The media also has a hard time keeping score. For years, Iraq was portrayed as a disaster until, suddenly, the enemy was crushed. Even that was not considered exciting enough to warrant much attention, and that story is still poorly covered by the mass media. Same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, where the defeats of the Taliban, and triumph of the drug gangs, go unreported or distorted. If you step back and take a look at all the wars going on, a more accurate picture emerges.
I've had little respect for the press to cover military issues or war. With few exceptions they haven't got a clue about what they see. And after close to 9 years at war, they really haven't improved.
On Iraq:
Islamic terrorists are now a police problem. U.S. troops have withdrawn to suburban bases, and casualties are sharply down. U.S. deaths declined from 314 in 2008 to 150 in 2009, and 30 so far this year (indicating a 2010 total of less than 60). This is way down from the 2007 peak of 904). Violence continues to be down over 80 percent from the bad old days of three years ago. More areas of the country are now at peace (as some have been since 2003.) The Sunni Arab minority has worked out peace deals with the majority Kurds and Shia Arabs. But some Sunni Arab Islamic radicals are still active, supported by Sunni Arab nationalists in the Persian Gulf, and former Saddam supporters in Syria. Some Sunni Arabs, who had fled the country, are returning, but nearly half the Sunni Arabs are still gone. The Shia militias have been defeated as well, mainly by Iraqi police and troops. Corruption and inept government are now the major problems, with potential Iranian meddling (or even invasion) a permanent threat. The major U.S. TV news operations are pulling out. The war is really over.
On Afghanistan:
The "Taliban comeback" keeps getting headlines in the media. But it's the Taliban who are increasingly under attack. There hasn't been a "Taliban Spring Offensive" for the last two years, and the key Taliban financial resource; heroin in Helmand province, in now under attack. The opium crop declined 25 percent this year. The Taliban expected drug gang profits, al Qaeda assistance and Pakistani reinforcements to turn the tide. But al Qaeda is a very junior, and unpopular, partner, and the Pakistani Taliban are sending refugees, not reinforcements. With all that, violence nationwide was up, mainly because there are more foreign troops in the country, being more aggressive against the Taliban and drug gangs....
On the war on (Islamist) terror, more generally:
The War on Terror has morphed into the War Against Islamic Radicalism. This religious radicalism has always been around, for Islam was born as an aggressive movement, that used violence and terror to expand. Past periods of conquest are regarded fondly by Moslems. The current enthusiasm for violence in the name of God has been building for over half a century. Historically, periods of Islamic radicalism have flared up periodically in response to corrupt governments, as a vain attempt to impose a religious solution on some social or political problem. The current violence is international because of the availability of planet wide mass media (which needs a constant supply of headlines), and the fact that the Islamic world is awash in tyranny and economic backwardness. Islamic radicalism itself is incapable of mustering much military power, and the movement largely relies on terrorism to gain attention. Most of the victims are fellow Moslems, which is why the radicals eventually become so unpopular among their own people that they run out of new recruits and fade away. This is what is happening now. The American invasion of Iraq was a clever exploitation of this, forcing the Islamic radicals to fight in Iraq, where they killed many Moslems, especially women and children, thus causing the Islamic radicals to lose their popularity among Moslems. The sharp decline in the Islamic nation opinion polls was startling. ...
It is not futile to fight our enemies, as so many on the anti-war side assume--and which our media reinforces with their reporting. We are strong and our enemies are weak. Only our lack of confidence in our society and determination to defend it, and therefore reluctance to use our power to win (and this does not imply that I favor "taking the gloves off" to carpet bomb the enemy, mostly it is the confidence issue I worry about), gives them any chance at all.
We have challenges, but we are not doomed. Unless we refuse to face our challenges, of course. But in that case we are defeating ourselves, aren't we?
