Educating the Uneducatable

Below is an excellent post by registered Democrat, left of center research professor and concerned American "Engram" over at the Back-Talk blog.
I suggest anyone who thinks that I represent an uneducated, hateful, unfair or unsubstantiated representation of the liberal view on Iraq or of the current situation in Iraq, by all means read Engram's work. He is no rightwing pundit or puppet of the Bush administration by any measure but clearly understands what is up, what is true and what is happening and goes to great pains to check his facts and set the record straight.

I believe however, that the left has NO INTEREST in facts, what is up, what is true or what is really happening in Iraq. Their ONLY INTEREST is getting Bush un-elected ASAP and to hell with everything else. (so prove me wrong)

Please To Enjoy...
DEBATING THE PURPOSE OF THE SURGE: By Engram at Back-Talk

Here is John Kerry at the Huffington Post echoing a standard left talking point about the troop surge in Iraq:

The Escalation Didn't Work

The escalation failed to do the one and only thing it was supposed to do. The entire Iraq policy of George W. Bush has failed since the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad. No amount of parsing or spinning can change those simple facts: the escalation is and was the wrong answer.
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A political solution in Iraq cannot come about without a clear deadline on where our troops will be pulling out. Only Iraqis can end this civil war, and they aren't - and won't be - making any progress with an open-ended, massive presence by our military in their country.
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And by the way -- go read all of the statements at the time about the "reason" for the escalation - it was to buy political breathing room for Iraqis to compromise. Period. It hasn't happened.

OK, I will go read all the statements about the reason for the troop surge because I sincerely doubt that John Kerry did.

George Will, who is ordinarily capable of formulating an independent thought, neglects to do so in his very similar assessment of the situation:

By Bush's Own Standard, Surge Has Failed

Those who today stridently insist that the surge has succeeded also say they are especially supportive of the president, Petraeus and the military generally. But at the beginning of the surge, both Petraeus and the president defined success in a way that took the achievement of success out of America's hands.

The purpose of the surge, they said, is to buy time -- "breathing space," the president says -- for Iraqi political reconciliation. Because progress toward that has been negligible, there is no satisfactory answer to this question: What is the U.S. military mission in Iraq?

According to this oft-repeated "analysis," the only purpose of the surge was to allow the Iraqi government time to get their political act together. If so, then if we take John Kerry's advice to "...go read all of the statements at the time about the 'reason' for the escalation," we'll discover that this is an accurate way to portray the situation.

George Bush explained the rationale for the troop surge to the American people in a speech to the nation on January 10, 2007. If John Kerry and George Will (and legions of like-minded left-wing commentators) are right, then one should be able read that speech and easily extract the message that the only purpose of the troop surge was to give Iraqi politicians some breathing space. Right? Let's take a look.

Bush's speech can be found here. For starters, it is remarkable in that it displays an understanding of some most fundamental points about what has happened in Iraq over the last year and a half. Most people are unaware of these basic points, and they find Bush to be unpersuasive, but these are the facts:

When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation. The elections of 2005 were a stunning achievement. We thought that these elections would bring the Iraqis together, and that as we trained Iraqi security forces we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.

But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq -- particularly in Baghdad -- overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause, and they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

All evidence -- evidence that I have repeatedly summarized in excruciating detail -- supports this synopsis of progress (and lack thereof) in Iraq. The setback in Iraq was sudden. And the "strategy" Bush refers to is al Qaeda's strategy, one that was conceived by Zarqawi (and one that troop-withdrawal advocates never mention for some odd reason).

In his speech, Bush does, indeed, urge the Iraqis to make political progress and notes that now (i.e., during the troop surge) is the time for them do it:

I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this.

My point is not that Kerry and Will are wrong to suggest that, according to Bush, one purpose of the troop surge was to give Iraqi politicians the breathing space they need to achieve a political consensus (and that escalating sectarian violence was making that impossible). My point is that Kerry and Will and legions of like-minded left-wing commentators are wrong to suggest that this was the primary purpose of the troop surge. In truth, it was one stated purpose, and it was secondary to another, more important, purpose. Bush was crystal clear about the primary purpose of the troop surge, and he devoted a lot more time to that issue than to the "political reconciliation" issue (so I'm not sure how Kerry and Will missed it):

As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan -- and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq.

If you think that handing al Qaeda a victory right now is the correct thing to do because the Iraqis cannot seem to get their act together, then come right out and say so. John Kerry and George Will are not bold enough to do that. That's why they do what Democrats (and some Republicans) have done from the very beginning: completely ignore the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq, as if it is so utterly inconsequential that you can write an entire column on the subject without even bringing up its name. I have been highlighting this absurd phenomenon (which I long ago dubbed the "eerie code of silence") for many months now. I am simply aghast that no one else seems to notice this elephant in the room. The reason why opponents of the war in Iraq maintain their eerie code of silence about al Qaeda in Iraq is because their position instantly self-destructs if the issue is raised. That is, if you utter the words "al Qaeda" when advocating our quick withdrawal from Iraq, you are suddenly forced to choose between these two options:

1. deny that al Qaeda in Iraq exists (or deny that it is a major force)

2. accept that al Qaeda does exist and is a major force there, but deny that withdrawing from Iraq now would be tantamount to surrendering to the very terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11

Well, which is it? John Kerry and George Will don't say. I wouldn't either if I were in their shoes. Unlike them, the incomparable Charles Krauthammer does not adopt the eerie code of silence:

The American people are not antiwar. They are anti-losing. Which means they are also anti-drift. Adrift is where we were during most of 2006 -- the annus horribilis initiated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's bringing down the Golden Mosque in Samarra -- until the new counterinsurgency strategy of 2007 (the "surge") reversed the trajectory of the war.
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Having poisoned one country and been expelled from it (Afghanistan), al-Qaeda seized upon post-Hussein instability to establish itself in the very heart of the Arab Middle East -- Sunni Iraq. Yet now, in front of all the world, Iraq's Sunnis are, to use the biblical phrase, vomiting out al-Qaeda. This is a defeat and humiliation in the extreme -- an Arab Muslim population rejecting al-Qaeda so violently that it allies itself in battle with the infidel, the foreigner, the occupier.

Just carrying this battle to its successful conclusion -- independent of its larger effect of helping stabilize Iraq -- is justification enough for the surge. The turning of Sunni Iraq against al-Qaeda is a signal event in the war on terrorism. Petraeus's plan is to be allowed to see it through.

It's hard to argue with that, which is why people like Kerry and Will don't even try.