Mission Accomplished? Yes, actually.
It's been 50 months since the infamous photo-op, codpiece and macho rhetoric from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and history has seen that moment turn from a shining image of Neocon triumph into a running joke and haunting symbol of Bushie bravado and incompetence. Countless cartoons and commentaries have skewered the stunt, while modern-day-Murrow, Keith Olberman, signs off each Countdown broadcast with a count-up of days since the ill-fated proclamation.
Are these endless liberal lampoons fair? Do they rally support or cast the party as a vulture more interested in picking at a corpse than setting things right?
The more accurate and embraceable way to decry the handling of Iraq is to clearly lay full blame where it belongs: at the foot of the architects of a post-Saddam Iraq. Get your bumper stickers. Circulate the talking points. Get all candidates on message. Repeat after me:
"WE WON THE WAR -- WE HAVE LOST THE PEACE."
Read on for further analysis of the best use of "Mission Acomplished" and how minds can be changed through the strength of syntax...
I have little but contempt for this administration and its handling of Iraq, and I resent the politicization of that fateful "Mission Accomplished" day: the carrier was ordered to turn around so that San Diego would not be seen in the background, the Prez flew in on a jet though the ship was in copter range of the shore, cameras were rolling for campaign ads, Bushie politicos brought the legendary banner (and initially lied in claiming that sailors had strung it up). Yet the fact remains that the banner was correct; the MILITARY's mission was accomplished by May of 2003 and major combat operations were completed by that time. Patrolling a street, guarding a market or clearing a building are not major combat operations -- not the tasks of a standing army.
Similarly, nation-building is not a job for the armed forces.
Liberal pundits delight in deflating the Mission Accomplished bravado, but in their haste to wittily deride Dubya they miss the point of that day and the effect of their barbs. With a vacancy sign on the Oval Office, Democrats need to stop shooting themselves in the foot by insisting that the U.S. has "lost the war". I'm looking at you, Senator Reid. WE WON THE WAR -- we amazingly disassembled one of the globe's larger armies and toppled a regional power in a matter of WEEKS with a display of strategy, technology, and might that was magnificent in its execution, even if immoral/illegal in its Genesis.
It is our civics, our reconstruction, our management and our diplomacy that have been a miserable failure.
WE WON THE WAR -- WE HAVE LOST THE PEACE.
This may be a semantical difference -- but until more of our populace learns to think for itself, semantics will comprise the dark crevices in which self-serving manipulators take purchase. If you covet the West Wing, oh Democratic party, you will stop declaring that the U.S. has "lost the war", because this muddles the debate and allows Republicans to exploit an American spirit that will not accept "loss" or "surrender" or "retreat" or perceived insults to our troops.
For years the Right has demonstrated the value of well-chosen words. By inventing and employing terms like "Death Tax" (estate tax), "Partial Birth Abortion" (surgical extraction), "Alternate Energy Exploration" (drilling), "Clean Air Bill" (providing emission licenses), "Free Speech Zones" (restricted protest areas), "Healthy Forest Initiative" (logging), and "Climate Change" (global warming), Republicans have won the hearts and votes of constituents who actually cast ballots against their own interests and beliefs. As conservative strategist Frank Luntz observes, "It's not what you say, it's what people hear."
Democrats should not embrace this same path of dishonest manipulation, but they should choose their words more carefully and express their positions more accurately. They can start with the dialog on Iraq...stop suggesting that the nation has been defeated in a military action and remind them that civilian incompetence is to blame for the subsequent mess.
WE WON THE WAR, and have botched everything since.
The men and women on that carrier deserved a salute -- the armed forces accomplished their mission and should have been allowed to largely stand-down thereafter...but the Neocons with their shiny explosive toys and indifference to the blood of others didn't think past the tumbling of Saddam's statue (and ignored those who had). The mission of civilian leaders is to maintain a semblance of stability in that country and it is THEY who have failed (See books such as Fiasco, Assassin's Gate, COBRA II, Imperial Life in the Emerald City). Those who have failed remain ensconced in comfy D.C. offices, while those who succeeded sweat it out in a deadly maze of sand-covered IEDs.
I warn you Democrats, do not play into this trap. Embrace that banner and its real implications. Do not declare a WAR lost, for we have not been in a WAR in years. The military's mission was accomplished...the government's mission is in a state of failure.