Catapulting The Propaganda

The right-wing Vietnam narrative-- that after over a decade of escalated conflict, we were this close to victory before anti-war forces pulled the rug out from under the war-- is a beast that won't die.

This same narrative is already being slowly reworked for Iraq. "We were finally starting to win (even though we never admitted were were losing at any point) and then the darn Democrats surrended to terrorists and stabbed our soldiers in the back!" This next year will be fun.

(This recent Fox News segment is a great illustration of this narrative.)

What Democrats need to do immediately is to counter this spin at every turn. They're mostly just ignoring it at this point. The following is a good, succinct way to to begin. Here is 'Joe', a commenter on a Reason magazine blog entry on Iraq, addressing critics of withdrawal-

"Surrender, to whom?

Is a single American troop going to put his hands in the air? Hand over his weapon to somebody? March off into a camp?

Is the withdrawal from Iraq to be accompanied by an acceptance, by the American military, of some hostile force's terms?

Of course not. Ending the Iraq War would no more be a surrender than ending Prohibition. It's just the abandonment of a failed policy, to reduce the damage it's doing and allow us to concentrate our resources where they might do some good.

It's just another misleading euphemism thrown out by people who can't argue their case on the merits, and have to hide behind emotional manipulation."

Democrats should take notes here. If a blog commenter can do it, so can they. This war began with irrational arguments, and its (eventual?) end will be met with the same.