Frustration Frustration

I am frustrated with the American public right now as we go into an election where I suspect the Republicans are going to lose to the Main Stream Media. Somehow vaguely suggestive emails to a former Representative are significantly more worisome concerning the Republican leadership of the House, than the financial scandals that seem to be appearing a couple times a week now about the man who will become Senate Majority Leader if the Democrats retake the Senate. We have significant evidence before us that the Senate Minority (and maybe soon Majority) leader is corrupt, making money for himself and his four boys under the table, selling off his power to, for example, push federal departments to swap public land for undevelopable land belonging to his friends. But somehow the possible lack of supervision over one of over two hundred Republicans in Congress is more worrisome. The Reid scandals are not about some disgraced former back-bencher, but the most powerful Senator on the Democrat side of the isle, and the question should be whether the American people should be giving him even more power, now whether the warnings given former Representative Foley were stern enough.

Last night, someone tried to defend this by pointing out that the page in question was 16 at the time. The time of what? Well, maybe the not very suggestive emails from Foley, but it turns out that he was 18 by the time he got those much more suggestive IMs. But of course, the MSM skips over this distinction, that the really suggestive messages were after the guy in question was no longer a page, and no longer a minor. Somehow this is worse than having a male lover run a prostitution ring out of a congressional office, the last time the Democrats had control of Congress. Now which is the greater lack of supervision: a Congressman sending suggestive IMs to an adult, or a prostitution ring being run under the noses of Congressional management? Oh, and Gerry Studds actually had actual sex with an actual male page who was actually under 18 at the time. Foley only made vague suggestions before his accuser was both no longer a minor and no longer a page, and even then, he didn't engage in sex.

Then, we get into Iraq. The conventional wisdom is that we have failed there. But the conventional wisdom has been that since long before the latest explosion of violence. I get frustrated because when I question that, I am treated like a simpleton. When I hear about the current Civil War, I ask about casualty levels, and who is killing whom.

Last night I was told that the Jihadists are winning there. Huh? They are the one faction who have decidedly lost in Irq. In the last month or so, 3/4 of the tribes in Anbar province have signed on with the government and have pledged to help with security in that province. It has become quite dangerous for foreign born jihadists to try to sneak through there into Baghdad. Al Qaeda in Mesopatemia (i.e. Iraq) has essentially fallen apart because of a lack of new recruits and in particular becuase of the information gleaned after the death of their leader, Zarqawi.

The conventional wisdom is that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. But how can it be a civil war when one side has 85% of the population, most of the guns, and almost all of the police and military on its side? The reality is that what is going on right now is desperation indiscriminate killing of innocents by Iraqi Sunni Arabs, and mostly revenge killings by the Shiites, most likely being pushed by Iran in response to our pressure on them in regards to their nuclear program. And as a result, over 1/3 of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq have moved since we went into Iraq, including probably 1/4 who have left the country entirely.

I am frustrated here, because while there is real danger that we might lose, and Iraq truly slide into a bloodbath, where the Sunni Arab minority are slaughtered for their kinship with Saddam Hussein, that hasn't happened yet, and there are more encouraging signs than discouraging ones right now. Yet, the American people believe the fight is lost.