A Toast to Old Media’s — and Old Medea’s — Defeat in Iraq

By Tom Blumer

As 2008 ends, two things should not be forgotten.

First, it was the year that the war in Iraq became successful to the point where many started calling it victory. Perhaps cynics can dismiss writers like Zombietime or opinionated editorialists like those at Investors Business Daily as Pollyannas. But they have nowhere to run or hide when an observer on the ground like Michael Yon, who had the independence to tell us we were in danger of losing not all that long ago, comes out and says, “The Iraq War is over. … The civil war has completely ended.”

Second, this victory — or, if you must, “the end of the war with Iraqi and U.S. forces firmly in control” — is a major setback for those who worked tirelessly for defeat. At every opportunity, the defeatists employed or extended tactics that had ultimately “succeeded” in bringing about the fall of South Vietnam and Cambodia’s killing fields — but which also led to Carter-era weakness, which finally caused enough disgusted Americans to elect Ronald Reagan.

But this time, they didn’t work. The U.S. has achieved a military victory in a long war against a persistent enemy. What’s more, unlike Vietnam — which was a military victory; Vietnam was lost when our military wasn’t there — this victory is being handed over to a successor administration of the other party.

The defeated defeatists include many senators, congressmen, and elitists in Washington. They include Harry Reid, who said, “I believe … that this war is lost,” in April 2007. They include many members of the incoming administration, up to the president-elect himself. Though the defeatists are in control, they know full well that if they allow Iraq to go the way of Vietnam, this time they will get the blame — and the blowback.

The defeated defeatists include the U.S. and worldwide news media, whose journalistic malpractice in this war could fill volumes of books, and hopefully someday will.

Deliciously, the most decisively defeated defeatists are radical leftists like Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin.

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Old media — and old Medea — threw everything they had at George Bush and the military in their quest for failure. They can arguably be blamed for encouraging Iraq’s terrorists to keep fighting when they might otherwise have quit, extending the war, and costing us hundreds of billions of dollars. But ultimately and fortunately, it is they who failed, and the hated George Bush and the Iraqi people who prevailed.
That result deserves a hearty New Year’s Eve toast. Bottoms up.

And a hearty " Hear, Hear."