Red Planet Cartoons takes a look at the total collapse of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
It was only 5 months ago that John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats were assuring their buddies in the Mainstream Media that General Petraeus was a "liar" and "Bush's stooge" for the cautiously optimistic report on the success of the surge of U.S. troops.
And readers and viewers--the few that are left--of the MSM mouthpieces were treated to a summer-long Democrat PR blizzard about the surge's "failure".
On June 6, 2007: Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop "surge" policy was a failure.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.
"As many had forseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results," the two leaders wrote.
Of course, the Mainstream Media proved their reliable selves: reliably left in their reporting; unreliable when it came to telling Americans the truth in the news. It is the primary reason that only 19% trust the Mainstream Media to report the news straight.
A better rating than the Democrat-controlled Congress, to be sure, but still pathetic. It's one reason that, increasingly, people search the Internet for their news instead of buying the NY Times or tuning into CBS Evening News.
Those who trusted the MSM last summer for the truth about how the surge was going had to be baffled by the news of its success. This included most MSM editors and reporters.
From Slate's "Surge Failure" by Ryan Grim--which is a roundup of what the MSM wing of the DNC was saying on June 4, 2007:
The "surge" isn't working in Iraq, the New York Times reports in its lead story. The Washington Post leads with details of a car crash in which a driver barreled through a crowd, injuring dozens. The Los Angeles Times' lead story also focuses on Iraq, highlighting Democratic efforts to keep pressure on congressional Republicans over the summer.
Salon on Feb 8, 2007: "... As the president and Republicans continue to hype the surge -- and ... about it -- Bush's own war planners are preparing for failure in Iraq."
Google "failure of the surge" and over 583,000 references appear: some left wing blog posts, to be sure, but story after story appeared in the MSM under the theme.
Red Planet reminds us in "Total Collapse" what really happened:
Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an “extraordinary crisis”. Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military “created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight”. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered “total collapse”.
These are the words not of al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province — once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.
Google "success of the surge" and perhaps, one of every ten references are of a MSM story, many similar to the title of TIME magazine's piece, "The Fleeting Success of the Surge" in December 2007.
Red Planet also has a nice collection of links on the real story of the surge--not the one frantically pedaled by the MSM. Included in the Red Planet collection is one on "Iraqis celebrate the success of the surge".
"Total Collapse" at Red Planet Cartoons is a nice story on the success of the U.S. military--in spite of the Democrat party and the Mainstream Media.
Indeed, if one saw a story bearing the headline, "Total Collapse", in the MSM, the subject matter would mostly likely be the U.S. Marines.
by Mondoreb
image: Red Planet Cartoons
Sources:
* Total Collapse
* Iraqi Surge a "failure", Top Democrats tell Bush
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.