vietnam were exposed in the run-up to the 2006 election as Democrat candidates campaigned on a withdrawal from Iraq; ceding the battlefield to the enemy, and ignoring the simple fact that they'd be emboldening our enemies rather than defeating them.
Iraq Is In A State of Civil War. Then so was Britain when the IRA was active, and so is Spain today because ETA is still active. Both IRA and ETA are terrorist organizations based on ethnic identity. India also has tribal separatist rebels who are quite active. That's not considered a civil war. This is all about partisans playing with labels for political ends, not accurately describing a terror campaign.
The arguments presented by the nutters about sectarian violence being a civil war is simply idiotic. We KNEW there was going to be sectarian violence in Iraq if the right fuse was lit. And Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did a great job of lighting it when he bombed the Al-Askari Mosque. That ignited both sides; the bombing set off Shia radicals to go after Sunnis. That was his goal there, and it led to the rise of Moqtada al-Sadr, and his militia. Since then, we've been fighting a war on both fronts because al-Sadr isn't just targeting Sunnis. He's shooting at us, too. The Left fails to catch the fact that had the mosque not been bombed, much of this violence wouldn't be happening. But they choose, instead, to push a lie. Iraq isn't in the middle of a civil war. It's in the middle of religious violence, and we're trying to subdue it before it does erupt into an all-out civil war.
Overthrowing Saddam Only Helped Iran. Of course, and this was supposed to make Iran more approachable and open to negotiations. With the Iraqi "threat" gone, it was believed that Iran might lose its radical ways and behave. Iran got worse as a supporter of terrorism and developer of WMD. Irans clerical dictatorship did not want a democracy next door. The ancient struggle between the Iranians and Arabs was brought to the surface, and the UN became more active in dealing with problems caused by pro-terrorist government of Iran. As a result of this, the Iranian police state has faced more internal dissent. From inside Iran, Iraq does not look like an Iranian victory.
Out of all the lies pushed by the Left about the war, this one is perhaps the most virulent. And, of course, as soon as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad started dancing and prancing about his nuclear program, and started threatening to destroy Israel, the Left started up this lie. They miss the fact that almost daily there are demonstrations against Ahmadinejad and the mullahs there. Students protest him regularly. These dissidents even called for Ahmadinejad's death at a protest in December. Anyone who thinks that Iran has won the battle because Saddam's gone is a fool. The anger in Iran at the regime is close to a boiling point, and Ahmadinejad can't bury the bodies quick enough.
The 2003 Invasion was Illegal. Only according to some in the UN. By that standard, the invasion of Kosovo and bombing of Serbia in 1999 was also illegal. Saddam was already at war with the U.S. and Britain, because Iraq had not carried out the terms of the 1991 ceasefire, and was trying to shoot down coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone.
Personally I love this lie when it's brought up in debates. The fact the Left totally ignores the attacks that were launched on our fighter planes in the no-fly zones sends a clear message that they don't care about our military. Saddam rearming was another breach of the 1991 cease-fire. The UN had 17 resolutions that went unheeded, and the US finally threw down the gauntlet in front of them. If the resolutions were to mean anything, another useless resolution passed wasn't the answer. He didn't come clean. What were to be the repercussions for his non-compliance? A harshly-worded letter? The UN's reluctance to uphold it's own word was enough to show the world that they weren't serious about regional threats. Saddam was definitively a threat to the region. THAT can't be denied. The Saudis were still edgy about him, as was Kuwait. Iran wasn't exactly making nice with him either. But the Left always overlooks the facts, and over-analyzes the situation. If it doesn't fit into their mindset of how things should be, or how they should go, they ignore it altogether.
No Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Several hundred chemical weapons were found, and Saddam had all his WMD scientists and technicians ready. Just end the sanctions and add money, and the weapons would be back in production within a year. At the time of the invasion, all intelligence agencies, world-wide, believed Saddam still had a functioning WMD program. Saddam had shut them down because of the cost, but created the illusion that the program was still operating in order to fool the Iranians. The Iranians wanted revenge on Saddam because of the Iraq invasion of Iran in 1980, and the eight year war that followed.
This is, perhaps, the most contentious issue of the war. And the Left loves to hype up the fact that the president refuses to admit we found WMDs in Iraq. Hell, they've gone as far to ignore the BBC's reporting on the finds that were made after we entered Iraq. 7 July 2004 we revealed the extent of their nuclear program to date, and 2 July 2004 Polish troops foiled an attempt to buy nerve gas. Well, I thought there weren't any WMDs in Iraq? The Left refuses to acknowledge that the president NEVER said we'd find large caches of WMDs in Iraq. They invented that from his speech where he laid out the reasons for going into Iraq. Like always, the facts are presented, but selective hearing on their part leads them to invent things that were never stated.
Read the whole thing. It's enlightening. I just wish the guys at Strategy Page would have linked a lot of the information that's available on the 'Net to prove their points. It's all out there, and the Left would know what most of us know if they'd just take the effort to actually look it up. Laziness, and partisan politics seem to trump their intellectual honesty, and that's a sad state to be in for those on the Left.
Publius II