Rampant Defeatism
I’m amazed at the defeatism in the media, especially the print press. For instance, here’s yet another article in the NY times without a single optimistic paragraph about the war.
I would have thought the press would have waited at least three weeks before using the phrase “Vietnam-like Quagmire.” After all, that’s how long they waited in Afghanistan. Instead, they’ve begun using the phrase in week one of the war. There’s talk about “mounting casualties” and “stiff Iraqi resistance.”
Those “mounting casualties” are still less than those in Afghanistan and about a tenth those in the first Gulf War. As for the “stiff Iraqi resistance,” it consists of irregular troops with AK-47s charging M1A1 Abrams tank. The Abrams has an armor so tough that RPGs bounce off it. When the Abrams fires its depleted uranium shells, they cut through the armor of just about any vehicle the enemy has, including his tanks. If this is “stiff Iraqi resistance,” I’d like to know what “light resistance” looks like.
The “mainstream” press is showing its George McGovern-loving, ultra-liberal, wannabe-hippie true colors. They hate this war and are desperately hoping we’ll lose it. Despite all their scare mongering and defeatist propaganda, they won’t get their wish.
UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer thinks the media “could use some lithium.”
UPDATE 2: Victor Davis Hanson wonders “Have these people any intelligence or shame?” In his must-read piece, he points out:
All these people need to calm down, take a deep breath, and read their history – computing the logistics of fighting 7,000 miles away and considering the hurdles of vast space, unpredictable weather, and enemies without uniforms. And? In just a week, the United States military has surrounded one of history’s most sadistic and nasty regimes. It has overrun 80 percent of the countryside and has daily pulverized the Republican Guard, achieving more in five days than the Iranians did in eight years.Twenty-four hours a day, thousands of tankers and supply trucks barrel down long, vulnerable supply lines, quickly and efficiently. There is no bridge too far for these long columns. One-hundred percent air superiority is ours. There is not a single Iraqi airplane in the sky. Enemy tanks either stay put or are bombed. Kurds and Shiites really will soon start to be heard. Seven oil wells are on fire (with firefighters on the scene) – no oil slicks, no attacks on Israel. Kuwait City is not aflame. “Millions” of refugees fleeing into Syria and Jordan have not materialized. Even Peter Arnett is no longer parroting the Iraqi government claims of ten million starving and has moved on to explain why the Iraqis were equipped with chemical suits – to protect Saddam’s killers from our WMDs!
Few, if any, major bridges in Iraq have been blown; there are no mass uprisings in Saddam’s favor. The Tikrit mafia fights as the SS did in the craters of Berlin, facing as it does – and within weeks – either a mob’s noose, a firing squad, or a dungeon. Through 20,000 air sorties, no jets have been shot down; there is nothing to stop them from flying another 100,000. They fly in sand, in lightning, high, low, day, night, anywhere, anytime. Supplies are pouring in. Saddam’s regime is cut off and its weapons will not be replenished. This is not North Vietnam, with Chinese and Russian ships with daily re-supply in the harbor of Haiphong. British and Americans, with courageous Australians as well, are fighting as a team without even the petty rivalry of a Montgomery and Bradley.
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