"I Will Always Listen to the Commanders on the Ground"

O RLY?

Via Instapundit, who also notes that the media's declaration of a Sadr victory was not only premature, but preretarded.

And on Sadr: one report says he's Shiite clerics have told him not to disband his Army of Assholes,, but he has called off his plan for a Million Maniac March through Baghdad, apparently due to lack of juice enough to pull it off.

Sadr called it off, he explained in a statement, because he was afraid his supporters would be attacked. Really? The Western media take great pains to remind us how many supporters he has in Baghdad’s Sadr City, with over 2 million residents. Surely a man with that kind of popularity would have no trouble finding enough people for a demonstration with hundreds of thousands of people at the least — and with that kind of strength, who would attack them?

It looks a lot more like Sadr couldn’t gin up enough people to meet the lofty expectations he set for the demonstration.

Dope. Doesn't he know if that if he just gets a couple dozen idiots to wave signs it will be the lead story on MSNBC for the next three weeks? Am I going to have to go over there and run this terrorist mafia myself?

Question: If, as I surmise, the media would have given great play to a sizable march by Sadr's minions, shouldn't the rule of symmetry in newsworthiness suggest that his failure to pull off such a demonstration is equally newsworthy?

Of course we know the answer is "no."

Jules Crittenden has a great big old round-up on all this. He also reflects on the five year anniversary that just passed, the day American troops rolled into Baghdad. (Not the day the Marines pulled down the statue of Saddam, by the way, which was April 9.)

He also links this piece by Max Boot on political progress in Iraq.

According to the U.S. Institute for Peace: "It may be that Feb. 13, 2008, will be remembered as the day when Iraq's political climate began to catch up with its improved security situation -- or, more to the point, when Iraqi leaders discovered the key to political compromise and reconciliation."

Overall, according to Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, the government of Iraq "has now met 12 out of the original 18 benchmarks set for it, including four out of the six key legislative benchmarks. It has made substantial progress on five more, and only one remains truly stalled." The one benchmark that remains stalled is the hydrocarbon law, but its purpose (the equitable sharing of oil revenues) is being accomplished de facto through the budget.

Liberals have long charged that Bush and Republicans pushed a war on the country only to advance their own political fortunes. This charge is so jackass as to be beneath response, however, it does seem to me now that liberals are deliberately contriving to lose a war that could be won -- and thus severely damage US national security interests -- simply to "win" a five year old political argument.

posted by Ace at 08:56 AM

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