If the Levee Breaks... in Mosul, Iraq

Has someone elected Ray Nagin or Kathleen Blanco to be the Prime Minister of Iraq? Judging by this Washington Post story on the precarious nature of the Mosul Dam, you might think that the half million or so people who could die if the dam fails would be a fairly high priority of the Iraqi government. The Army Corps of Engineers reportedly wants to build a dam downstream to protect the city, and American officials have been advocating this, but the Iraqi ghavovernment thus far nixed the deal.

Of course, should the Dam fail during a Republican administration, the fact that the Iraqis ignored American advice would be right up there beside the Democratic-ruled State of Louisiana's refusal to build levees that would protect New Orleans from a Cat 5 storm, despite over 20 years of warnings that the levees would not stand up to a storm of that magnitude. Should the Mosul dam fail, the "small detail" that the Bush Administration has been pushing hard for the dam to be addressed as a high priority of the Iraqi government would be largely ignored by our red banner-waving media. If it does happen, expect Anderson Cooper to hop the first plane, get himself into a rubber raft, and go on and on whining about the barbarity of the Bush Administration--to be followed by Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Spike Lee...and (eventually) John Edwards. All this despite the fact that the Americans have been pressing the Iraqis to take action against this threat, and that those pleas have fallen mostly on deaf ears. The sad fact is--in this era of media complicity--hindsight being 20/20 does not seem to faze the so-called "objective" media from second guessing any tragedy that comes down the pipe--even those that America has no direct authority to correct.

Also--please forgive my cynicism--but is the WaPo not also highlighting this "weakness" in neon lights to any of our enemies? The mad mullahs in Iran--who if they didn't know about this weakness before, do now--no doubt can read the Post, and no doubt they are targeting some of their missiles as we speak, in case the US were to bomb them. To these maniacs, killing half a million Iraqis is nothing compared to a propaganda win over the evil Americans. Presumably the reporters at the Post know this. And so--while this story certainly cannot be compared to the scale of the same Washington Post and New York Times outing classified information about our own surveillance programs--it nevertheless appears from here to be a blatant attempt to head off a confrontation with Iran, even if hundreds of thousands of people die as a result of their "journalistic integrity."

Personally I would prefer that the President pull the plug on ALL War news to having crap like this come out every day that aids and abets our enemies. Maybe one of these days some President and/or Attorney General will actually have the courage to go postal on news organizations who openly help our enemies. Until then--if this story about the Mosul Dam is true--brace yourself for yet another humanitarian disaster to be portrayed as "Bush's fault." Blame seems to be the only game that Democrats still know how to play.