Victory=Defeat — still
Jules takes the piss out of Thomas Friedman:
Apparently Friedman missed the part about the Iraqis recognizing the Americans aren’t leaving, that Americans can fight and won’t quit, that the Americans, as they have bled, are actually trying to help them, while al-Qaeda was just bleeding them. That the American “strong horse” represents their interests. That the Americans represent order and prosperity, and will leave when Iraq is on that path. That al-Qaeda represents chaos, death and violently enforced Sharia. Clearly the Americans had nothing to do with this uprising.
This is interesting. It dovetails with the line some in Washington and the news media have been pushing: Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a homegrown organization, all Iraqi anti-invader resistance, no links to bin Laden. The same people will tell you that al-Qaeda in Iraq, now that it’s on the ropes, never really was that big a deal. Not the enemy. That’s just Bush trying to hoodwink America with a new version of the old Saddam hearts al-Qaeda thing four years later.
Friedman bemoans the fact that Iraqi politicians have not yet followed their people. In fact, some have made moves in that direction, but they’ve turned out by and large to be every bit as self-interested, gutless, ineffective and divisive as … American politicans. Friedman bemoans that fact that Washington isn’t bickering about Iraq anymore. He observes that after a summer of squawking about it, a year spent doing everything they can to undermine it, the Democrats are spent. They failed, in the face of logic, hope, achievement. They and their candidates have had to recognize that America prefers to win and sees a chance to do that. He neglects to observe that it hasn’t stopped the House speaker from running a cynical campaign to derail supply lines into Iraq with an Armenian genocide resolution … a bid to unsupport the troops and usher in a new Iraqi genocide. And if Friedman is patient, he’ll get all the Iraq bickering he wants soon enough. Bush needs more money for his war.
The politics aside, there is something particularly loathsome about Friedman’s snide screed this morning.
Yep. But then, it’s the NYT, so “loathsome” sorta goes with the territory. And Friedman’s biggest problem, along with a whole lot of other people’s, is having to admit that right now, there’s a new quagmire in town…right there in DC. And it’s made by, paid for by, and driven by the Democrats, just like the old bumper stickers used to say.
Enjoy the ride, Surrendercrats. God knows you earned it.
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