It Ain't Necessarily So...

Ah, so many seem to be so convinced that Iraq is lost, that the US must go down in defeat.

So many that it almost seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Well, to parahprase Gershwin, It Ain't Necessarily So.

Here is the first link: put bluntly, the main-stream media and the pundits from the left that have been driving the meme of "the US is incompetent, the Military is clueless, we've made all these mistakes" are in turn clueless themselves. The fact that the US doesn't trumpet its strategy from the towers and keeps its strategy close at hand is confusing for such weak-minded; the military is far, far from clueless (indeed, letting the cities fester while consolidating the countryside is a strategy eminently suited for Iraq; and the mistakes we've made are not the ones the Left think we are making.

Secondly, here is another link listing the real failures: Inadequate plan for the post-war period; leaving Iran alone; pullbacks and soft failures; Iraqi elections held too early; misunderstanding some fundamentals; unreasonable expectations; media misconduct and malpractice. Some of these failures were the result of things that we should've known, but didn't; others are beyond our control, and yet others can only be answered with the words "no excuse". But these are not the failures that the MSM and the Left imagine our failures to be.

Third is that the conflict needs to be put in perspective: it just isn't Iraq.This post by Steve den Beste sums it up better than I ever could (and this by Tigerhawk updates Steve's original points). This post by Belmont Club reminds us what is at stake.


In other words: it ain't over till the fat lady sings.