The Latest Iraq Success Story

I've been living in a work- related bubble these past few weeks. I go to work when it's dark, I come home when it's dark, I eat, sleep, shower, and do it all again. I've only caught the occasional headline, and Keith Olbermann, so I didn't realize that the situation in Iraq was improving, until I accidentally saw Joe Lieberman on Fox News yesterday.

LIEBERMAN: This is the third time I have been in Iraq since last December. And last December, Al Qaeda was winning — it's as simple as that — and we were losing. Today, Al Qaeda is on the run. We are winning.
What's more important, the normal people of Iraq are winning. They are returning to their homes. Their businesses are opening up again, and they have decided something that's critically important not just in Iraq, but in the larger war against terrorism. They have decided that Al Qaeda is their enemy, and, ultimately, we are more supportive of their future than Al Qaeda is.

Why didn't anybody tell me that we won the war?

Of course my first instinct is to doubt any official word on progress in Iraq. After all, how many lies have we been told already? Let's see....starting from the beginning....weapons of mass destruction....uranium from Niger...mobile labs... un-manned drones that could reach the West coast...mushroom clouds.... And during the war...Pat Tillman....we don't torture...insurgency in it's last throws...How can you believe anything they say? I would truly love to believe that the level of violence is down, and that peace may finally be in sight, but I remember Rumsfeld himself saying, "We don't do body counts." So if they never counted bodies before, how can they be so sure that the violence is down?

But it might be the right moment for all of us anti-war folks to just celebrate. If the violence is down, why don't we bring all of the soldiers home? We can say "Mission Accomplished! (and this time it's really true)", have a huge parade, and declare victory. We can have a whole new Federal Holiday, we can call it VI day (Victory In Iraq), and if we do it right now, we can have a new shopping day to stimulate the economy right before Hanukkah and Christmas.

If the news is true (or even if it's not true), there might not be a better time for us to get out and save face.

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