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By Repair Man Jack Posted in War — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Kudos to Ralph Peters. He brings us the seven things you won’t hear about Iraq from our trusted guardians of all that is true over at CBS News. Peters leads off his list of seven lies being told about Iraq with the following.

Whopper No. 1: America is less safe today than it was on Sept. 10, 2001.

Peters meant this in the context of the terrorism threat. Perhaps, if we thrown in the civilian on civilian murder rates of Killadelphia, and Bulletmore, Murderland, this could even be somewhat true.

However, this is not what is meant. Usually, the commentator saying this is attempting to argue that we stirred up a hornet’s nest of Arab aggression by invading Iraq under the auspices of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Perhaps, the World Trade Center Attack of 1993, The USS Cole Bombing, The Kenyan Embassy Bombing and 9/11 make this argument plausible. Except for one minor, nagging detail….

All of these tragedies took place before OIF. What terrorist attacks have occurred since? None, nada, el zippo, zilch. The purveyors of the myth that America is less safe because we waged war against some of the supporters of Islamic religious terrorism are peddling garbage.

Whopper No. 2: Al Qaeda is stronger than ever.

Peters eviscerates this one nicely. However, he doesn’t get enough column inches to truly lay out what has happened to Al Qaeda In Iraq. He hasn’t described the extent to which the Iraqi Army has now spear-headed the efforts to chase people out of Basra, and several other previous hotspots of Al Qaeda and JAM hostile activity.

Whopper No. 3: Success in Iraq is an illusion - the surge failed.

Nothing new here. The Democrats all lined up and said this before; six months prior to the completion of the surge deployment. They’ve been desperate not to hear what General Petraeus had to say on the subject and have relied on the sound, tactical judgment of “retired” General Wesley Clarke instead.

Whopper No. 4: Iran is stronger than ever.

Read what Alan Greenspan has to say on the topic of “Dutch Disease” in his recent book Age of Turbulence. Read what Spengler has to say on this in his June 23 column in the Asia Times…

For some in Iran, the ship has come in. Those who have the oil revenues, sit pretty atop the social pyramid. They now have a real estate boom to rival DC, Tokyo and San Francisco.

During the past year, though, conspicuous consumption in the form of a luxury housing boom has absorbed even more of Iran's oil windfall. Luxury apartments in Tehran's better neighborhoods now sell for $15,000 per square meter, Agence France Presse reported May 26, equal to the best neighborhoods in Paris or New York. A 200-square-meter apartment in northern Tehran sells for about $1 million. Real estate prices in outlying suburbs and some provincial cities have doubled over the past year. - Spengler, Asia Times, 23 June 08.

However, like many economies that rely on one central commodity for the bulk of the revenue, their economy is badly unbalanced and those without access to oil wealth are losing badly.

A side effect is that the average Iranian urban household, which spends $316 a month, is gradually being priced out of the rental market.

Not only rents but foodstuffs, fuel and other essentials have registered double- or triple-digit price increases during recent months, according to fragmentary reports trickling out of the country. The government's 25% inflation figure cannot be correct. The German Suddeutsche Zeitung's Tehran correspondent wrote on June 17, "Price increases follow one another in batches. After the prices of rice and detergent suddenly jumped by a multiple, tea prices have their turn. In just a few days different types of tea have become 300% to 700% more expensive." - Spengler Ob. Cit.

Whopper No. 5: The US-European relationship is a disaster.

US relationships with President Chirac and President Schroeder lacked a certain warmth and understanding. The US relationship with PM Blair of England remained staunch in the face of a firestorm of criticism.

The French did not replace Chirac with Sarkozy and the Germans did not replace Schroeder with Merkel in order to send an anti-American message. Silvio Berlusconi runs on a generally pro-American platform in Italy as well. The leaders of most European nations differ with the US on trade and environmental issues, but are far more supportive and in agreement with our defense and foreign policies than they were prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Whopper No. 6: As president, Barack Obama would bring positive change to our foreign policy - and John McCain's too old to get it.

Has Barack Obama articulated any foreign policy? Somewhere between withdrawing from Iraq and bombing Pakistan, he’s been all over the map, but hasn’t convinced me he could find where most of the actual foreign countries are. He threw in early with the Anti-war movement to generate primary momentum. He now has to find a way to gently stab them in the back, so that he doesn’t face too many issues in the general election.

This demonstrates politicking, not policy. There is no fundamental gravamen to any Barack Obama position aside from the short term polls and the potential vote count. This involves throwing the paper together two hours before class, not doing his research. Obama seems to view foreign policy as a problem that detracts from civic dispersion, in the form of increased non-defense outlays. It’s something he won’t change because he’ll be too busy trying to make it go away.

Whopper No. 7: Our troops are all coming home as psychos victimized by their participation in military atrocities.

On this one, I think Peters has been reading Liquid Man too often. Either that, or he has listened to Senator Rockefeller offer his opinion of John McCain’s military record. Or maybe Wesley Clarke’s version of McCain’s military record. Or anything written or said by Congressman Murtha regarding the “incident” that took place at Haditha. How dare Mr. Peters question their patriotism?

I strongly commend Ralph Peters. He has put in plain English the disingenuous strategy that the Left has followed since taking over Congress in 2006. If they wanted to end Iraq; rather than milk it as an election issue, they could have refused to vote any funding for the operations in 2007.

Cross-Posted At: THE MINORITY REPORT