The audacity of some people still manages to astound me. Wapo once again winds a web of opinion that speaks from both sides of the mouth and shows a perfect example of why writers, especially of a far left organization such as the Washington Post, who have never once spoken to a commander on the ground in Iraq, should not speak to things they haven't gotten a clue about. It is called Insult to Injury.
I am going to break this down, taking a page from Wapo's playbook, I am going to choose which parts of the article I wish to address, trying to wade my way through their "opinion" and distortions and deal with the meat of the piece.
Such arguments have been latent in the Bush administration's Iraq strategy and explicit in Democratic critiques of that strategy for some time. Now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declared: "It's their country. . . . They're going to have to govern it, they're going to have to provide security for it, and they're going to have to do it sooner rather than later."
The implication of these arguments is clear: The United States should prepare to leave Iraq, after which the Iraqis will work out their own troubles -- or they won't. In any event, we can no longer help them. This notion is wrong and morally contemptible, and it endangers American security around the world.
First off, making it clear to the government of Iraq that they need to step up and giving them some milestones as a goal, is NOT the same as saying that we are going to leave Iraq before they can maintain control of the country. The argument that the "implications" of Rumsfeld statement can be known to Kagan, the so called writer, without having spoken to Rumsfeld, is false. How on earth does Kagan know what Rumsfeld is "implying"? He doesn't, but Kagan does as most the writers at Wapo do, they take the words, distort them, add their "spin" to them, make up imaginary implications, then print it as news.
The current crisis in Iraq is no more just an Iraqi problem than it has ever been. The U.S. military destroyed Iraq's government and all institutions able to keep civil order.
This bit kills me, "destroyed Iraq's government", does Kagan mean Saddam, the genocidal killer? Any institution that was run under Saddam was NOT a government, it was a dictatorship, although I am not surprised Wapo doesn't understand the difference between the two.
It has placed U.S. security in jeopardy by creating the preconditions for the sort of terrorist safe haven the president repeatedly warns about
Now THIS is only a partial sentence from the article, but it is the one accuracy I see. They finally admit that if we leave now it will become a safe haven for terrorists. Is this not what Bush has been saying for quite a while, since we intercepted letters from al-Qaeda to Zarqawi and vice versa?
I posted links to those letters where they stated very clearly that one thing they were going to attack one faction of Iraqi's so that they would blame and go after the other faction, thereby creating conditions where the media would be USED to pressure the American government to leave Iraq, ", their words were to "expel"the Americans.
So just as CNN has allowed itself to be used by the insurgents and terrorists, so has Wapo and all the left media and the Democrats. Great job doing the terorrists bidding guys. Outstanding.
A rapid U.S. withdrawal would lead to catastrophe in Iraq. The presence of American troops is vital to restraining Iraqi soldiers -- the Iraqis know not to participate in death squad activities when Americans are around
Again the article parrots exactly what the president has been saying, if they would stick to the facts instead of their distortions and opinions, they might actually have an article worth reading.
No, we can't. Both honor and our vital national interest require establishing conditions in Iraq that will allow the government to consolidate and maintain civil peace and good governance. It doesn't matter how many "trained and ready" Iraqi soldiers there are, nor how many provinces are nominally under Iraqi control. If America withdraws its forces before setting the conditions for the success of the Iraqi government, we will have failed in our mission and been defeated in the eyes of our enemies. We will have dishonored ourselves.
Something I can actually agree with. A whole paragraph without lies and distortions.
Iraq is in the heart of the Muslim world and at the center of the struggle against radical Islamism.
Once again, they are repeating Bushes words here and acting like this is something they have discovered. HELLO??????? Have they not been listening, reading or watching any of the actual news? This is what the President has been saying over and over again and Wapo is JUST figuring it out?
So, they have once again written a piece using an "assumption" of what they "thought" Rumsfeld was "implying" and coming out with what they think is an opposing opinion, which just happens to be, in large part, the same thing Bush has been saying for ages.
Reading these stories Wapo writes is like walking through a landmine sometimes, you have to be able to translate some foreign language of theirs to get to the actual news, which is hidden in there somewhere.
Others talking about media bias under the pretence of reporting news:
My related piece on Communist News Network.
Barking Moonbat has a few examples.
Patterico's Pontifications.
Confederate Yankee has a statement from a reporter that was embedded three times with a combat unit in Iraq.
Atlas Shrugs has a post about media being the jihad's most powerful weapon.
The Discerning Texan points to a few interesting trends of the left media.
A Soldiers Perspective says it all.
Sister Toldjah notices the MSM covering their asses "just in case".