There is a war going on

Melanie Phillips:

...

Yes, the violence in Iraq is dreadful. There’s a war on, whose intensity reflects the enormity of the stakes being played. The forces of Islamist fascism simply cannot afford to allow the forces of (relative) freedom and democracy to win. Unlike so many in the west, the Islamist fascists fully understand that a free, stable and prosperous Iraq will destabilise and help destroy tyranny in the entire region and its capacity to hold the rest of the world to ransom. An Iraq that slides back into that tyranny will help cement it.

That’s why the free world cannot afford to lose in Iraq. But it may do so, with untold consequences for all of us; and if it does, much of the cause should be laid at the door of those who, willing defeat from the very start for reasons of vicious political partisanship, ancient prejudices and modern loss of cultural nerve, have so distorted public perception – through decontextualising the casualty figures in Iraq, for example – that public support for this great fight has just drained away.

Yes, abuses such as occurred at Abu Ghraib and now maybe Haditha have had a profound effect too. But once again, the way these have been reported -- as if the behaviour of the US military has been as bad as, if not even wose then, the terror perpetrated by Saddam -- has played a major role in breaking the public's spirit. Abuses happen in all military conflicts. Soldiers fighting for the most noble of ends sometimes behave in appalling ways. It's reprehensible, and should be punished. But dwelling upon it obsessively, inflating or distorting what happened and equating such aberrations with systematic tyranny, are all fuelling an atmosphere of hysteria in the west and handing Zarqawi his most potent weapon. If we had behaved like this during World War Two, we would have lost it.

The attrition from the relentless propaganda of appeasement and defeatism is working. The peoples of the free world have been successfully demoralised. The poison is now endemic. Did you do a double-take at the figures given above? Point made.

She is discussing the casualty figures in context as presented by Gateway Pundit.