The British withdrawal: “a basically good-news story"

This is the way a U.S. official described to the Washington Post the announcement by the Brits that they were withdrawing more than 2,000 troops from Iraq just as the Bush Administration was increasing the number of U.S. troops by more than 20,000. The Post then deconstructed the White House's media strategy in A Ludicrous Attempt at Spin. How about spinning run amok. Well, perhaps the Post and other media should start analyzing their coverage since 2003 and explain why they have been buying into the White House's spin that the United States with more than 140,000 (as of now) in Iraq has been leading a “coalition” or an “alliance” or a “multinational force” the largest military contingency of non-Americans in that country is from Britain with 7,100. And, yes, let's us all thank Netherlands (15 troops), Slovenia (4 troops), and our great ally, Iceland (2 troops). So let's see: The U.S. military is overstretched and the fate of Western civilization will be determined in the war against Islamo-Fascism in Iraq. And our allies are not deploying more troops into Iraq to help their American ally as it stands up against a threat which the Bush Administration has been comparing to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They are actually cutting and running. Here is my prediction: In a few months, we'll be doing exactly what the Brits are doing now and we will describe it as “a basically good-news story."