Just my usual snark, ignore it if you wish...

Living as I do in a narrow-minded community, I have to keep my mouth clamped shut most of the time. So I do my arguing and answering-back here on the blog. This is a piece from the SF Chronicle, Bush More Certain Than Ever on Iraq War...You've heard all this before, just my usual blah blah blah, but here goes:

Washington -- Two years after his much-maligned "mission accomplished'' speech aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, President Bush and his foreign policy team are trumpeting developments in the Middle East as a vindication of his Iraq policy.

The mission to topple Saddam WAS accomplished. The mission of the USS Abraham Lincoln WAS accomplished. A mission is not the same as a war or a campaign, you blockhead. This line of hokum belongs in the "plastic turkey" file.

The orderly selection of a new government in Iraq, the announced departure of Syrians from Lebanon, the election of a new Palestinian leader, and elections in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have breathed life into a foreign policy that many predicted would be the president's undoing.

You HOPED it would be his undoing, because you would gladly sacrifice America's interests to defeat Republicans. But instead it's a triumph and you are LOSERS! Exactly what you deserve.

Hardly a day goes by without Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or another senior administration official speaking publicly about the "march of freedom'' and the success of the Iraq invasion in securing peace.

It's true.

"There's a movement toward freedom around the world,'' Bush said in an interview with a Lebanese television station this past week. "I believe that a true free society, one that self-governs, one that listens to the people, will be a peaceful society -- not an angry society.''

It's true true true.

The notion that the world is more peaceful as a result of the U.S. invasion, let alone that the mission was a success, is far from universally accepted.

You hate it of course, but still it's true.

In the two years since Bush declared an end to "major combat operations, '' thousands of Iraqis and nearly 1,500 Americans have died; U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $200 billion to secure the peace; troops discovered no weapons of mass destruction, which was the principal reason stated by Bush to justify the attack; and a majority of Americans now say they disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq.

Democrat wars have killed Americans by the hundreds of thousands, and often accomplished NOTHING. Your Kennedy/LBJ war in Vietnam killed 50,000 Americans and then Democrats turned it all over to Communist butchers. Korea killed 40,000 Yanks, and left Communists still in charge of North Korea. Bush has liberated 50 million people from hidious tyrannies and started the transformation of an entire region at a very small cost. A triumph of America and its allies.

Yet the perception by critics that the mission is unproductive, or a debacle, shows no sign of resonating at the White House, where, quite to the contrary, it is evident that Bush feels emboldened by the past two years' experience.

As he should be.

Bush's words suggest he views himself as a transformational figure, able to use the example of American democracy, and the might of the U.S. military, to reshape the governance of an entire region. Rather than serve as a caretaker of a humble foreign policy, a role Bush advocated as a presidential candidate in 2000, he speaks of spreading freedom -- "Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world'' -- around the globe.

He IS a transformational figure (and is also transforming things here at home) while you lefties have NOTHING to offer. No warmth, no joy, no hopes, no loyalty to your country, no plans for ANY transformations. Nothing but sneers and obstruction and failed policies from the 20th Century. You are USELESS.

"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty,'' Bush recently told troops in Fort Hood, Texas. "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a crushing defeat to the forces of tyranny and terror, and a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.''

That's exactly what seems to be happening.

Bush always mentions that much hard work lies ahead. His handlers have been careful not to repeat the display of the "mission accomplished'' banner that hung from the aircraft carrier behind his May 1, 2003, speech -- and became a rallying cry to opponents who decried as delusional his optimism about Iraq.

And now we can see clearly who was deluded and who was not.

Yet there is a tone of vindication as administration officials defend a policy that prompted anger and scorn from people and many governments around the globe.

Why shouldn't people who have been vindicated feel vindicated? And the "anger and scorn" were carefully orchestrated by governments and the press who themselves have NOTHING positive to offer the world.

The decision to topple Hussein "was not a popular decision, but a decision that now, I think, people are beginning to see has unlocked the possibility of a different kind of Middle East, most especially as they saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30 and as people in Egypt and Lebanon and other places saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30,'' Rice told editorial writers earlier this month.

"You can continue to talk about neoconservatives or non-neoconservatives or realists or whatever you want to talk about, but you cannot deny that something is happening in the Middle East that wasn't happening even six months ago," she said. "And, I'm sorry, it didn't just happen by chance.''

Thank you Condi. Exactly right.

Some limits to the democratic developments are rarely mentioned by administration officials. The elections held in Saudi Arabia, for example, didn't permit women to participate. Analysts around the world will be carefully watching what Bush says to Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia when they meet Monday at the president's Texas ranch.

No matter what wonders happen you just raise the bar. If women start voting in Arabia you will sneer because there are no handicapped-access ramps.

Nevertheless, "the developments have led them to believe that their assumptions were confirmed,'' said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution who was tapped by Bush to be a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from January through April of 2004.

Our assumptions HAVE been confirmed.

"They learned that military force can be effectively applied to solve major national security challenges to the U.S. -- and that the world will come around,'' said Diamond, who returned from Iraq critical of the U.S. postwar efforts.

Yep. That's right. But what we really learned (or rather confirmed what we knew all along) is that using force ONCE has now made all our diplomatic efforts a hundredfold more effective, and makes it LESS likely that we will need force in the near future. We fought the Iraq Campaign to promote PEACE, and that's exactly what's happened.

"Where would we be today if we hadn't gone into Iraq?'' asked former Secretary of State George Shultz, one of Bush's early foreign policy tutors. "Saddam Hussein would still be ruling the roost. He'd be somewhat of an Arab hero. We'd be saying, 'Why didn't you do something when you had a chance?' ''
Yes.
Even some critics have begun to openly discuss whether Bush might have gotten it right. Editorials in France's Le Monde and Germany's Der Spiegel have praised Bush, and the Independent of London recently ran a banner headline across its front page asking: "Was Bush right after all?''

Yes.

"It is at least imaginable to me that Bush might pull this off,'' said Stanford history Professor David Kennedy, who twice voted against Bush and held a fund-raiser for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

He has pulled it off

Kennedy said it was too early to know whether the roots of democracy would take hold in Iraq and the region, but "if that happens, Bush will go down in history as a bold, innovative leader who stared down the opposition.''

Such expressions do not stand in the way of a vigorous opposition to the war. by people who would gladly toss the Middle East back on the trash-heap if it would help them politically...

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who returned from Iraq three weeks ago, described the stifling security -- machine guns and Black Hawk helicopters - - necessary for the most basic transport around the country.

Because we are under attack by TERRORISTS, you dimwitted senatorial toad. It's a WAR. Fighting in a war is not evidence of failure. They hate what we are doing, and unfortunately so do you. We are SUPPOSED to be fighting them. YOU won't fight for our country and our values, because you don't believe in them. That's why your party will be in the minority for the next couple of generations.

"It's not a place where you can come close to any kind of normalcy,'' Boxer said. "It's a disaster.''

That's not how the Iraqis feel. Most of them poll as optimistic about the future. And most of them ARE living close to normally, and hate the terrorists who are trying to derail their country. YOU should be hating them too, and wishing for their destruction, instead of parroting their propaganda. (And how utterly stupid it is for a visiting US Senator to be protected by heavy security, and to conclude thereby that IRAQIS can't live normally.)

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, characterized Bush's description of a region marching toward democracy as propaganda aimed at mollifying Americans.

OK, so, how long does it have to keep marching before we notice that Zogby is peddling propaganda aimed at helping terrorists and tyrants?

"We don't have democracy. We have a civil war in the making. We have a very volatile situation that can explode at anytime,'' said Zogby, whose organization has polled extensively in the Middle East. "The rest of the Arab world hates us even more than they did, if you can imagine that.''

Pure sick pathetic delusion. The REAL "Arab world" is starting to emerge from under the heels of the thug dictators. Millions marching for freedom in Lebanon. Millions of Iraqis waving purple thumbs.

The danger, Zogby warned, is that the administration has come to believe its own rhetoric, which blinds it to potential course corrections.

Course corrections such as "abject surrender."

"If you keep thinking, and you keep telling people, 'it's going right, we're doing fine,' then you can't see problems when they occur," Zogby said. "You keep doing the same thing you're doing wrong.''

This is probably incomprehensible to lefty defeatists, but we do see problems as they occur. Then we SOLVE THEM! Because we are going to WIN. Our "exit strategy" is VICTORY.

At least rhetorically, Bush has learned not to declare victory while American troops remain in danger...

It is victory. We are in the mopping-up stage.

...And he is unlikely to dress in a flight jacket and invite cameras to record his landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier the way he did two years ago...

It was a flight suit, not a jacket, and it is REQUIRED SAFETY EQUIPMENT when flying high-performance jets. (And he changed out of it after landing) How you lefty creeps hate our brave troops and hate it that the President doesn't abase himself before you and do penance for the sin of believing in America.

...Yet he often repeats words like the ones he spoke to the sailors returning from battle: "Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.''

Exactly right. Thank you President Bush. May God continue to watch over you, and this, the greatest country in the world.