U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on the end of the war in Iraq:
He said that the war was worth the price in blood and money, as it set Iraq on a path to democracy. …
They’re going face challenges in the future,” Panetta said Wednesday during a visit with troops in Afghanistan. “They’ll face challenges from terrorism, they’ll face challenges from those that would want to divide their country. They’ll face challenges from just the test of democracy, a new democracy and trying to make it work. But the fact is, we have given them the opportunity to be able to succeed.”
Those quotes are from a Fox News story posted earlier today. If, however, you are a NPR consumer, you would never know the Defense Secretary said any such thing:
Panetta told those gathered that “challenges remain, but the U.S. will be there to stand by the Iraqi people as they navigate those challenges to build a stronger and more prosperous nation,” The New York Times reports.
He also said, the BBC writes, that the effort had been worth the cost because the U.S. leaves with an Iraq that is now a partner.
“You will leave with great pride — lasting pride,” Panetta told troops at the ceremony, according to the AP. “Secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to cast tyranny aside and to offer hope for prosperity and peace to this country’s future generations.”
That’s about as gracious as NPR is willing to get. Nowhere does NPR mention the Secretary’s words about democracy or the real miracle of the war in Iraq, and that’s that we now have the first true democracy in the history of the Arab world. And though it may be complicated and take a few steps back at times, as a direct result, the flower of self-determination is opening in that region.
The left hates being wrong about wars and America. We saw this during Vietnam, where even after a negotiated peace and the withdrawal of all American troops, the left still managed to lose that war by cutting off the military aid promised to our South Vietnamese allies. What followed was the fall of Saigon, re-education camps, and a holocaust in Cambodia and Laos that cost the lives of millions of innocents. That didn’t have to happen. But the left made sure it did so that they could forever say they were right and America was wrong.
What are the lives of a few million brown people compared to those kind of bragging rights?
As we saw during the worst of the Iraq War, the left and their media allies (like NPR) were just as craven in their desire to see a population enslaved and exterminated just so that they could once again enjoy the satisfaction of seeing America lose another war. Calls to abandon the Iraqi people to unspeakable violence at the hands of death squads and terrorists reigned down on President Bush during the darkest of days. One of the loudest making that call was the man now attempting to take credit for the war’s successful outcome–President Obama.
With the outcome of Iraq now so successful that Best Western is preparing to build two hotels there, the losers of this war are, of course, terrorists, tyrants, and Iran. But left-wing Democrats, Hollywood, and the leftist media are also losers, for they are all guilty of doing everything in their power to ensure an American defeat.
Never forget that.
NPR choosing not to use the word “democracy” is nothing more than a form of pouting.
After all, the liberation of 25 million innocent people is nowhere near as important as the left being correct about stupid Bush and evil America.
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