Liberals? Hate America? No way...

So I'm working on this lead editorial for work next week about how so-called 'rights groups' like Amnesty International and National Organization of Women aren't supporting their respective causes in Iraq, or if they are, they're using them as a backhanded attack on the Bush Administration, and by extension, America.

The idea comes from a piece Christopher Hitchens did for Slate, that more or less lambastes liberals for abandoning their purported causes in Iraq, opting instead to sit back and watch the U.S. struggle in Iraq, while getting some sort of sadistic pleasure from each setback that our military and administration suffer.

The title of Hitchens' piece is 'Losing the Iraq War - Can the left really want us to?' And as far as I can tell, the answer is yes. If it weren't for my newfound respect for Mr. Hitchens and his intellectual honesty, my answer would be more along the lines of a 'Duh.' or a 'No shit, Sherlock.' But following Mr. Hitchens' performance of the Daily Show, I believe a respectful 'yes' will suffice.

I fail to see what is so shocking about the prospect that some Americans, specifically radically liberal Americans, would want America -- let alone the Bush Administration -- to fail in Iraq.

Maybe I'm just cynical, or perhaps the two and a half months in DC have left me jaded, but to think that liberals want defeat for the Bush Administration and defeat for America strikes me as little, if anything, more than business as usual. It's about as shocking as hearing about an extremist Muslim driving a car bomb into a Baghdad police station -- yes, it's an awful tragedy, but it's really hard to be shocked by something that fits so well into conventional wisdom.

However, Htichens also offers a harsh view of reality of the situation in Iraq. But any rational person, myself included, and even those who support the action in Iraq, myself included, will admit to such a harsh reality. After all, it's a WAR.

As much as I support what we're doing in Iraq, I will readily admit that things are not going well. But contrary to movie and television depictions, when it comes to war, things never go well. If things always went well, wars would not exist. And ceding to war's existence, if things always went well, no one would die in war.

In my opinion, things in Iraq are going as well as could be expected given the circumstances, and historically, they're going better than any comparable conflict.

However, the conditions are also the most hostile they've ever been for any conflict in history. World support for this conflict is virtually non-existent, and even American support is waning to the extent that a majority of Americans polled believe that going to Iraq was a mistake.

On a side note, this pisses me off. Public opinion polls like this are always skewed toward what people think they're supposed to say, rather than what they actually believe. For example, in an election between Rudolph Guiliani and an African American, pre-election polls showed the African American 15% ahead, but when the actual election came around, it was a virtual dead-heat, and I'm pretty sure Rudy ended up winning.

Also, when Klan Member, White Supremacist, and all-around douchebag David Duke made a senatorial run in Louisiana, pre-election polls showed him 20% lower than he actually was in the election. So apparently, at any given point, at least 15% of people being polled are full of crap and just telling the pollster what they think they want to hear, or what they think makes them sound smarter. So with all the negative press regarding this war, it's really not all that surprising that more and more Americans are telling pollsters they don't like it. But I digress.

I suppose it's sad that there are those who genuinely want America to fail, but we shouldn't be surprised by it. It is what it is. But if the last few elections are any indication, the American people still don't want these people in power, so for the time being, the damage these people can actually do to America is pretty limited.