Yesterday, in another one of my fine email exchanges with a leftist, I came out bruised and battered. Not because I was scoffingly described as insane. (The insane can't be offended by being called insane, after all.) I came out bruised because I was half-hearted, half-interested. In short, I commented on a topic about which I was poorly informed. But now, after a day of putting myself on the right track, I am not so ignorant.
The topic at hand was Vice President Dick Cheney's May 30 remarks given during a Larry King interview. In that interview, Cheney said that he believed the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes." [full quote in a moment]
Now, as most of you know, and as sharper minds have pointed out, the Democratic Party has been struggling to get political traction for a long time (even before the November elections). It has attempted to turn President Bush's military records, the Abu Ghraib scandal, Social Security reform, in short, ANYTHING, into an advantageous tool to use against the Bush administration and the Republican Party. OK. That's fair and that's fair politics. But what the Democrats have resorted to, over the last few months, congealing together in so much vitriol, is an all-out attempt to convince you that Vietnam and Iraq are militarily and politically synonymous. What we are witnessing is the "Vietnamization" of Iraq for political gain.
With that in mind, it is unsurprising that the leftists would swirl in cacophonous derision around Cheney's remarks. He, to many of our fellow citizens, is sounding like Nixon or McNamara: He's lying through his teeth about America's military and strategic advantage. He is an idiot, a buffoon, as are his neo-con minions bolstering his assessment.
But the fact is (and this is a fact), Cheney's remark was really quite harmless. Read it yourself [For the entire transcript, click here]:
"I think we may well have some kind of presence there [in Iraq] over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency. We've had reporting in recent days, Larry, about Zarqawi, who's sort of the lead terrorist, outside terrorist, al Qaeda, head of al Qaeda for Iraq, may well have been seriously injured. We don't know. We can't confirm that. We've had reporting to that effect.
So I think we're making major progress. And, unfortunately, as I say, it does involve sending young Americans in harm's way. But America will be safer in the long run when Iraq and Afghanistan as well are no longer safe havens for terrorists or places where people can gather and plan and organize attacks against the United States."
(Ooh, bad Cheney, bad.)
Cheney's remarks contain three important features. First, his belief that the insurgency is in its "last throes" is based, clearly, on the assumption insurgency-leader Zargawi is injured, perhaps seriously. That this assumption was later proven wrong (most likely), explains in part why Cheney's later defense seemed rather comical (see below), even unfortunate.
Second, Cheney clearly qualified his remarks with a "if you will." This is short for, "If you will permit me to use this expression, inaccurate as it is, since I am thinking quickly on my feet and can't think of a better phrase." It is another way of saying, "So to speak." In other words, Cheney did not mean to have his statements taken literally. He said, "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." IF YOU WILL.
(The literalist left can't handle such nuance. They hang on Cheney's every other word, and then they hang him with a rope of broken sentences.)
Third, Cheney said that the insurgency was, IF YOU WILL, in its last throes in a military sense. He didn't say it was not a socio-political threat in Iraq. And his reasoning is clear: the vast majority of those dead and injured in Iraq over the last few months are Iraqi civilians. And these are killed not in military skirmishes, but insurgency bombings. But the number of bombs and mortars tossed into Army barracks have diminished, have they not? It's Iraqi civilians who have become targets. That is where the insurgency is focused, and not on the US military. (And if these acts were happening in the United States, the Democrats would be declaring these incidents criminal and not military acts, no doubt.)
But what is most important is this: The media want you to think that the most important thing Vice President Cheney told Larry King was that the Iraq War was a cake-walk. But the fuss over the "last throes" comment is a mere red herring dragged across the trail to distract you from finding the truth. And the truth is found in this exchange between King and Cheney:
"KING: Amnesty International condemns the United States. How do you react?
D. CHENEY: I don't take them seriously.
KING: Not at all?
D. CHENEY: No. I -- frankly, I was offended by it. I think the fact of the matter is, the United States has done more to advance the cause of freedom, has liberated more people from tyranny over the course of the 20th century and up to the present day than any other nation in the history of the world. Think about what we did in World War I, World War II, throughout the Cold War. Just in this administration, we've liberated 50 million people from the Taliban in Afghanistan and from Saddam Hussein in Iraq, two terribly oppressive regimes that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their own people. For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."
Bingo! THIS is what pissed off the left, and it is remarks like these that the left does not want you to consider. In short, by focusing on Cheney's remarks about "last throes", by OVERSIMPLIFYING his statements (remember my post, Ockham's Razor Leaves Us Bleeding), the left intends to "bury the lead", to conceal from you the good news which is in Iraq and Afghanistan. They want you to be blind and deaf. They want you to be suspicious of Bush and Cheney; they want you to believe they are reckless and incompetent.
But you are not blind and deaf. Nor are you mute.
Lastly, in closing, I would point you to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. After my email exchange mentioned above, I ventured to CrooksandLiars.com, a leftist (or so it appears) video-blog, replete with video and audio clips showing the buffoonery of conservatives. On that site I found this clip (if the clip does not come up on this link, scroll down the Crooks and Liars page until you find The Daily Show and the Last Throes). It is a swaggering, glib and righteous piece (but it IS funny) about Cheney's "last throes" remark and the attempts to explain it by his colleagues. My conviction is that Cheney and Rumsfeld should have made no attempt to explain themselves at all, as they fell, I believe, right into the trap set by the leftist literalists poised to mock them for their allegedly lubricious rhetoric. There is no winning this battle of words, for words are elastic; malleable; tricky. Cheney said, "..if you will." But no one gives a crap about those kinds of words.
But the Jon Stewart piece is telling, because it was nearly parroted in full by a man I spoke with about this subject. The man brought up Clinton-speak, about the meaning of IS; about the "mismanagement" of Iraq. He derided Cheney and Rumsfeld for their spinning and tongue-twisting. But he never mentioned The Daily Show. It is clear he had seen it, and that it had influenced him completely.
Did you know that something like 80% of Americans between 18-24 get most of their news from this Comedy Channel hit? So please, check out the clip. Watch it. And shake your head. For this show is the source of information for a lot of people you know. That's a scary thing, indeed, though undoubtedly funny, in a tragic sort of way.
Contratimes
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes
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