Several years ago, when the New York Times was actively
propagandizing against the Iraq War, it refused to say that al Qaeda was active
in Iraq. When it was forced to recognize the presence of al Qaeda in that part
of the world it renamed the organization: al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Wanting above all else to undermine and war effort, the
Times reasoned that acknowledging the presence of al Qaeda in Iraqt might have
helped the Bush administration build support for the war.
Every time an IED went off, every time a suicide bomber decimated a café or a market, the story was page 1 in the Times and the top of the evening news. Every time any American did anything wrong, the story was trumpeted over and over again int he press.
Led by the New York Times the mainstream media never missed an opportunity to undermine the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq. journalism. Naturally, no one
noticed or cared.
Ultimately, the Times got its way. President Obama has ended
the Iraq War and has brought the troops home. So completely did he bungle the
status of forces negotiations with the Iraqi Prime Minister that we do not even
have a training contingent active in that country.
It wasn’t just the media, of course. The American people
have tired of Muslim-on-Muslim violence. They would rather ignore it and hope
that it all goes away. If Muslims want that badly to kill each
other, why should we try to get between them. It's none of our business.
In many ways, it isn’t. In some ways, it is.
The result: al Qaeda in Iraq is back, with a vengeance.
As Bret Stephens points out today, al Qaeda is alive
and well in Iraq.
Today, we have more bombings and more deaths, and the media
has been struck dumb. Undoubtedly, it does not want to draw undue
attention to another Obama administration foreign policy failure.
Stephens wrote this morning:
The
tree falls in the forest, the country collapses in the desert, and the question
remains the same: Does either of them make a sound if nobody can be bothered to
listen? Iraq, where 4,488 Americans recently and bravely gave their lives, and
over which Washington obsessed for two decades, has effectively ceased to exist
for the purposes of U.S. politics. The show has been canceled; there will be no
reruns. Barack
Obama's Iraq achievement is that you are now free to think of suicide
bombings in Baghdad as you might a mud slide in Pakistan or a cholera outbreak
in Haiti: As a bad, but remote, fact.
To date this year’s body count is around 7,000. Stephens
continued:
Altogether
some 7,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far this year, approaching
levels last seen in 2008. Most of the killing has been done by al Qaeda in Iraq
(AQI), a group that in 2009 had been so thoroughly beaten by the combination of
the U.S. surge and the Sunni Awakening that it barely existed. Now it's back,
killing more people than any other al Qaeda franchise, attempting to tip Iraq
toward civil war and joining ranks with its jihadist allies in Syria.
The conventional wisdom has it that al Qaeda in Mesopotamia
was merely a reaction to the presence of those evil Americans. Once America
left the country, and presumably the region, al Qaeda would have nothing to
fight about.
The opinion was not limited to the left-thinking media. Stephens
remarked that it even made its way into the free market Cato Institute:
The
point doesn't square with the conventional wisdom that developed about Iraq
midway through the last decade. Back then, the idea was that it was America's presence in the country that
strengthened AQI, and that America's departure was therefore bound to weaken
it. "Without that rallying cry [of opposing U.S. occupation], what would
al Qaeda have left?" the Cato Institute's Christopher Preble and Justin
Logan asked in late 2005. The answer, as this year's bloody mounting toll
testifies, is plenty.
The blame-America-first crowd believes that Islamic
terrorism is a rational response to American imperialism and colonialism. Thus it
embraces the notion that if only America stops doing bad things to
Muslims the terrorists will fold up and go home.
If that does not work, left thinking people have another
solution. They believe that the problem in the Middle East is Israel. They
contend that Israel is an occupying, imperialist power and that if only it
would make more concessions to the Palestinians, the two nations could live in
peace and harmony.
Serious thinkers want to boycott Israel, sanction Israel and
divest from Israel. Perhaps they believe that by hurting Israel, by diminishing
it, they will help restore Palestinian honor. Or else, they might believe that
the best solution to Islamic terrorism is to sacrifice a scapegoat, the nation
of Israel. If we give them Israel, perhaps the terrorists will leave us alone.
It might also happen that such a sacrifice would whet their
appetite, but don’t tell that to those who have declared economic war against
the freest and most prosperous state in the Middle East.
Stephens knows well that terrorists
have never been deterred or defeated by self-surrender. They have been invigorated
and empowered. He points out that they ultimately want power. They want their culture to triumph. They believe that Islam will conquer the world because Allah wills it.
It might take some time. They are willing to wait. In the
meantime, if al Qaeda cannot take over our world, it will do its best to make life more difficult, more uncomfortable, more unsafe, more threatened. It has no intention of being ignored.
3 comments:
IMHO: 1. Islam is a distinct & v different Civ. It is undergoing a serious internal Crisis.
Comparable in intensity & savagery to the West's Wars of Religion (1517-1648; The French Rev (1789-1815); and the 20th C's 30 Years War (1914-1945).
2. The West cannot and should not intervene. Unless our Interests & Safety are severely threatened. We cannot solve or mitigate Islam's current Crisis. Only Islam can do (or NOT do) that.
3. I respect, but definitely don't relish, Islam's Civ. It's been the West's enemy since it began. As Sun Tzu said, "Respect Your Enemy".
4. I challenge the West's high-minded Interventionists to at least send themselves or their children into Islam's current cauldron. They Never Do.
V/r, Rich Lara
Thank you for the perspective, Rich. Ad you say, and as Stephens was saying, the problem is the threat, present and future, to our interests and safety.
The nitwits at NYT! (Just had to say that.)
Shias hate the Sunnis and v.v. Some of both hate everyone else. They are beyond our ability to help.
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