I was watching my DVR recording of Showtimes new Drama "The Big C" with the lovely and talented and generously endowed Laura Linney (currently in 8th position on my official list) and as it ended I noticed it was about time for Olbermann's worst person in the world awards so I switched over to MSNBC and low and behold i see Richard Engle reporting the last combat brigade is leaving IRAQ. My first emotion was of great relief and then of pride watching my fellow countrymen and women leaving Iraq hopefully headed back to their Washington State Homes soon.
Of course as i watched Vehicle after Vehicle pass through i pondered surely Fox News is covering this so i switched over and alas the Fair and Balanced network which trumpeted the war every night was discussing the non issue of the mosque in NYC. Frank Ludz the rotund republican pollster was polling the audience in his clearly fair and balanced way.
Realizing that i was missing history in action i switched backed and continued to watch and as the video shows when the last Vehicle passed through and the gate was closed I must admit i became a bit verklempt. No this wasn't the staged Mission Accomplished aka Top Gun ending that we got from the former president it was a subdued ending to this phase and the beginning of another.
One wonders what will happen next
so.. i have to know.. who is number 1?
ReplyDeleteI find your characterization of events to be just as slanted and disingenuous as those you rail against.
ReplyDeleteFrom March to April 2003 nearly 10,000 Iraqi military were killed. This massive loss of life characterizes the magnitude of this fight. With the collapse of the Hussein regime and the general stand-down of the Iraqi military “major combat operations in Iraq ended”.
From a military standpoint the “war” was over and Iraq would not again see the ferocity of major combat operations again.
From a media which claims Americans are only interested in 30 second sound bites came the subtle and detailed accounts of an Iraqi civil war already on going. We became experts on Sunni and Shia incompatibility and the inevitability of a Kurdish state. We were told the Islamic people would rise up against their western occupiers. None of these things ever happened but we must assume the America public was now demanding much more detail to better understand the Iraqi situation.
So it would only reason that the last Brigade Combat Team to leaving Iraq would be more clearly framed in the reality that as the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team was leaving Iraq, the first Advise and Assist Brigade, 4th Brigade Combat Team from the 1st Armored Division was rolling in to Iraq.
As in 2003 with the end of “major” combat operation, this latest milestone denotes the end of “combat” missions and the start of “security” operations.
President Obama stated “The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given”. In 2003 President Bush spoke to the “end of major combat operations”, In 2010 President Obama spoke to the end of the “American combat mission”, and some future President will speak to the end of "security" operations.
The cameras watched one President land on an aircraft carrier and they don’t watch a renamed Combat Brigade rolling north.