We are NOT Losing in Iraq

When Secretary of Defense designate Robert Gates told Senators at his confirmation hearing that "we are not winning in Iraq" It topped weeks of defeatist talk which begun in the aftermath of the Democrat's narrow election victory on November 7th.

Here at Mike's America, we warned voters that Democrats would surrender in Iraq and the war on terror as quick as you could say "Patriot Act." But even I was astonished at how quickly defeatism became the "consensus" view.

Ann Coulter noticed it too, and has another excellent article: "How did we go from winning the war in Iraq to losing overnight? Was this decided by the same committee that changed "Peking" to "Beijing"? ...These new linguistic conventions — like going from "winning" to "losing" in Iraq — simply spread like an invisible bacterial invasion."

Then of course we had the wonderful Iraq Surrender Group report which basically said we could do nothing but beg our enemies in Iran and Syria for help. Lotta good that will do.

As an Iraq war veteran, (which according to the Chicken Hawk fallacy places his opinion with absolute moral authority above Democrats who haven't served) T.F. Boggs at Bored Soldier put his thought's this way:

What we should and should not do: An Authoritative Voice
T.F. Boggs
December 07, 2006

We cannot appease our enemies and we cannot continue to cut and run when the going gets tough. As it stands in the world right now our enemies view America as a country full of queasy people who are inclined to cut and run when things take a turn for the worse. Just as the Tet Offensive was the victory that led to our failure in Vietnam our victories in Iraq now are leading to our failure in the Middle East. How many more times must we fight to fail? I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24 year old but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn’t fast food-you can’t have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in it’s entire history takes time, and when I say time I don’t mean 4 years.

Comparing Victory in World War II with Victory in Iraq

Deafeatists have pointed out that we have been in Iraq now longer than we were at war in World War II. It's true that 1367 days have past since the start of hostilities in Iraq began. And U.S. action in World War II spanned 1347 days.

Of course simplistic reasoning such as this ignores that World War II actually began more than two years earlier when Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939. It also ignores that long after Italy, Germany and Japan surrendered, the defeated nations, as well as those liberated by the victorious allies remained in various stages of political upheavel for decades.

Communist insurrections replaced Allied/Axis fighting in countries like Greece and China. This same pattern was repeated in 1950 in Korea.

The governments of both liberated and conquered nations went through incredible turmoil. France, which was split by guilt over collaboration of the Vichy government with Germany and the Free French under General DeGaulle was a powderkeg as were other European nations.

Huge parts of Poland and the entire Baltic States were swallowed whole by the Soviet Union.

We're reminded of the the famous cover of Life Magazine from January 7, 1946. It showed Winston Churchill painting after being relieved from office by the ungrateful British public shortly after Victory in Europe Day in 1945. The accompanying article suggested that "Americans are Losing the Victory."

Kind of sounds familiar doesn't it.

Beginning with the Marshall Plan in 1947, and the founding of NATO in 1949 It too more than 40 years of painful and difficult political/military/diplomatic and economic effort to fully free the nation's of Eastern Europe and remove the threat of Soviet communism.

By historical comparison, Iraq is on a fast track. And we can either finish the job to the best of our abilities or surrender with the full knowledge that it will be only the beginning of a dangerous withdrawal of U.S. power around the world.

Anyone else ready for a revote on the 2006 Congressional Election?