Saying, good news, good news, when there is no good news (see Jeremiah 6:14)

My esteemed editors at FrontPage Magazine have entitled a Michael Fumento piece “The Good News from Iraq.” But after reading the article, I wonder, where is the good news here? A friend writes:

Not only are there no specifics showing that we are winning, as you point out, but the specifics of what Fumento reports are awful. If he didn’t have some medical background, he would have been dead when the Iraqi doctor attempted to discharge him (might that have happened to a poor soldier ignorant of the medical info?). He had to undergo a colostomy just because of how the Iraqi climate dangerously constricted his bowel (is this happening to others over there?). The recovery room was horribly loud. Several Iraqis he met died a few days later in attacks by fiends. The sensitivity is such that known terrorists are released back into the populace to do more harm. Our guys can’t have alcohol in deference to Muslim sensibilities. When he went out on patrols he saw that our guys can’t trust the Iraqis they encounter to help them because they know that every group of Iraqis will have informers! I could go on, but it’s almost ridiculous to read all that and come away with the notion that it’s good news.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 14, 2005 12:21 PM | Send