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Iraq And the Left’s Denial of Reality

I note with some interest today that Michael Yon [1] has released another one of his columns from Iraq.

America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions.

No one who’s actually been to this area in the last month could honestly claim it was swarming with violence. I’ve been with the Brits here for more than two weeks, during which time there have been only a few trivial attacks that could easily have been the work of an angry farmer with extra time on his hands and a mortar in his backyard. As to serious attacks on British forces, in the last eight weeks, there have been exactly zero. So, any stories that make it sound like Basra is in chaos are shamefully false.

But it wasn’t until I spent that week back in the States that I realized how bad things have gotten. I believe we are witnessing a conspiracy of coincidences conflating to exert an incomprehensibly destructive force on the free press system that we largely take for granted. The fact that the week in question also happened to be when General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were delivering their reports to Congress makes me wonder if things are actually worse than I’ve assessed, and I returned to Iraq sadly convinced that General Petraeus now has to deal from a deck clearly stacked against him in both America and Iraq.

Yon seems justifiably concerned about the disconnect between the reality of what’s going on in Iraq and the constant drumbeat of the Democrats about how “Iraq is a total failure.”

Billy Hollis [2] over at Q&O notes Yon’s posting and muses:

He wonders, as do I, how something can be such a total failure when the progress in the last six months or so has been so dramatic. And he apparently thinks it’s possible that the “Iraq=failure” narrative is sufficiently established that no amount of evidence will quash it.

He may be right. Certainly there is a segment of the left that will never, ever let go of an idea that fits their ideological predispositions. (Otherwise, there would be no Communists on the left.)

It was at this point in my cross referencing, that something of a revelation occurred. The light went on. Yon says in his post:

I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus’ testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (I’m told) unusually concentrated, it’s a wonder my eardrums didn’t burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.

The reference to O.J. Simpson, is so offhanded, I doubt that the effect was what he intended. I think however, he could have not possibly come up with a better example of certain among us not seeing the truth of the matter. Come hell or high water or the governor, that jury was going to find him innocent, in what came to be termed “jury nullification”. It didn’t matter what the truth was, they had their preconceived notions going in, and damn it all, they were going to stick to them, regardless of what facts were brought forward. So strong was their support of a fellow member of their race, they could not bring themselves to convict the man.

Most certainly, this is the description of the events on this side of the drink as regards Iraq. No matter what evidence comes up that our presence there is justified, well received by the majority, and is having a calming effect on the region, Regardless of any of that, or for that matter anything else, those wanting us to capitulate to al-Qaida are never going to be convinced that any other path is possible, much less desirable. The degree of denial in effect here can only be described as O.J. Simpson jury- like.

Hollis thinks this denial will disappear in the face of the fact. It’s one reason I’ve always liked Billy; the boy is eternally optimistic. As an interesting side discussion, Billy worries about the effects of the transition :

This could last indefinitely. But let’s suppose, just for argument, that it does not. And let’s assume that the dramatic drop in violence continues and, at least at the local level, Iraq’s governing entities continue to make progress. (I don’t think any of these are far-fetched assumptions.)

The longer the cone of silence stays in place before the mainstream media confronts such changes, the more the change will be evident. And the closer we will be to an election.

I hate to burst your bubble, Billy… but I doubt it. In all likelihood that transition toward the real facts will never occur. I give you Vietnam an example. The Communists military leaders have since told us that we were three to six weeks away from winning the thing. A point that the left has never admitted, even 30 years later.

Even if by some miracle, the left finally came around and admitted that they were wrong, and the press started actually reporting this stuff, (Again, I doubt it) they’d wind up waiting until after the election… Remember; that one major reason for their taking this position of denial in the first place, is the obtaining of political power . Why would they admit that they were wrong, until such time as that power was achieved?

BBCT: Memeorandum  [3]