What If We Won A War, And Nobody Knew?

The United States' military kicks all kinds of Al Queda butt, while the American media snores.

Every time one of those polls come out showing how left-leaning the majority of the mainstream American press is, those same mainstream media members can be counted on to:

a) Initially claim that the opposite is true: "Everyone knows the media leans to the right."
b) Then claim there is no bias either way: "It's our job to put aside any bias we may have when we cover the news, and 99% of the time, we're able to do it."
c) Finally admit it, but in a self-congratulatory way: "Well, journalists are bright, intelligent, caring people devoted to the truth. And most of those kind of people are liberals."

Well, in the past few days, the bright, intelligent, caring devoted-to-the-truth American media have given more coverage to The Bachellorette finale than to this little story, one that you might think Americans would be somewhat interested in:

London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once numbered mor than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city o Mosul.

The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead of surrendering.

We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America was their friend and AQI their enemy.

Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.

Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.....

Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of the 18 political benchmarks — a big change for the better from a year ago.

Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while visiting the United Arab Emirates, which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad — an impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq.

So Al Queda has been completely routed in Iraq, it's safer to walk the streets of former Al Queda strongholds like Mosul in than it is in Washington DC or East St. Louis, the Iraqi government have achieved 15 of 18 objectives required to establish a stable constitutional republic, General Patraeus is earning a military reputation that will put him up there with Washington, Grant, Patton, and Schwartzkoff.....

....and other than Fox News and a few conservative blogs, it has received less attention in the American press than Alex Rodriguez's interest in 40-something media whores. It seems the London Times is more interested in the U.S. military wiping out Al Queda than our own media outlets.

I can understand the media's mindset in their reluctance to cover it, though:

* "Good heavens, it might reflect well on George Bush! "

* "It goes against the narrative we've been chanting for 5 years now - "The war is lost, the war is lost, the war is lost..".

* "Worst of all, good news about the war might - gasp! - hurt the Obamessiah's election hopes in November!"


Well, we can't have that, now can we?