All Iraq, All the Time
Power Line
Walking through an airport yesterday, I saw the cover of the current Time magazine; click to enlarge:
The cover story is about China; the cover says: "With the U.S. tied down in Iraq, a new superpower has arrived. Here's how to deal with it."
China is, indeed, playing a more assertive role in the world these days, although it is silly to call China a "superpower" if that implies any kind of parity with the U.S. But what on earth does the ability of a billion-plus Chinese to assert themselves in the world have to do with Iraq? Absolutely nothing. But that's the way it is in the liberal media these days: all Iraq, all the time. Time's article includes this gratuitous reference:
<<< With the U.S. preoccupied with the threat of Islamic terrorism and struggling to extricate itself from a failing war in Iraq, China seems ready to challenge--possibly even undermine--some of Washington's other foreign policy goals, from halting the genocide in Darfur to toughening sanctions against Iran. >>>
Actually, the U.S. is trying to win the war in Iraq, not "extricate itself" from a "failing" conflict. But in the eyes of the liberal media, that's not the U.S., it's just the Bush administration. In the mainstream media, failure is already a fact. Not only that, the Iraq-as-disaster meme infects coverage of just about everything else, even when the story at hand--like China's economy--has little or nothing to do with that conflict.
The contrast between the MSM's obsession with pounding our effort in Iraq into the ground and the knowledgeable, on-the-ground reporting of people like Michael Yon--see Scott's post immediately below--could hardly be greater. I would add that if you want an intelligent, sophisticated discussion of contemporary military and geopolitical matters, forget the news magazines and listen to the podcasts of Hugh Hewitt's eight-part interview of Thomas Barnett. Part 2 aired tonight. It is a great pleasure to listen to such high-level discussion of military and strategic matters. You won't get this kind of quality in any other medium. And, for what it's worth, Barnett argues for a strategic alliance between the U.S. and China.
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