RUSH: We have quoted on several occasions on this program stories from the German magazine Der Spiegel. Der Spiegel is as virulently anti-America and anti-war in Iraq as any American publication, as any British publication, if not more so. Thus, the following story is fascinating. This is from Ed Morrissey at his Captain’s Quarters blog. ‘Der Spiegel has reflected and led overwhelming German opposition to the war in Iraq practically from the moment of the invasion in 2003. They have often featured George Bush on their cover in unflattering pictures and with negative headlines such as ‘Power and Lies’,’ but the magazine, Der Spiegel, finally decided to send ‘their own reporter for an in-depth tour of Iraq, and the magazine realizes that the world media has missed the story.’ Now, something’s happening here, folks, when a magazine like Der Spiegel does a 180 — which they’ve done; I’ll read you the relevant excerpts here in a second — and the New York Times is says (paraphrased), ‘Well, we can’t get out of Iraq now. We’re going to be there quite a while.’ Now, we know all of that is to give cover to the Democrats to help rescue them from their untenable position of defeat for the United States Military and the United States, and we’ve had these two guys from Brookings with their story in the New York Times a couple weeks ago about how the surge is working, and everybody is coming to the conclusion that the surge is working, and so it’s regroup time.
Here’s Der Spiegel: ‘Since June, Ramadi residents have only known the war from televison [sic]. Indeed, US military officials at the Baghdad headquarters of Operation Iraqi Freedom often have trouble believing their eyes when they read the reports coming in from their units in Ramadi these days. Exploded car bombs: zero. Detonated roadside bombs: zero. Rocket fire: zero. Grenade fire: zero. Shots from rifles and pistols: zero. Weapons caches discovered: dozens. Terrorists arrested: many. Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq — it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq — not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers — are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn’t hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious ‘Sunni Triangle,’ is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.’ Well, it’s news to them, because they discovered it. They actually sent a reporter over from Der Spiegel and discovered this.
[Blog] ‘Not all is sweetness and light in this lengthy, multi-part dispatch. Parts of Baghdad are worse than one might imagine, Ullrich Fichtner writes, and one can sense the civil war that awaits when outside authority disappears. Other parts of the capital have improved in ways that exceed expectations, but both have this in common: only the Americans could keep the lid on Baghdad long enough to keep war from exploding in the city.’ Der Spiegel says only Americans can keep the lid on this. Do you know what’s driving this? I’m going to take a big, bold leap here. I’m going to tell you what’s driving this. It is groupthink, and it is groupthink on the part of all of these media people in capitals around the world, and it’s quite simple. They understand the Democrat Party in this country, who they want to win the White House because they want a weak United States — they want people running the United States who will give up our treasury to the United Nations; they want a Democrat in the White House who will consult the rest of the world before taking any action whatsoever. They do not want another Republican. They do not want a Rudy Giuliani, for example, or a Fred Thompson or a Mitt Romney in the White House. They don’t want a tough, no-nonsense leader and man in the White House. They prefer a Democrat.
Such is their hatred for George W. Bush. Even though he’s not running, they hate him and any other Republican to them is going to be just like him. So the world media has got to save the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party has gone, as I keep saying, over the cliff. It has to be reported that this is working. I’m sure they cringe at saying ‘only Americans can keep the lid on Baghdad,’ and the US military is doing great things in Ramadi and the Sunni triangle. It has to grate on them, because in their hearts they want us to lose. But if we don’t, where does it leave them and the people they prefer to be running this country? It leaves ’em out in the cold. I’m telling you, you’ve got the New York Times here offering cover for the Democrats to come back from the abyss, to join the call for victory. I think also, you have the world media doing the same thing. I think also, they know what this Petraeus report is going to say. They’re hoping against hope that he issues a report that says things are hopeless, but that doesn’t quite jibe with what everybody is seeing over there. So I think what they think Petraeus is going to report is a great success, so much success we can actually start bringing some troops home. Who’s going to get credit for that? George W. Bush, and that’s the Democrat Party’s issue: ‘Bring the troops home! Get us out of Iraq.’
If the Petraeus report says, ‘You know what? We don’t need as many troops here. We’re doing great. The surge is working. We can start a little bit of a drawdown,’ not a mass exodus, don’t misunderstand, but if he says in any way, ‘We can get by with fewer troops,’ why, the Bush plan will have been successful, and Democrats have to find a way to get in on that because that’s their issue. So this is a prelude to the report coming out in September. It’s why Dingy Harry shelved would have all the Iraq timetable withdrawal bills. It’s why you’re not hearing him. Has anybody heard from Dingy Harry on the war in Iraq since the recess started? Has anybody heard from Nancy Pelosi? We haven’t, have we? Because there’s nothing that they can say that would be commensurate with their line of attack prior to the recess. So what’s going to have to happen here is if Petraeus’ report says, ‘We don’t need as many troops here. This is really working well. We have a long way to go, a lot of challenges ahead, but we think we can do this with less troops.’ Democrats are going to have to have a position where they can say, ‘See? We did it! We made it happen. We brought it about, and we’ve been calling for less troops.’ They’re not going to be get away with it because we have Dingy Harry on tape. Everybody else does, too.
He proclaimed defeat. So did Pelosi. We got ’em saying,
So Al-Qaeda and Mookie al-Sadr’s boys are being targeted here, and it’s working. ‘Full Force of Troop Surge Hits Militants’? When’s the last time you can remember a story in any Drive-By Media publication of valor and great success and tremendous strategy and victory by the US military? I’m telling you, something has changed. It’s the Drive-Bys, folks. Don’t believe that they’re doing this to help the military to help George Bush. This is about saving the Democrats, who have gone off the cliff. Even this. This is stunning. There’s another Los Angeles Times story, ‘In Iraq, Another Summer of Power Shortages.’ I saw the headline, and I said, ‘You know what? I don’t have to read this: It’s going to be ‘US Military Failing to Rebuild the Iraqi Infrastructure.’ It’s in bad shape and we’re destroying it, as Obama says, by bombing from the air, raiding, destroying civilians. The US Military, US operations, Baghdad, are uncivilized, with no chance of being held together. Why, the infrastructure falling apart, the electricity grid is in bad shape,’ but that’s not what the story is about. Well, it’s about the failing grid. But get this — and early on in the story. ‘Decades of corruption, neglect and war have left Iraq’s electricity grid on the verge of collapse.’ Iraq’s electricity grid was already in severe disrepair before 2003 — which is the invasion date, for those of you in Rio Linda. So corruption and neglect, the Saddam days, outweigh war as the cause of the electrical grid problem in Baghdad. Another burst of truth from the Drive-Bys. The power is on in the south and north because, Baghdad, when Saddam was there, he stole all the electricity from the south and north of the country and gave it all to Baghdad where he was. Now they’ve distributed some of that power to the north and southern parts of the country, and there’s not as much in Baghdad, but they’re distributing it throughout the country. They’re making improvements. War has improved the electricity situation. This is in the Los Angeles Times! (Gasp!) It’s time to save the Democrats, folks.