What possible excuse can miserable gasbag Ted Kennedy have in giving such an extraordinarily irresponsible speech, billed as a major policy address, as this?
Some excerpts:
It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin.A further excellent article on the complicity of the media in spreading defeatism is here:
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We thought in those early days in Vietnam that we were winning [we were -- RDS]. We thought the skill and courage of our troops was enough. We thought that victory on the battlefield would lead to victory in war, and peace and democracy for the people of Vietnam [it could have, if not for defeatist propaganda spread by a willing media and commie stooges -- RDS].
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We lost our national purpose in Vietnam. We abandoned the truth. We failed our ideals. The words of our leaders could no longer be trusted.
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We have reached the point that a prolonged American military presence in Iraq is no longer productive for either Iraq or the United States. The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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The elections in Iraq this weekend provide an opportunity for a fresh and honest approach. We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces [so the terrorists know just how long they have to wait us out -- RDS].
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Unless the Sunni and all the communities in Iraq believe they have a stake in the outcome and a genuine role in drafting the new Iraqi constitution, the election could lead to greater alienation, greater escalation, greater death - for us and for the Iraqis [ooo, you'd like that, wouldn't you; way to support the aims of the terrorists to sow doubt about the election -- RDS].
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President Bush's Iraq policy is not, as he said during last fall's campaign, a "catastrophic success." It is a catastrophic failure [you wish -- RDS].
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The insurgency is largely home-grown [except they mostly come in from Syria -- RDS]. By our own government's count, the ranks of the guerillas are large and growing larger.
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The first point in a new plan would be for the United Nations, not the United States, to provide assistance and advice on establishing a system of government and drafting a Constitution. [Seen how the UN is reacting to news Sudan is bombing villages in Darfur again, even though they promised not too? Kofi expressed being "deeply disturbed", and that was it, you useless fool. -- RDS]
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Casualties are increasing. America is tied down. Our military is stretched to the breaking point. Our capacity to respond to crises and threats elsewhere in the world has been compromised. [In other words, you are screaming to surrender and giving aid and succor to our mortal enemies by boosting their morale and their hopes they can win. Thanks a lot, traitor. -- RDS]
If a battle ends with Americans killing 100 guerrillas and terrorists, while sustaining 10 fatalities, that is an American victory. But not in the mainstream media. The headline is more likely to read: "Ten more Americans killed in Iraq today."This is on top of strong evidence (just the latest of a plethora of such) that Reuters, AP, and AFP are using Arab "stringers" who are actually actively colluding with the terrorists to photograph staged events and spin them against our efforts, all the while passing it off as objective "journalism".
This kind of journalism can turn victory into defeat in print or on TV. Kept up long enough, it can even end up in real defeat, when support for the war collapses at home and abroad.
One of the biggest American victories during the World War II was called "the great Marianas turkey shoot" because American fighter pilots shot down more than 340 Japanese planes over the Marianas Islands while losing only 30 American planes. But what if current reporting practices had been used back then?
The story, as printed and broadcast, could have been: "Today 18 American pilots were killed and five more severely wounded, as the Japanese blasted more than two-dozen American planes out of the sky." A steady diet of such one-sided reporting and our whole war effort against Japan might have collapsed.
Whether the one-sided reporting of the Vietnam War was a factor in the American defeat once was a matter of controversy. But, in recent years, high officials of Vietnam's communist government have themselves admitted they lost the war on the battlefields but won it in the U.S. media and on the streets of America, where political pressures from the antiwar movement threw away the victory for which thousands of American lives had been sacrificed.
Too many in the media today regard the reporting of the Vietnam War as one of their greatest triumphs. It certainly showed the power of the media — but also its irresponsibility. Some in the media today seem determined to recapture those glory days by how they report on events in the Iraq war.
The Fourth Estate sometimes seems more like a Fifth Column.
This is intolerable.
Don't fall for it!
