Contradictory Critics

Huffington Post blogger Barry Lando today laments the sad truth that the U.S. will not be leaving Iraq any time soon. Lando further criticizes American military "super bases" which house tens of thousands of American military personnel.

Yet, Yevgeny Satanovsky of United Press International continues his Outside View: Iraq worse than Vietnam-2 series. Quite the contrary, Satanovsky argues that the U.S. will have to "redeploy" after "establishing control over oil pipelines, terminals and fields."

MOSCOW, March 5 (UPI) -- U.S. President George W. Bush's new surge "strategy"in Iraq has nothing to do with real strategy, but makes sense as a tactical step. The Americans will have to redeploy and withdraw to bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan and Gulf monarchies.

He goes on to cite a litany of negative stats:

Today, they have electricity for 12 hours a day, and in Baghdad for six to seven hours. Unemployment has reached 70 percent in some areas. Iraqis are fleeing from their country. About 500,000 to 1 million Iraqi emigrants are in Syria; 500,000 to 700,000 in Jordan; and some 100,000 in Egypt. In the official Iraqi estimate, about 100,000 people left the country every month in 2006; the total number of refugees has surpassed 2 million since 2003. More than 18,000 are doctors, scientists, engineers and teachers. Inside Iraq, more than 500,000 people left their permanent residences and moved to their religious communities' abode.

By the author's estimates, there is no good at all in Iraq. Apparently, he doesn't watch NBC, or read Michael Yon or Little Green Footballs, where he might have seen this picture:

A preponderance of naysayers, negative thinkers and critics have not been paying attention lately. Not only NBC, but Ted Koppel, now of Discovery Channel, heard CNN reporters, and certainly not listened to Pamela Hess, of United Press International (Isn't that who he works for?)

A continual assault of negative spin, senseless diatribes and grim statistics is not what Iraq needs right now. The country can use some hope, but it won't find it from those who have convinced themselves Iraq is a failure.