The Undoing of America

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets."

    - Napoleon Bonaparte (1768-1821), French emperor

After writing yesterday's post about the media's coverage of Iraq, I ran across another column related to what I was attempting to convey. Initially, I thought of adding it as an update to what I'd already said, but it's substantive enough to merit an entry of its own.

It was written by Mort Kondracke, Executive Editor of Roll Call and was posted on the RealClearPolitics website. Kondracke believes that Congress and the media are on a path to talking Americans into a defeat in Iraq:

"The media--unperturbed by mistakenly likening both the Afghan war and last year's invasion of Iraq to Vietnam--focuses overwhelmingly on the bad news coming out of Iraq. There is plenty of bad news--but there is also much good, and it is being almost completely ignored."

He contrasts what is now happening in the Middle East to what happened during the Vietnam conflict in the 1960's:

In 1968--by no accident, a U.S. presidential election year--the Viet Cong launched a massive countrywide offensive in South Vietnam, invading the U.S. Embassy complex in the process. By every military measure, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces devastated the Communist forces...Yet the U.S. media reported the episode as a U.S. defeat, helping convince the American establishment that the war was unwinnable. In this respect, there is a real danger that Iraq could become like Vietnam--a self-inflicted defeat."

Kondracke highlights some of the negative aspects of allowing this to happen:

"...if Congress and the media raise doubts that Bush can 'finish the job,' then Iraqis--who already have good reason to doubt American resolve, given our performance during and after the 1991 Gulf War--will lose all faith that they can have a stable country...The consequences of failure will be disastrous--not just for Bush, but for Iraqis, for America, for the Middle East and for civilization itself."

Yes, the media and Congress could turn this into another Vietnam.  Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, as well as most of the middle eastern countries like Syria and Iran, already believe that the U.S. is a paper tiger, that we have no resolve for remaining in an extended conflict that becomes messy and politically complicated. The North Vietnamese knew that and used it to their advantage in the 60's, just as the terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Iran know it today and are using it to their advantage as we speak. They realize they can't win militarily, but believe they can prevail politically if they can hang on until we become impatient. If you watch the evening news or read the morning paper, you'd believe we're at that point already.

If Americans allow the naysayers in the media and those in Congress to convince us with their whining and negative reporting that we should pull out of Iraq before our mission is accomplished, it will be catastrophic. The Iraqis who supported us will have hell to pay, our country will lose all credibility with our allies, and we'll become completely vulnerable to those who wish us harm. As in the years prior to 9/11 when we were being hit time after time by our enemies and retaliating only minimally, every terrorist in the world will know they can be as vicious and destructive as they please with us and we will do nothing but stick our heads in the sand while they shove another nuke up our posterior.

That, my friends, will be the sorriest state of affairs we could ever find ourselves in, and our mostly anti-Bush media can stick out their chests and proclaim to the world that they have succeeded once again in achieving their objectives--provided the cities from which they spew their "fair and balanced" broadcasts still exist.