WE ARE WINNING

Iraqi police headed to the polls, courtesy of Power Line blog.


Courtesy of the Drudge Report

--Josh

Aren't They Watching The News?

Iraqis, apparently unaware that they are supposed to be frightened and hopeless, have responded to a poll that attempted to gauge their sentiments on the direction of their country in an overwhelmingly optimistic manner. A sample:

There are positive political signs as well. Three-quarters of Iraqis express confidence in the national elections being held this week, 70 percent approve of the new constitution, and 70 percent — including most people in Sunni and Shiite areas alike — want Iraq to remain a unified country.

Interest in politics has soared.

Preference for a democratic political structure has advanced, to 57 percent of Iraqis, while support for an Islamic state has lost ground, to 14 percent (the rest, 26 percent, chiefly in Sunni Arab areas, favor a "single strong leader.")

Whatever the current problems, 69 percent of Iraqis expect things for the country overall to improve in the next year — a remarkable level of optimism in light of the continuing violence there.

Everyone in the United States should read this article and understand the reason why those who are familiar with the situation on the ground in Iraq are largely hopeful about the progress being made. Were America to surrender now in the face of a murderous ideology every bit as heinous as communism and nazism, she could well go down in history as the first country to quit the field as victory drew inevitably closer.

--Josh

I'll Second That

Finally, some sensible people in the Democratic party are trying to reign in the mouth that is Howard Dean. As much as it delights me when Dean makes outrageous remarks like the one recently when he claimed the U.S. could not win the Iraq War, seeing as it makes most people realize how silly the fringe anti-war crowd is, it is still outrageous that Dean would see fit to damage the war effort in such a blatant way. I know Dean apologists will instantly muster the defense that dissent can often be a form of patriotism (a sentiment I agree with), but to declare a war hopeless while we're in the very midst of it is not an act of loyal opposition. It is rather an act of bald-faced panic and betrays the anti-war crowd's ignorance of the stakes involved, and their unsuitability for leadership on this issue.

Since everyone is looking for ways to compare Iraq and Vietnam, I will oblige. It is difficult to read a single book by a Vietnam veteran about that war that doesn't at least in passing mention the sense of alienation and loneliness the soldiers felt when they realized America was not united behind them. I can't imagine how utterly demoralizing such a revelation must be; now the soldiers currently fighting have to listen to the chairman of a major political party declare defeat. I can only hope they have the good sense to ignore Howard Dean and his stupid remarks, as most sensible people do.

--Josh

Pinter Pontificates Pointlessly

The Nobel committee doubtlessly got exactly what it was looking for yesterday from its decision to confer the Nobel prize for literature to Harold Pinter. In his acceptance speech that doubled as a salivating rant against Bush, the U.S., Blair, and England, Pinter managed to attain to the heights of absurd incoherence as well as plumb the depths of despicable character assassination against Bush and Blair. Some lowlights:

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?...We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.'

Actually, that would be a much better description of how things were under Saddam before the U.S. arrived (although I guess you could substitute depleted uranium for nerve gas). One really must have a tenuous grasp on reality to actually believe Iraqis were better off under Saddam than the U.S.: the evidence is so overwhelmingly to the contrary that there is little reason to get into it here.

Some more gems: Pinter accused the United States of supporting 'every right wing military dictatorship in the world after World War II, from Chile to the Philippines. Um, but I thought we were bastards for deposing Saddam Hussein...unless he suddenly doesn't rank in the pantheon of military dictatorships.

'The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them,' he said. 'It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.' While in my more bitter moments I might be inclined to believe saving France in both world wars may have been a bit of a blunder, I can't quite bring myself to consider the stopping of the Holocaust a "vicious, remorseless" act.

And finally, I think it's an embarassment to compare Pinter with Alexander Solzhenitsyn as this article did: The Nobel committee has not shied from rewarding writers who make a stand against authority, notably in rewarding the literature prize to Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1970. Solzhenitsyn was an actual literary genius and a man who took a stand against totalitarianism that cost him greatly. Pinter may fancy himself such, but he is neither. He is rather pathetic, a moral preener who apparently cares about the suffering of the Iraqi people only if the U.S. can somehow be blamed for it.

--Josh