Anything But Victory

Last night the current President took credit for executing a plan devised under the previous President to transfer control of Iraq to Iraqis. He did not mention that the 50,000 troops still in country have the same weapons and take the same risks as the day before, that “the end of combat operations” is an adjustment of administrative label instead of a marked shift in situation.

Barry also did not utter the word “win”. He did manage to say “victory” once, in a non-specific sense:

In an age without surrender ceremonies, we must earn victory through the success of our partners and the strength of our own nation.

According the our self-neutered figurehead, there can be no victory. The United States cannot win by defeating an enemy. Because making someone else lose is worse than losing ourselves. All we get do is ride on the glorious coattails of whoever actually does win against our enemy.

Under Barack Obama, the USA is allowed only stolen valor.

Thankfully, some of us on the internets foresaw the inability of current politicians to declare victory in Iraq, even as that victory was demonstrated and real. All Obama did was announce the equivalent of the last troopship returning from Japan in 1945. The war has been over for a while, and although we did not get a surrender ceremony, we did have a Victory in Iraq celebration.

V-I Day was November 22nd, 2008.