When April proved a bloody month for American soldiers in Iraq, the American left swarmed. 52 U.S. soldiers died in April, the most since September 2007, and the left rushed to express its special brand of concern for “the children” as it so often patronizingly refers to our fighting men and women. Given the promising events of May so far and the left’s silence regarding those events, one has to question the sincerity of the left’s “concern.” With May almost complete, the count of American fatalities stands at 18. Also worth noting is the fact that Iraqi civilian death count stands at 436. The figure for April was 744. To measure the progress our military has made, it’s better still to look back a year when the Surge and its accompanying change in tactics and strategy were taking effect. In April and May of 2007, we averaged 115 deaths while 1900 Iraqi civilians were dying violently each month. (At the war’s nadir in September ’06, over 3,000 Iraqis died violently.) So in the past 12 months, by the most important metrics, violence in Iraq has dropped over 75% while the Iraqi government has strengthened itself immeasurably. Needless to say, left wing blogs and the Democratic party have found the May figures much less interesting than the ones from April. Of course, one wouldn’t expect the left to cheer our obvious progress. For many liberals, antipathy to the Iraq war has led them to transparently hope for the war’s failure and to turn every American setback into grist for a particularly ugly propaganda mill. Nevertheless, one would still expect the left to at least acknowledge the progress and somehow jam the facts on the ground into its rickety intellectual construct. In this regard, the anti-war media has actually been ahead of Democratic politicians. Often fulsome war opponent Andrew Sullivan has mentioned encouraging signs from Iraq on his blog and appears to be open to revisiting his views on Iraq as the improving situation warrants. Even the New York Times has published stories that paint a picture of Iraq different from the traditional grim portrait. But to my knowledge, not a single prominent Democrat has acknowledged the improving situation in Iraq. And no, Joe Lieberman doesn’t count. None of this is to say that the 18 American fatalities so far this month or the 436 Iraqi deaths are acceptable. Like many people who support the war publicly, I’m in touch with a number of soldiers who have been to Iraq or who are in Iraq or who are going to Iraq. The death count for me is more than an abstraction. Can the same possibly be true for the vultures of the left who so boisterously crowed over the number of casualties in April and yet who have been silent in May? For those of us who support the mission in Iraq, there’s always a reluctance to highlight good news out of Iraq. This war has already suffered from too much over-promising and under-delivering. We also realize that the situation in Iraq is still dangerous, and that the enemy always has a vote. Our soldiers there remain very much in harm’s way, and no one wants to gloss over that fact. Doing so would diminish our military’s service and valor, while also misleading the public. Sadly but predictably, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the left and its leadership class in particular are apparently unbound by any such scruples. Our Matthew Continetti put it well in this week’s editorial:
(All figures from icasualties.org)
