Matt Duss on how the neocons have moved the goalposts on Iraq, and have taken to calling anyone who doubts the efficacy of the surge "defeatist" and "dishonorable."
Pointing this out is not meant to dishonor the sweat and sacrifices of American troops (or the sacrifice of the families who desperately want them home), only to make the broader point that Bush and his water-carriers in the right-wing media are clutching at anything which can conceivably help them keep the high ground in a losing ideological battle, even stand upon the already-overburdened shoulders of our troops.By next week, there will be 175, 000 American troops on Iraq -- the most since the invasion. Ironically, this comes at a time when American public disapproval of the war is at its highest. A full 68 percent of the American public disapproves of the Iraq War, so it's understandable why we're seeing this big propaganda push. To a great extent, the President and his enablers have treated the war in Iraq first and foremost as a message problem, something to be defended with clever arguments, not to be won with better policies. For them, the central front in the war on terror has always been the American media, and the near enemy has always been domestic political opposition. Neoconservatives have constructed a deeply divisive and disingenuous political narrative in which the return to merely unacceptable levels of violence in Iraq is evidence of victory, and disagreement is evidence of "not supporting the troops."But don't be fooled: This isn't victory. It's not even close.
Read the rest (and comment) here. --The Editors
