Left Invested in American Iraq Defeat
Monday Rush Limbaugh show - October 17, 2005
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This next story made page A-22 in the Washington Post yesterday. "On the Streets of Iraq, Scenes of Joy and Determination" is the headline. "For the cooped-up children of bomb-weary Baghdad, referendum day was a winner, no matter what the final outcome. A security ban on private vehicles, invoked to keep would-be bombers from reaching targets, had a blissful side effect: The boys and girls of Baghdad took back the streets for a day," and it goes on and on and on to describe what a pleasant day the Election Day was in Iraq. If you look at this, folks, perhaps the most amazing, awe-inspiring, positive and triumphant story of the past two years, and it's on page A-22 of the Washington Post. We have paid for this achievement. We have paid for this achievement with the blood of our sons and daughters and their families. This has to be recognized and celebrated. It's a disgrace to bury this on page A-22. They go on and on and on to discuss how this still may yet fail, this victory may not mean much. In fact, MSNBC this morning just couldn't get over the fact that due to the constitution likely passing, that civil war will break out because of the Sunnis.
So the way this has been shaped in the mainstream press is: "There's no way Bush can win. There's no way the Iraqis can win." If the constitution fails, it fails, and if it wins, it fails, because the Sunnis aren't going to like it and it's going to have to be rewritten in four months to please them or there will be a civil war. All this reporting is just the same as the reaction to my op-ed. The facts and the reality facing these people escapes them because of their template, and because of their prism and their mind-set. This whole Iraq war, the whole Iraq excursion, the whole Iraq idea is going to fail. It has to be fail! Too much has been invested in its failure by us in the mainstream press and by their willing accomplices in the Democratic Party. So however it turns out, it is a failure. It's going to fail because it's Bush's war and it's an unjust war and it was unnecessary and Bush lied to take us to war and all of the clichés that we have heard from Democrat propagandists from day one. So now we've had every element that we have targeted in terms of the development of this country has taken place and on time. We turned the country over to them, called "sovereignty," on the date we said we were going to do it.
The elections took place on the date we said they were going to take place, and the turnout was high, stunning everybody, and in the immediate aftermath of those elections, many columnists, Chicago and Los Angeles are writing, "Hmm, maybe Bush was right after all," to which I said, "No, no, no, no, no. Maybe you were WRONG after all." The template here is that you have been wrong on every forecast and prediction that you've made about Iraq. Bush has been right on every one. The turnout in the constitutional vote yesterday was higher than even the vote back in January. So, the timetables continue to be met, and yet with each successful timetable, we get closer and closer to abject failure. We get closer and closer to doom and gloom. Grab audio sound bite #2a, Mike. Every time that there is a success in Iraq -- after we captured Saddam, after the first election, now after a peaceful vote on the constitution -- Democrats say, "Well, the next election, that's the really important one. The next event, that's the really important. Everybody knew this was going to happen." Here is a montage of guests from the Sunday shows. We got Senator Feinstein (D-CA). We've got Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek. We've got Joe Klein in Newsweek. We've got Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE). We've got Senator Joe Biden (D-DE). It's a short little montage, about 17 seconds, but it makes the case.
FEINSTEIN: I think the election on December 15th is the bellwether.
ZAKARIA: In the December elections, the December elections.
KLEIN: What we're looking for here is like a three-cushion bank shot in December.
HAGEL: What's going to be critically important is this election coming up in December.
BIDEN: It seems to me that it depends, as Chuck says, on the December election.
RUSH: Just go back to last week and it would all hinge on what happened yesterday. "Oh, yeah, the insurgents, terrorists are going to blow everybody up! Why, if their turnout isn't big and if the vote doesn't come out, oh, this country is doomed! They're not ready for democracy." Now, this one happened, "Oh, we've got to look forward to the next one." We're going to find failure wherever we can. The Associated Press in a story over the weekend, in a brilliant illustration of how to turn a positive into a negative: "Sunnis Appear to Fall Short in Iraq Vote -- "Iraq's landmark constitution seemed assured of passage Sunday after initial results showed minority Sunni Arabs had fallen short in an effort to veto it at the polls. The apparent acceptance was a major step in the attempt to establish a democratic government that could lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Opponents failed to secure the necessary two-thirds 'no' vote in any three of Iraqi's 18 provinces, according to counts that local officials provided to The Associated Press. In the crucial central provinces with mixed ethnic and religious populations, enough Shiites and Kurds voted to stymie the Sunni bid to reject the constitution.... But the outcome could further divide the nation, with many Sunnis fearing the new decentralized government will deprive them of their fair share in the country's vast oil wealth. Large numbers of Sunnis voted "no," and some of their leaders were already rejecting the apparent result."
Sheik Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a prominent cleric with the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said, "If the constitution was passed, the attacks will definitely rise against the occupation forces, and the security situation is going to be worse." Yeah, we know this. This is how these things happen. Folks, we're missing the whole point here by focusing on something as simple as failure. The left is trying to focus on failure, but can I talk to you about failure? Can I ask you a real question? What do you think happens if we lose in Iraq? What do you think it means to the left? Let's put it this way. They're the ones eager for us to lose. They want Bush to lose. They think they win when Bush loses. Remember, whatever is bad for America, is good for them. Whatever is good for America is bad for them. I'm talking about politically. They can't stand successes for this country, particularly in foreign policy. Bad news for them. They haven't been on the right side of the war on terror or the war in Iraq since the initial vote, and they're all trying to act like they never voted for it in the first place or that Bush lied to them. So they're invested in failure. Well, let me ask you a question. I want you to think about this during the break. What does failure mean to the left? Because I think I know. They are so shortsighted, they are so head-buried-in-the-sand on this that they have a skewed definition of failure. Let's put it this way. Forget the word "failure." Let's say we "lose." Let's say that we ultimately lose in Iraq; let's say that what happens is defeat, which is clearly what many in the American left hope for, it's what they've been agitating for. It's what they're trying to say is happening with each successful event in Iraq. What does defeat mean to them? I'm talking about strategically. What does it mean to them?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, to be fair, the New York Times did front-page the big news out of Iraq. The Washington Post didn't -- page A-22 -- but the New York Times did. "Early Signs Show Iraqis' Approval of Constitution," and the story goes on to say that even in big Sunni-dominated cities, "the constitution failed narrowly." Failed narrowly! They still had to use the word "fail" in there. But get this paragraph, the first sentence: "But the meaning of the relatively low level of violence remains unclear." Rather than celebrating the low level of violence, the New York Times is down there: "Why the hell didn't it happen? We wanted violence! We wanted anarchy! We wanted this place to look like New Orleans on the day of this election. We didn't get it! Why weren't they violent? The level of violence was unnoticed." Maybe because they were prepared for it? Maybe because the insurgency is not as strong as you in the media think? I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but maybe it's not that huge, just like what happened in New Orleans wasn't nearly the way we were told it happened for a week to ten days afterwards. Even in big Sunni-dominated cities a lot of votes for the constitution. It "failed narrowly." Now, the New York Times gets even with itself for writing a positive story by having this: "Administration's Tone Signals a Longer, Broader Iraq Conflict," and the Democrat criticism is all over the place. There's a guy from the Brookings Institution who says democracy is not the answer. More troops, no! More democracy, no! But, wait, Bush sucks! That's the bottom line of it.
"Others take a harsher view. Kenneth Pollack, a former C.I.A. analyst and now a scholar at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, said Mr. Bush's new tone reflected 'the fact that their whole theory about how this is going to work out isn't working, and almost certainly isn't going to work.' He added, 'The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproven on the ground every day.'" Carl Levin was on Meet the Press yesterday, too. He said that democracy in the political situation is key, and the Brookings guy seems to disagree. If you ask me, they had a huge bit of democracy going on in Iraq over the weekend. What do these people think they're looking at? And here we have a companion story where they lament the fact that the violence was low and the reason for it was "unclear." I'll tell you, folks, this is why we cannot trust these people to be in charge of US national security. They are not interested in success. When they look at success they see a political problem for themselves. They have to start defining everything as a failure, even now after the constitution in Iraq passes, "Ah, that's even worse. That's worse than it failing because now people are going to be really upset. It's going to lead to civil war." Any bets that it doesn't? What do you think these insurgents have been trying for all this time? And, I'll tell you what, with as horrendous and outrageously incorrect as the post-Katrina reporting in New Orleans was, and with other examples such as that that we could cite with the mainstream media now just not seeing things and not getting it -- and, remember, the bias is not so much how they report and what they report. It's also what they leave out, what to them is not news. So it's a combination of things. I just am loath to trust them. And by the same token they'll say Calypso Louie's event and make it the biggest thing that ever happened.
Now, I asked you on Friday -- I asked you to make a bet -- Where do you think the turnout will be bigger, in the Iraqi elections or at the Millions More March? And guess what? There were thousands at the Millions More March -- and that's not tens of thousands, and that's not hundreds of thousands, and that's not a million. It was a very, very small turnout, and yet that gets a lot of ink as well, and in fact is given more credence and more meaning and more substance than the constitutional vote in Iraq yesterday. So I ask you to think about this. To the Democrats and to the left in this country: How do you think they define failure? And by that I mean: What do you think they think will happen if we fail? What does it mean and then what happens next? And the answer to this, I mean, there's no guessing. I know what the answer is. I may not be phrasing the question. I'm not asking for you to take a guess because it's unknown. There is a known answer. I know that they think there's... Let me put it this way. (interruption) What? Oh, that's not the right way to put it. They believe we're going to fail. What does that mean, and then what happens after that? What will be the result, let's put it that way, what will be the result of our failure or defeat? (interruption) What? Don't tell (interruption). No, no (interruption). Well, well, but that (interruption). Snerdley says the Democrats come back to power. Yeah, yeah, yaw but that's obvious. I'm talking about what will be the mechanism they think will get them there. I'll tell you, the answer, folks, is very simple, and it is frightening in its shortsightedness, as far as the left is concerned
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