Who are the losers?

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20080228.aspx

'Remember Iraq? You know, the war we lost? The big failure we were wasting our lives and "treasure" on? Yeah, that one. Haven't heard much about it lately, right? That's because Iraq has disappeared off the international radar, and for good reasons. Enemy activity levels are at the lowest levels in years. The Iraqi Police and military is growing in leaps and bounds. Half of the country has been turned back over to Iraqi control and next month, Anbar Province will become the tenth province turned over.'

Without blush or apology, without recantation of previously held moronicisms and without the slightest indication of having been dead wrong for four years, the big media have dropped Iraq from their rundowns and front pages. Afghanistan now seems much more fruitful ground for bleating about quagmires and wasted young lives. For those of us who actually care whether young Americans and Britons and Australians and Poles died for something rather than nothing, this is bitter gall. The 'liberals' who couldn't stop ranting about the horrors of endless war six months ago seem to have amnesia. Perhaps all the mental energy they put into willing American defeat has rendered their huge brains incapable of any further activity. We can only hope.

But a very scary prospect is already on the horizon... what happens when the military assets previously needed in Iraq are freed up for use in Afghanistan? What happens when all the hard-learned lessons of Iraq are utilised by seasoned veterans in Afghanistan? What happens if we win in Afghanistan? The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC and all the others who want America to fail so that President George W Bush will be politically damaged will have no more quagmires to turn to. They will be faced with a terrible prospect. Not only will America be more secure, and many millions of Arabs and Afghans happier and freer and more prosperous, Al Qaeda will have two possibly three terrible defeats on its ledger, and the idea that all warfare and violence is evil and counter-productive will have been shown to be so much fart noise.

Indeed, for honest 'liberals' the bottom will fall out of their world view. Come the day, come the hour.