For some on the Left, this picture ought to make their heads explode! A Mainstream Media publication is actually using the "V" word for what the United States has accomplished in Iraq! Newsweek has used the word "Victory" on its cover: "Victory at Last" it says, with a shot of President George W. Bush walking out of the picture under the headline.
The article on the inside is grudging - they could not resist one more mention of Abu Ghraib - but it does admit that what President George W. Bush talked about in 2003 - a democratic Iraq - is now coming to pass:
Something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq. It may not be 'mission accomplished'—but it's a start. . . .
Bush's rhetoric about democracy came to sound as bitterly ironic as his pumped-up appearance on an aircraft carrier a few months earlier, in front of an enormous banner that declared MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. And yet it has to be said and it should be understood—now, almost seven hellish years later—that something that looks mighty like democracy is emerging in Iraq. And while it may not be a beacon of inspiration to the region, it most certainly is a watershed event that could come to represent a whole new era in the history of the massively undemocratic Middle East. . . . MORE
It's nice to see that even some on the Left are now having to recognize what the United States - thanks to our brave men and women in uniform - has achieved in Iraq. The very people who fought against the means to bring victory about - the Surge Strategy - are now grudgingly admitting that it worked and victory has been achieved!
President George W. Bush stayed the course and made the hard decisions that led to this result. Sen. John McCain deserves enormous credit for calling for a Surge Strategy when no one else supported such an idea. Voters did not reward Bush and McCain in 2008 for their leadership on this issue, but the longer view of history will do so.
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