Outside the Beltway

BETTER THAN ADVERTISED

James Joyner · Monday, July 14, 2003 · 2 comments

Ralph Peters, a critic of Rumsfeld’s war plan, believes it has been far more successful than most of the media would have us believe.

During the war, unseasoned journalists reported every minor exchange of fire as if it were the Little Big Horn, Part Two. Now, the obsession of reporters with every sprained ankle in our occupation force ignores the tremendous good we have done, the strategic advantages we have gained – and the potential, at last, for a measure of meaningful progress in the world’s most politically, culturally and morally backward region.

If we took the criteria for instant failure that the media and our most self-interested politicians apply to Iraq and applied them here at home, the U.S. government would be obliged to evacuate California and abandon Mississippi, since two shooting incidents in those states last week killed more Americans than did the low-level violence in Iraq.

Clearly, our 150-year-old annexation of California has been a failure – likewise, the reintegration of Mississippi in the years since our Civil War. Let’s just pack up and go home.

While this is a little too glib given the number of soldiers that have been killed since “the end of the military phase,” Peters has a good point.

Seriously, stand back from the silliness of the Deanie-weenies and consider the remarkable regional developments since Uncle Sam flipped off the Euro-trash and did what needed doing in Iraq:

He lists and explains nine. And “Deanie Weenies!” Hah! I like it.

Dr. Ralph’s independent research indicates that there are two kinds of human beings who never can be reformed: child molesters and dictators who have acquired a taste for WMD use. Even if he’s still alive, Saddam can’t even collect his pension. Do the critics of our every move in post-Saddam Iraq really want him back?

Well, maybe the chief Deanie Weenie.

Need I say it? Go read the rest.