Why There Was So Little Coverage In MSM Regarding Iraqi Elections

[Annie]

http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18797/article_detail.asp

Not a Sunni Day for the Left
By Bruce Kesler

Let’s speculate, for a moment, that Jacques Chirac opposed U.S. action in Iraq because of a lesson drawn from his own country’s role in the American War of Independence.

The French contribution was essential in securing Cornwallis’s defeat at Yorktown and, thus, the subsequent emergence of the U.S. as a beacon of democracy throughout the world. The ideals of 1776 contributed to the French Revolution, the emergence of Napoleon, and the Little Corporal’s spreading the fire of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” across Europe.

Today, it’s the Americans who are unleashing revolutionary ideas, most recently in the Middle East. But the French, as is their wont, demure. And why not? Aside from the danger that democratically-elected governments would expose the role of Chirac’s advisors in profiteering from the U.N. oil-for-bribes program, a liberated Middle East would upset France’s cozy power and commercial relationships with other corrupt Arab states. Democracy is too potent a force to be fooled with by mere un-French mortals from Texas.

Two leading writers on the Left, Sam Rosenfeld and Matthew Yglesias, recently garnered significant attention with a piece they wrote in The American Prospect entitled

“The Incompetency Dodge.” In short, they argue that liberals who supported U.S. entry into Iraq—but have since qualified their support by contending that there weren’t enough forces and/or the post-war planning was abysmal—are engaging in a “fool’s endeavor.”​

Rosenfeld and Yglesias contend that

“using force to build a pluralistic liberal democracy where none existed before could count as a moral justification for war if we had any sense of how to feasibly engage in such an endeavor, but the evidence from Iraq and elsewhere indicates that we do not.”​

Moreover, they reason that

“injustice exists in the world that is beyond America’s capacity to remedy. Refusal to see this—which is part and parcel of the incompetence dodge—may be the liberal hawks’ most dangerous tic.”​

This is an attractive and facile argument. However, it is contradicted by results in Iraq and the Middle East.

Kevin Drum, a liberal former supporter of the Iraq intervention, agrees with Rosenfeld and Yglesias’s thrust, but thinks they take it too far, since it would permit U.S. intervention only in cases of genocide, and admits as much in his response, “Make War No More?...” in the Washington Monthly:

“In other words, democracy is nice—eventually—but the bigger issue is kicking over the status quo in the Middle East and forcing change. And the hawks would argue that this is happening. Slowly and fitfully, to be sure, but count up the successes: Iraq and Afghanistan are better off than before, Libya has given up its nuke program, Lebanon's Cedar Revolution is a sign of progress, Egypt has held a more open election than any before it, and the Syrian regime is under considerable pressure.

Did the invasion of Iraq precipitate these changes? I think the hawks considerably overstate their case, but at the same time they do have a case. Even if Iraq is a mess, it might all be worthwhile if it eventually produces progress toward a more open, more liberal Middle East. At the very least, it's an argument that needs to be engaged.”​

And Drum’s engagement of the argument comes in his conclusion:

“The Iraq invasion has had some positive effects on the Middle East, but they’ve been modest and have been counterbalanced by some negative effects—and those effects are likely to get ever more negative as time goes by.”​

Victor Davis Hanson replies by pointing to the root of the Left’s opposition to the U.S. role in Iraq.

“While no mainstream Democrat has yet gone the McGovern route, it is still politically toxic for any to state publicly that we should be optimistic about the future of Iraq, inasmuch as they are convinced that such an admission could only help George W. Bush.”​

Hanson judges that,

“when all this is over—and it will be more quickly than we imagine—there will be a viable constitutional government in Iraq. But the achievement will be considered either a natural organic process, or adopted as a success by former critics only at its safe, penultimate stage.”​

Another military expert, Austin Bay, chimes in about the key role of “Iraq as the Central Front” that confronting terrorists in Iraq plays for the transformation of the Middle East:

“I think a confrontation with al-Qaeda on Middle Eastern turf was a strategic must…. Bringing the terror war back to Arab Muslim turf is the political and psychological ‘strategic judo’ it takes to expose al-Qaeda as the mass murderers they are—mass murderers of Muslims.”​

Even the New York Times’ defeatist in Baghdad, Dexter Filkins, was forced to recognize the significance of last Saturday’s turnout in Iraq’s constitutional referendum, which was heavier than last January’s turnout and higher than most U.S. elections. It

“represents the first evidence that Iraqi’s Sunni Muslims, whose community forms the heart of the guerrilla insurgency, have decided to join the budding Iraqi political process.”​

Another New York Times report tells us that, for the first time,

“Syria’s Opposition Unites Behind a Call for Democratic Changes.”​

As Hanson predicts, we may yet see the New York Times’ rabid editorialists recognize the success of the U.S. in transforming the Middle East to a more benign, democratic region. But, it’ll surely be a good while for their eyes to open to the news on their own pages.

The Arab League, dominated by corrupt Sunni Arab despots who opposed the U.S. action in Iraq, has woken up. Its Secretary-General, Amr Moussa, has finally declared that the Arab League

“condemns Iraq’s insurgents.”​

David Gelernter instructs the negativist Left with “A History Lesson,” in the Los Angeles Times, where he writes:

“Democracies rarely declare war to improve the world…. They fight to protect themselves…. But once a war is underway, free peoples tend to think things over deeply…. America at war has lifted its sights again and again from danger, self-interest, and self-defense to a larger, nobler goal. Same story, war after war. Iraq fits perfectly.”​

In response to such claims, however, Kevin Drum states that

“these are all good arguments, but I think they obscure two more fundamental points that Sam [Rosenfeld] and Matt [Yglesias] don't address. Point #1 is the fact that democratization was probably never more than a small part of the original plan anyway, so maybe the whole ‘democracy at the point of a gun’ argument isn't all that important.”​

That may be so for the Democrats, who are obsessed with re-fighting their 2002 campaign against intervention. They repeat,

“no WMD’s found,”​

but ignore Saddam’s efforts to retain the capacity. They search, less and less successfully, for any sign of difficulties. They try to settle scores with Judith Miller for defiling their New York Times editorial altar of incessant harping.

But the world has moved on past them. Even some Sunnis are deserting the American Left’s arsenal of criticism. Not a Sunni day for the Left.

Bruce Kesler owns an employee benefits consulting firm in the San Diego area. He is a contributing writer for the Democracy Project.

 

[Annie]

Really long post, with many great pics. Here is the 'ending':

http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/10/purple-fingers_24.html

...The Minnesota National Guardsmen, who might have been in pitched combat if this were January, were lounging about in lawn chairs, wearing full kit, ready to fight if the Iraqis needed help. But no calls were coming. Apparently the only help anyone needed was for lunch delivery. I later heard people saying the Iraqis didn’t want anyone except Iraqis coming near the polling sites; they wanted to show this was by Iraqis for Iraqis. It was their party.

We left, drove here and there, and landed at a different unit: the 170th MPs from Fort Lewis. This unit was responsible for supporting twenty polling stations. SFC Dilbert French mentioned some minor SIGACTS that were not worth jotting down. “Is it like this all over Iraq?” I asked. I could hardly believe it. Where are the mortars? The IEDs? The homicide bombers and car bombs? No snipers? Surely the ground must be shaking in Falluja or Ramadi, and what about Mosul, Baquba, and Basra? What about Tal Afar? SFC French checked the secure computer for all of Iraq. The whole country looked quiet. “The media is going to be very disappointed,” chuckled one soldier, and I laughed along with him.

Slowest day in years: This policeman was sleeping in front of his station



I woke him up



By 1830, we visited Arizona National Guard who had become the 860th MPs. All was quiet except for a couple of rockets that exploded harmlessly in a field.

We visited the 126th MPs from the New Mexico National Guard, and they said that two car bombs had exploded in the morning, but there were no known casualties, and if there had been casualties, they probably would have known. There was something special about the New Mexico National Guard. They seemed very proud, and they talked about one of their fallen, Sergeant Marshal Alan Westbrook, who had been killed by an IED just down the road about two weeks ago. They said that over 2,000 people had attended Sergeant Westbrook’s funeral. Some soldiers did not grasp the importance of this day in Iraq, but I had the feeling that the 126th certainly did.


MPs help secure IP station while IPs guard the polling sites



Stark evidence: democracy is taking root. (Photograph taken from the roof of an IP station on 15 October 2005)



Unit after unit that we stopped in was proud that nothing was happening in their sectors, and now that the polls were closed, it was a matter of securing the ballots.

We then visited the 504th from Fort Lewis, who had detailed instructions on one of the doors on how to “Turn a Hamster into a Fighting Machine.” Basically, just select a hamster and tape a knife to its back. It was recommended not to tape firearms to its back. Mellinger burst out laughing and walked away, and I stood there laughing uncontrollably while reading the whole set of instructions:




We walked into the TOC of the 504th, and the board was quiet. Nothing.

And that was it: 1903 hours, the four Humvees from the 42nd MPs drove away in the darkness, and we drove home. This was the finest, most complete mission I had ever gone on.

Next morning, the Army said there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq. In January there had been 108 attacks on polling sites. There had been about 300 total attacks during the January election day, and the Army said there had been 89 total attacks in Iraq during this voting day.

It had been quiet from my perch. The guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

posted by Michael Yon @ 3:49 AM

 

[Gunny]

Any day the lefties have to eat crow is a GOOD day!!!