Sullivan’s Last Throes

According to Andrew Sullivan the right, as always, will point to the spectre of media bias when confronted with terrible news from Iraq.

The violence in Iraq continues to surpass even its own previous psychopathic levels. Key fact of the day:

[T]he past week saw the highest number of suicide bomb attacks of any week since the American-led invasion in 2003, according to the chief United States military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV. “This has been a tough week,” General Caldwell said. “This week’s suicide attacks were at their highest level in any given week.” But such attacks, he said, are still not the No. 1 killer of Baghdad civilians. “Murders and executions are,” he said.

I’m waiting for Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds to dismiss this as media bias. But this is a U.S. general telling the truth. And this is where we are: the signature act of the Jihadists, suicide bombing, is at an all-time high. But this isn’t the biggest problem. Iraq is now a failed state. It failed because we decided to let it fail - because the pride and arrogance of Cheney and Rumsfeld were more important than the most vital mission of our time. Their incompetence has made us all much, much less safe. And their authoritarianism has made us much, much less free.

Sullivan’s view that Iraq is kaput leans heavily on a single statement from the good general’s statement. But what else has General Caldwell said this week? In his weekly statement (from September 25):

Caldwell: Iraq’s Transformation is Subtle

This (violence) however, is only part of Iraq’s present story. The violence belies the gradual but remarkable transformation this nation is experiencing. Focusing on just violence would miss telling the bigger story of how — despite it —Iraqis have made enormous steps toward self-sufficiency in both the security and political realm.

Read just a little more of the statement and it’s obvious that his view is that Iraq is FAR from a failed state. Not even on the radar. The same U.S. general Sullivan cites as an authority has an outlook that is nearly a polar opposite.
The problem with the left is that they think any criticism of their viewpoints is generated by some equal-but-opposite counterforce in the political sphere. That is not always correct. Sullivan seizes on a single statement and is quick to generalize it as a representation of the overall picture. That is an error in judgement, and whether it is intentional or not deserves to be countered strongly.