In war, heroes often come out of nowhere. From the unlikeliest of places someone performs an act of heroism that stirs the passions of an entire country.
In the Iraq War, Senator Harry Reid is that hero. From now on, Reid should only be referred to as the man who won the Iraq War.
Remember when Harry Reid bravely stood up and said “the war is lost.” In case, you’ve forgotten, please watch this heroic moment and bask in the patriotism because Harry Reid, “The man who won the Iraq War,” is saying that it was all a clever ploy to get George W. Bush to change his strategy and kick the Iraqi government in the behind.
And voila! Just a few years later we win. Coincidence? I think not.
Today, “the man who won the Iraq War,” explained his ploy in detail:
Sen. Reid and his colleagues were successful in forcing President Bush to finally abandon his failed approach and refocus on political reconciliation. This is what ultimately paved the way for the Iraqi government to take greater responsibility for Iraq’s future.
Weasel Zippers has the entire explanation and you should read it and memorize it and print it out and frame it and put it on your wall and look at it every morning before you start your day.
So just in case you’re not understanding the brilliance I’ll lay it out for you. Just as all the polls indicated the American public was losing confidence in the Iraq War and just as the media was despairing that the war was lost, Harry Reid, the Man who won the Iraq War, cleverly seemed to agree with them. But secretly he was just pretending to agree with the polls and the media in order to force President Bush to fight harder in the war that Reid and his cohorts called a distraction from the real war in Afghanistan. Brilliant!
When I think of all the media adulation he received for saying the war is lost all the while he was secretly fighting the war in his own brilliant way I just get all choked up.
Reid, the man who won the Iraq war, also had to risk demoralizing the troops in Iraq with his announcement that the war was lost. But clever clever Reid, the Man who won the Iraq War, knew that the troops in battle didn’t respect any utterance that escaped his pie hole anymore than they would the noises emanating from his other end.
So because I respect Harry Reid’s gambit so much as well as his strategy instead of calling him Harry Reid, the man who won the Iraq War, let’s call him something different during this election season. Just like Reid, we’ll say the exact opposite of what we really think. Let’s just call him Harry Reid, “the man who said the war was lost.” And we’ll tell everyone we were really pulling for him. Yeah, we’ll tell him the day after the election.
September 3, 2010 at 5:21 pm
A political opinion on what is happening in Iraq is meaningless, since politicians will spin whatever situation to make their party look good and deflect blame to the other.
The facts are to date there are 4,420 dead US soldiers (RIP) 31,926 wounded US soldiers, around 600,000 Iraqi civilians killed (this does NOT count the 55,000+/- insurgents).
The sobering fact is that Iraqi insurgents were estimated at a number of 70,000 in 2007 (which have roughly growin at a factor of 60% since the 20,000 figure in 2004). After the election, we have no more figures or they have been canned. So, unless all have magically disappeared or laid down their arms we still have a major problem and staging ground for future actions against the West. And more sobering still; none of this happened when Sadam was in power, as he effectively rid his country of Mohammedan insurgents as they posed a direct challenge to his tyranical regime.
So, did we win or lose? My cousin who is currently serving in Iraq will be coming home after a 2 1/2 year deployment at the end of this month. Regardless of whether the war was lost or won, I'm glad she is coming home.
September 3, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Early Riser, where did you get the 600,000 civilians killed. I am not disputing just wondering. I have never seen this.
September 3, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Anon – A Fox News report. It is noteworthy that there is no absolute figure, and most likely there will never be one (as is the case with any war). The death toll figures are all over the board depending on the source, but I tend to believe this is accurate based on other reports/conversations I have heard with Catholic & Chaldean Christian groups operating there.
September 4, 2010 at 2:25 am
Keep in mind that the point of this piece is not to make a judgment on the Iraq War, but on Harry Reid's hypocrisy.
September 4, 2010 at 6:37 am
Pat – I got that point, and I'm saying it's moot in the grand scheme. Reid said the war is lost. Bush said "mission accomplished" followed by 7 more years of war. What is more important; what some blustery politico says after the fact, or the reality that we need to own up to sooner than later?
September 4, 2010 at 8:12 am
Early Riser, your very source says this estimate is grossly (politically) exaggerated: we are not out of context talking about the numbers, since Reid himself likely based his allegations on such "proofs".
More trustworthy sources speak about much smaller figures: e.g. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
September 4, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Paolo – sounds like you need a remedial reading class. The "source" didn't say make any conclusions on the subject, but simply reported the issue. Someone quoted in the source gave the figures, and someone else disputed the figures. And as I said in my post above, there is no one universaly accepted number. I believe this figure is accuarate based on my own interactions with Catholic and Chaldean sources. So, go to "iraqbodycount" if you want (pretty ghoulish sounding).
September 5, 2010 at 3:15 pm
The 600,000 number orginally was printed in the British medical journal Lancet in 2006. No one ever counted the dead bodies. What was done was something called statistical analysis. A "sample" was established using polling data, interviews, and actual body counts in places like Bagdad, Mosul, Tirkrit, and Basra. These samples were then extrapolated to the population at large (of 24 million). The number was accepted without peer review from statistical auditors. Within a month of release, the 600,000 became the official "body count". But, of course it wasn't a count but a statistical estimate. And to this day, Lancet will not release thier alogrithims, data samples, or statistical processes.
September 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm
From a purely statistical point of view the 600,000 KIA civilians in Iraq (the estimate) represents about 2.5 percent of the population. That in and of itself is a an absurdity. If the US suffered such civilian casulties, that number equates to almost 7 million civilians. Not even during the carpet bombings of Germany circa 1943-1945 resulted in anything close civilians deaths of 2.5%.
September 5, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Jerome – there was nothing "official" about that body count, as I said. From the begining, it had its detractors as per the article I posted. We will never have an "official" body count on the civilian side.
As I said before, you can pick any number you like as they are all over the board. And as a point of fact, these are NOT all civilian deaths from US/Allied military action. The vast majority of civilian deaths are from INSURGENT activity. Let's make that very clear. High civilian death/casualty numbers certainly don't/wouldn't mean an abusive or excessive force on the part of the US military. I'm hoping no one hear read into that.
What IMHO it DOES mean is that since the war began, there was a concerted effort on the side of the insurgency to target civilians and opponents to the Mohammedan extremist agenda. And unfortunately the US/allied military presence was not equipped, staffed or capable off foreseeing and/or dealing with this. Everyone was caught unaware.
September 6, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Oh he certainly couldn't be lying after the fact to cover his ass, could he?
No. Of course not. *THIS* politician is totally trustworthy.