The Ghosts of Haditha

And it goes on...

The lib media sank their teeth deep into the Haditha story and they aren't about to let go.

It's TIME's cover story this week, "The Ghosts of Haditha."

It begins:

Who knows how long it will be before the world knows precisely what happened along Haditha's Hay al-Sinnai Road on the morning of Nov. 19, when 24 Iraqis, almost all of them unarmed, died during a five-hour encounter with a Marine Corps patrol. The incident, first reported by TIME in March, has sparked two major military investigations--one into the possibility that the Marines deliberately murdered unarmed Iraqis and another into a possible cover-up that followed. It has flung open the door to reports, some real, others already discredited, of other civilians being targeted in battle. And it led in part to the startling charge by the Iraqi Prime Minister that such attacks have become a "regular occurrence." Once again, the Bush Administration finds itself on the defensive about a war that is now entering its 40th unrelenting month.

"A war that is now entering its 40th unrelenting month" --

I think that's a strange way of putting it.

How many "unrelenting months" were we in Vietnam?

A lot more than forty. That was more like 150 unrelenting months.

The point is TIME is bent on the "Iraq is Vietnam" analogy.

The reason that the Left likes to draw that comparison is because they believe that it will "open the eyes" of the public. In effect, they want to push the idea that Iraq is a war that can't be won.

Liberals want you to believe that we must accept defeat now and cut our losses.

What happened in Haditha has the makings of one of those turning points in a military operation. This one freed a nation from dictatorship, then left Iraq on the verge of anarchy and now looks to many Americans to have been wrong from the start. The crisis has erupted at a distinctly inopportune time, with the Administration trying to reduce the size of the U.S. presence in Iraq, even as military commanders are reporting backsliding in places as diverse as Ramadi in Anbar province and Basra in the south. "We are in trouble in Iraq," says retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, who was recently invited to the White House to share that assessment with President George W. Bush. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from this war." Haditha may accelerate that gait. Like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal before it, Haditha threatens to become one of the war's signature debacles, an alleged atrocity committed by a small group of service members that comes to symbolize the enterprise's larger costs. To some U.S. officers, the impact of the daily stream of accusations about the actions of the men of Kilo Company is conjuring comparisons with the blow from the country's most searing example of battlefield misconduct, the My Lai massacre of 1968, in which U.S. soldiers slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese. "I worry the combination of Abu Ghraib and Haditha will be the My Lai of this generation," says a senior officer who served in Iraq. "Not because Haditha compares to My Lai, but the perception will be that the military is losing the respect of the American people whom we serve."

This article reads like a DNC brainstorming session – short on brainpower.

There's a breathlessness about the story in TIME. It seems to be presenting a wish that the alleged murders at Haditha will be shown to be a reality, that Marines killed Iraqis in cold blood.

Haditha could be the turning point. Yippee!

TIME shoves the Left's agenda by attempting to provide that last straw to break the will of the American people in terms of the Iraq war.

Accordingly, Haditha is compared to My Lai.

Question: Do 500 Vietnamese equal 24 Iraqis?

Can we please have some balance here?

Just as with Abu Ghraib, the libs are hoping against hope that if they devote enough attention to Haditha, if they inflate the gravity of the alleged "massacre," it will cause Americans to want to run.

Without question, Haditha has become a rallying cry for the "blame America first" crowd.

...Haditha has become one of those Rorschachs of war--a test that makes those who favor a pullout sure that the time for it has come and an episode that makes those who want to stay the course note that the events of Nov. 19 are the exception and not the rule.

OK.

Let's stop with the drooling excitement.

Haditha needs to be put in proper perspective, not distorted for political gain as the libs are doing.

Take a deep cleansing breath and think.
Iraq is not Vietnam.

Haditha is not My Lai.

This is no "Rorschach," but TIME is using it as one by introducing subjectivity.

Let's first determine the FACTS of Haditha before defining it.

And if we want to talk about ghosts, let's talk about the ghosts of Mogadishu.

What are the ramifications of a U.S. pullout?

Bill Clinton's decision to inadequately arm our troops, followed by his decision to cut and run from Somalia after the battle in Mogadishu proved disastrous.

There is no question that Somalia served to embolden terrorists. Osama bin Laden himself says that was the case.

From bin Laden's perspective, he had defeated one superpower in Afghanistan and another in Somalia. He was victorious. As a result, bin Laden chose to take his "holy war" to the U.S. homeland.

For our own safety, we cannot repeat the mistakes of Somalia in Iraq. We cannot hand the enemies of democracy another victory.

As bin Laden said, America retreated and "forgot about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."

If we allow Iraq to be another Somalia, if we cut and run now as many Dems are calling for us to do, we will not have peace.

It will be an invitation for radical Islamic fundamentalists to continue their war on free, peace-loving people everywhere.

Nonetheless, the Left is shamelessly exploiting its resources, like the lib Media, to turn Americans against the U.S. presence in Iraq.

I don’t want history to repeat itself. I don’t want to witness another 9/11.

The Left, on the other hand, is committed to a repetition of history.

By propagandizing Haditha, Leftists insist on ignoring the lessons of the past. They desperately want to frame Iraq as another Vietnam; and they desperately want to follow the Clinton Somalia strategy of retreat and defeat.

If the Left prevails, what will that get us?

If the Left successfully throws up a smokescreen to blind Americans to the real lessons of Vietnam and Somalia, will we be stronger and safer and more secure as a nation?

No.

Jumping all over Haditha and condemning American Marines before they've been tried may be politically expedient for the Dems, but it’s bad for the country.

It's time for TIME to quit undermining the United States by undermining the War on Terror.