(RightWing.org) – With the approach of the 2024 presidential election, the Liberal/Progressive members of the media have already started the process of bashing anything Republican or Conservative they can, even if it means being willing to massage things to fit their narrative. With May 1 being the 20th anniversary of former President George W. Bush’s speech on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln regarding “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” they have found a new target of opportunity.
Fact vs. Agenda
A recent article was published on the far-Left website Counterpunch by Norman Solomon, whose biography on his own web page describes himself as an “activist” who takes pride that “[he] was elected as a Bernie Sanders delegate at the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Convention.” In the post, he claims that Bush’s speech and the “Mission Accomplished” banner beneath which he gave it “have become notorious” and makes the oft-used Leftist argument that the war was fought for oil and not freedom.
Solomon uses events that are now in the past, but in 2003 were well into the unforeseen future, to mock what he clearly believes is Bush’s banner, but an archived CNN article from October 29, 2003, shows that the overhead banner was put in place by the US Navy for a completely different celebration. The Lincoln had just completed a 290-day deployment, which at that time was “longer than any other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in history.”
Solomon attempts to chastise Bush for “his faulty claim that the war was over [and ignoring] other key untruths in the oratory.” Unfortunately for him, videos and transcripts of that speech exist, which provide evidence that the president was speaking of the lightning push that took Baghdad away from the dictator Saddam Hussein and his cabal, such as:
- “We have difficult work to do in Iraq… [in] parts of that country that remain dangerous.”
- “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, [sic] 2001 and still goes on.”
- “Our coalition will stay until our work is done”
To his credit, Solomon does mention former President Barack Obama’s comments in 2012 that were very similar to those by Bush but instead were about the war in Afghanistan. However, that very mention of the event shined a spotlight on a glaring omission about the ex-president’s escapades in Iraq.
Two articles on the Obama White House archives page show that even the paragon of Liberalism in America had great problems trying to disengage. In 2011, the title story boldly claimed, “President Obama Has Ended the War in Iraq.” Yet in 2014, they reported he had authorized two military actions in the country because of “the terrorist group ISIL [now generally referred to as ISIS],” after passing them off as the “jayvee (junior varsity) team” while on the campaign trail in 2012. Perhaps if Solomon had included a critique of this era of the Iraqi/terrorist war, it would not read as such a hit piece aimed at Conservatives/Republicans.
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