The neverending Blame Bush First is on display in our MSM once again.
First we have reports that the surge is failing, nevermind that it’s just now starting to get ramped up. Nevermind the fact that the MSM quotes from a report that show the opposite. Protein Wisdom:
It appears that many in the media (and in the blogosphere) are incapable of reading a report or a bar chart. The period covered in the latest report extended from February 10th through May 4th, though most of the MSM coverage implies the entire month of May is included. It also includes four days before any part of the current operation was launched—days which account for (by my count using iCasualties) at least 234 civilian deaths.
Even worse, it is fantastically misleading for the media to claim that there has been no drop in overall violence since the beginning of the “surge.” Again, iCasualties has the numbers:
Nov-06 1864
Dec-06 1752
Jan-07 1802
Feb-07 3014
Mar-07 2977
Apr-07 1821
May-07 1980
Jun-07 666 (so far)It is easy to see the pattern. Civilian deaths were rapidly shooting up in advance of the surge, and they have been headed generally down as US troops have been deployed over the past three months.
Defying the antiwar groupthink is USA Today, which talked to Gen. David Petraeus and gives a full accounting of the good and bad points of the latest report. But even USA Today misses some important points. For example, the paper mentions that:
The number of unidentified bodies found in Baghdad — an indicator of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims — dropped from a high of 1,782 in October to 411 in April, according to an Interior Ministry official who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
The paper misses the fact that nationwide, sectarian murders have dropped from over 1600 in December 2006 to a little over 600 in April—a drop of 62.5%.
So the media is using casualty figures from months before the surge even started to come to the conclusion that it’s failing. But lets use some common sense here. If there is an increase of military put into place to quell the terrorists would most people acknowledge that there would be an increase in violence? I mean your putting more troops in to engage the enemy….common sense I would believe. So I’m sure we will see an uptick of violence.
But we’re not there yet. There is no evidence to suggest that the thing is failing, but that doesn’t stop our MSM from coming to that conclusion using old numbers…..all to create a narrative.
And we all know what that narrative is.
Meanwhile the Washington Post staff writes this:
Takeover by Hamas Illustrates Failure of Bush’s Mideast Vision
With words of wisdom such as:
But analysts said yesterday that this strategy of dividing the moderates from the extremists — which was the core of Bush’s 2002 speech — proved ineffective and may have led to the dilemma facing the administration.
"The less we try to intervene and shape Palestinian politics, the better off we will be," said Robert Malley, an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the International Crisis Group. "Almost every decision the United States has made to interfere with Palestinian politics has boomeranged."
Which is quite laughable. EVERY President over the last 30 years has tried to do the same thing. Either by supporting a terrorist turned nobel peace prize winner or by giving huge amounts of aid or by twisting Israel’s arm to give up swaths of land.
But somehow, in someway, to the WaPo this concept is Bush’s vision…Bush’s fault.
President after President has come along with his own variation of the "vision", but when it came down to it we asked the Palastinians to do the following:
- Stop the violence
- Secure the border
- Recognize Israel
That’s it. Each and everytime over the last 30 years the Palestinian people have failed miserably as they coo and caw over little babies dressed up as suicide bombers. The last best chance they had they chose to put Hamas in charge. Who couldn’t see this coming?
Bush called on the Palestinian people to elect legitimate leaders, which ANY President would have done. They failed to do that.
No mention by the WaPo of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria. No mention of Jimmy Carter’s certifying the Palestinian election as open and honest. No mention of Carter and Clinton’s "accords" which created the PA in the first place by propping up a terrorist. No mention about the fact that both Carter and Clinton supported the two-state vision.
Nope….it’s back to Blame Bush First.
The blame rests in one place, and one place only and that’s with the Palestinian people.
UPDATE
Quote of the day: (h/t Dr. Sanity)
"Five years ago, Middle Eastern extremists were killing Israelis and Americans. Today they are killing each other. Why is it that some people persist in claiming that Israel’s and America’s Middle East policy is a failure?" — Alan Chamberlain
It’s called BDS.
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