War in Iraq Over - We Win

Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight - wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and never will lose a war, because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. Gen. George S. Patton

Karl Zinsmeister writes in The American Enterprise, "The War is Over, and We Won". He writes this after revisiting Iraq during April and May of this year. He was in Iraq as an embedded reporter during the initial invasion in 2003 and again in 2004. He says:

I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring. Baghdad is now choked with traffic. Cell phones have spread like wildfire. And satellite TV dishes sprout from even the most humble mud hovels in the countryside.

Many of the soldiers I spent time with during this spring had also been deployed during the initial invasion back in 2003. Almost universally they talked to me about how much change they could see in the country. They noted progress in the attitudes of the people, in the condition of important infrastructure, in security.

I observed many examples of this myself. Take the two very different Baghdad neighborhoods of Haifa Street and Sadr City. The first is an upper-end commercial district in the heart of downtown. The second is one of Baghdad?s worst slums, on the city?s north edge.

I spent lots of time walking both neighborhoods this spring?something that would not have been possible a year earlier, when both were active war zones, where tanks poured shells into buildings on a regular basis. Today, the primary work of our soldiers in each area is rebuilding sewers, paving roads, getting buildings repaired and secured, supplying schools and hospitals, getting trash picked up, managing traffic, and encouraging honest local governance.

Now comes a slam against the MSM.

What the establishment media covering Iraq have utterly failed to make clear today is this central reality: With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over. Egregious acts of terror will continue in Iraq as in many other parts of the world. But there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war.

He cautions us, however;

The terrorist struggle has hardly ended. Even a very small number of vicious men operating in secret will find opportunities to blow up outdoor markets and public buildings, assassinate prominent political figures, and knock down office towers. But public opinion is not on the insurgents? side, and the battle of Iraq is no longer one of war fighting?but of policing and politics.

This all may just possibly be completely true. The MSM and the opposition of questionable loyalty do not want us to know this. They don't want us to see it nor even to think that it may well be a possibility.

If America wins, then George Bush wins.

It would be unthinkable to admit to such a thing. It would be unthinkable to admit that the conservatives and neoconservatives, or whatever moniker you choose to apply, could have been right all along. It would be beyond the pale to have to admit that a Texan who can't pronounce nucular has been so misunderestimated.

If Mr. Zinsmeister is correct, and he is there and has been there several times, which is more than can be said of Andrew Sullivan or Markos "screw'em" Zeronutzas, then you know what is about to happen. You know it as well as I. We can hear it already.

"incompetent"
"should have won it and been out 2 years ago"
"lost the moral war due to Abu Ghraib/Gitmo/Geneva Conventions/torture/rendition/fill-in-your-own-here."

We'll hear it from the semi-loyal opposition, the MSM and the left wing pundits all over the net.

The answer to them? "So what? We won, again."

Linked to: Kevin Drum, Caerdroia, Outside the Beltway, INDC Journal, PoliPundit, GOP Bloggers, Media Slander, SoCal Pundit, Bring It On, Turn On Tune In..., Sadly, No!, Soi Disantra, Sirocco, Ramblings in the Desert, The Tin Ear, Mindreader's Dictionary, Air America Radio, Michelle Malkin, California Conservative, The Political Teen, Get Real, The Shape of Days, Don Singleton, Narcissistic Views,
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