Are We Winning?

If you were to ask folks if we were winning the war in Iraq and their only source was Mainstream Media (MSM), many would probably answer no.

Thomas Sowell has an editorial that suggests that war is hard, people die, and Iraq is nowhere near as bad as other wars in the past.

"The media seem to have come up with a formula that would make any war in
history unwinnable and unbearable: They simply emphasize the enemy's
victories
and our losses."

How many times do we mostly hear about how many our enemy has killed and not heard about how many the US troops have killed?

"Has anyone ever believed that any war could be fought without deaths on both
sides? Every death is a tragedy to the individual killed and to his loved ones.
But is there anything about American casualty rates in Iraq that makes them more
severe than casualty rates in any other war we have fought?"

Sowell, and I would concur, suggests that this war has far less casualties than pretty much any other war in our history. But what would have happened if the other wars were reported the way the Iraq war is?

"We have lost more men than that in our most overwhelming and one-sided
victories in previous wars. During an aerial battle over the Mariannas islands
in World War II, Americans shot down hundreds of Japanese planes while losing
about 30 of their own."

"If the media of that era had been reporting the way the media report today,
all we would have heard about would have been that more than two dozen Americans
were killed that day. "

That definately paints a different picture. What our troops need to see is that there country and its people are standing behind them and that we won't have another Vietnam return where our troops were jeered, mocked, and spit on simply because they were fighting to defend freedom of an oppressed nation.

"There has never been the slightest doubt that we would begin pulling troops
out of Iraq when it was feasible. Only time and circumstances can tell when that
will be. And only irresponsible politicians and the media think otherwise."

War is never easy and I am thankful that there are men and women willing to put their lives on the line to help a country that was under the rule of a murderous dictator who had women for his men to gang rape, and men to feed feet first into a shredder. Let's see: someone like that or "too many" American troops...Which would you choose? MSM (and "irresponsible politicians) seem to suggest that the Iraqi people were better off before.

I think we are doing better in this war than it seems. When it is time, we will leave. Lord knows the troops would probably rather be at home with their families, rather than anywhere. Duh. America has been known to help countries rebuild after a war in their country. What other countries do that? None that I can think of. You can be sure that if we just left and didn't help anymore, the fruitcakes wanting us to leave would say, "well, you could've at least helped pick up after yourselves."

Derrick