Mar 1, 2006 
The Ministry of Truth is working overtime to keep the True Believers in line. Victor Davis Hanson writes that we are winning the war in Iraq and will prevail as long as we believe.
“What seems to me most inexplicable is the war over the war–not the purported absence of a plan, but that the more we are winning in the field, the more we are losing it at home,” he says. What seems to me most inexplicable is that Victor Davis Hanson is, I assume, bright enough to dress himself. (Fortunately, Mr. Hanson does not require further snarking; Robert Farley has snarked for us all.)
At the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, Ralph Peters writes that the reporting from Baghdad is all wrong — no civil war here –
The reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.
Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?
Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business — and everyday life in abundance.
“Baghdad isn’t London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11,” he continues. Possibly not, but those weren’t civil wars, either. And as someone who traveled nearly the length of Manhattan in a slow-moving car on 9/11 trying to get off the island, I can promise you that if you were anywhere north of about 14th Street there was no sign of anything amiss on that day, except for smoke in the sky. From midtown on north you couldn’t even see the smoke in the sky. One could see shoppers, people dining in sidewalk cafes, people walking dogs, all perfectly normal. Yet it was 9/11.
The moral is, sometimes one pair of eyes isn’t seeing the whole picture.
Ellen Knickmeyer reports for the Washington Post that in parts of Iraq Shiites are being told to leave their homes or be killed. That sounds rather … uncivil.
I don’t claim to know what’s going on in Iraq. It is possible that the current round of violence will settle down. But, truly, “reporting” like Mr. Peters’s sends a bigger chill down my spine than the stories of violence in Iraq. It makes me realize what dangers we are in here.
Brilliant quote du jour: “If the president actually believes that he has never wavered from his course, it makes you remember that all motion is relative.” Snort.
Update: Scott Ritter, “Iraq: A Solution to Nothing”
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