We all know by now that Iraq is a modern paradise. A land of palm trees, Wal-Marts, and cable TV and that the media has been involved in a wide ranging conspiracy to cover-up this incredible success story. Never fear the Right might be sending a representative to clear things up once and for all. Malkin announces that she’s going to Baghdad
Malkin is so concerned about the Associated Press’ efforts to make things look “really bad” in Iraq when things are really actually going really well, that she has accepted Eason Jordan’s invitation to send her to Iraq.
Whether there is a Jamil or someone that has used that name to keep their true identity a secret isn’t as important as the truth of the story of Iraq’s daily death toll and the Right simply lacks the credibility to issue any findings one way or the other. The conservative blogs are chuck full of lies, distortions, and sins of omission so why should anyone believe anything they have to say. They seem to have set their sights on AP. I wonder what a comparison between the accuracy of AP’s reporting would look like compared to Malkins, Confederate Yankees, Right-wing Nuthouse, Instapundit, Blogs for Bush, etc. Counting Our Casualities in Iraq
We are fast, too fast, coming up on the 3,000th American combat death in Iraq. Or maybe not. The government has had a considerate policy of keeping the bad news away from us, so it’s possible that number 3,000 will come and go as we move on to 4,000–and we will hardly be aware of it.
This would be in line with President George Bush’s kind-hearted policy of not allowing photographs of the coffins containing the remains of those who gave their lives for the rest of us. It’s always better not to know, isn’t it?
The famous Baker-Hamilton Commission even made note of how the government is not inclined to pass along the bad news: “There is significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq. The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. The murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn’t hurt US personnel doesn’t count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were ninety-three attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence. Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals.”
If news should seep out that the 3,000th person has died, the government may still be able to find a way to prevent people from making a big to-do about it. For example, what if three of our people riding in a Humvee were to be killed by an improvised explosive device at the same time? Who would be number 3,000?
Remember all the bruhaha about Senator Harry Reid and those boxing tickets, Senate Panel Says Reid Did No Wrong
Last week the senate ethics panel sent a letter to a Las Vegas man who filed a complaint on the matter, saying Reid did not break any rules and it would take no further action.
A tip for the ethically challenged and lazy, if you want to win an argument credit things to your opponent that they never said. Patriotic Americans never bet that Bush would screw-up Iraq or hoped that he would. Patriots looked at the facts and predicted disaster. That Jonah Goldberg and the whining Right can’t get that simple fact straight is yet another factor in their ongoing credibility problem, Moral Clarity and Just When You Thought it was Safe to not Post on Pinochet…
…Jonah Goldberg has to go and write one of the more ridiculous sentences I have read in a while to start off a column in the LAT:
I THINK ALL intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet.
Well, no, I don’t think that we can agree on that notion. (Indeed, almost always when someone starts a sentence “I think all intelligent, patriotic, informed people can agree…” it is almost certainly not true).
He continues:
In fact, an Iraqi Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro.
Ok, given that choice (a rather fantastical one, but fine), sure, I’d pick Pinochet over Castro. But that is like asking which room in Hell you’d prefer to reside it.
Once a fascist-lite always a fascist-lite. The Right just cannot hide its stripes. In whatever number of years Iraq becomes somewhat stable and the Right takes credit for it will just be another crap they’ve taken on the Iraqi people. Goodness knows you don’t want to give Iraqis credit for anything after Bush and the Right shocked and awed half a million of them to death to liberate them from Saddam. It won’t be conservative’s ultimate circus act, but it will be down there in the gutter with other low moments. The mighty pajama clad keyboarders of the Right might very well never have to pay for their general misanthropy, but their children might, A War Bush Wouldn’t Pay For
I think it would be a mistake to send more troops to Iraq. But for the sake of argument, let’s take seriously the idea that doing so might help, as Sen. John McCain has insisted and as American Enterprise Institute scholar Frederick W. Kagan argued in a report released yesterday. By not matching the military’s size to what we are asking it to do, we have hugely raised the costs, including the human costs, of such a policy.
Kagan and William Kristol acknowledged in the Weekly Standard last month that “surging 50,000 more troops” to Iraq “will strain a strained military further.”
“But it is also true,” they added, “that we can do it — if we think success in Iraq is a national priority — by extending tours, moving troops from other theaters into Iraq, and calling up expanded numbers from the Guard and Reserves.”
How easy it is to talk about extending other people’s tours, calling (or recalling) reservists and National Guard members who have already paid such a high price in this war, and endangering American interests elsewhere in the world in one last effort to make the Iraq gamble work. It’s absurd that the most powerful country in the world finds itself forced to treat its armed forces so shabbily.
“Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.”
Carl Sandburg
The Long Goodbye 