Obama lost the war Bush had won

A recent Prager U video titled "How Iraq Was Won and Lost" brings to mind Churchill's oft quoted adage "History is written by the victors".  However in the case of the Iraq war the popular view has been written by the loser.

Undoubtedly the US lost the war...in the end. It had however won the war and made real progress towards building a peace, when the presidency was transferred from Bush to Obama. Indeed in 2009 Joe Biden declared ;  

I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government," said Biden.

Yet if you ask the average person today they will blame Bush for the disaster and declare the US should never have invaded Iraq in the first place.

So Obama lost the war that Bush had won and together with his supporters managed, at least to date, to write the history. A history where the blame has been shifted from the real culprit, a Democrat to a Republican.

You can see the video here;  -

While you could argue that seizing defeat from the jaws of victory is a one off and that history would be rewritten over time to attribute blame where it belongs, but you would be wrong. The Vietnam war, the other unexpected and significant defeat for the US seems to have been a forerunner setting the pattern for the situation in Iraq. It too highlights the weakness of the Democrats when required to stand up for principle, especially when by not doing so they can shift the blame.  Again the truth about the Vietnam war has only rarely surfaced and suffers widespread misconceptions about the defeat. Thanks go to the Prager U for trying to set the record straight, but to date, more than 40 years after the end of the war, it is not straight yet. So much for correcting popular misconceptions even after the "fullness of time".

This is a major failing of our popular culture, truth will not out, even over time.  Repeatedly the media has failed to protect the people from pernicious falsehood. Yes pernicious, for these untruths sap the moral strength of the nation and undermine its willingness to fight for what is right. 

If you are in doubt about any of this I encourage you to watch the two videos.