[QUOTE] IRAQ: WHAT WENT RIGHT COURAGE, SKILL, LUCK AND EXHAUSTION November 21, 2007 -- THE situation in Iraq has im proved so rapidly that Democrats now shun the topic as thoroughly as they shun our troops when the cameras aren't around.
Yes, Iraq could still slip back into reverse gear. And no, we're not going to get a perfect outcome. But the positive indicators are now so strong that the left's defeatist lies are losing traction among the American people.
Attacks of every kind are down by at least half - in some cases by more than three-quarters. A wounded country's struggling back to health. And our mortal enemies, al Qaeda's terrorists, have suffered a defeat from which they may never fully recover: They've lost street cred.
Our dead and wounded have not bled in vain.
What happened? How did this startling turnabout come to pass? Why does the good news continue to compound?
Some of the reasons are widely known, but others have been missed. Here are the "big five" reasons for the shift from near-failure to growing success:
We didn't quit: Even as some of us began to suspect that Iraqi society was hopelessly sick, our troops stood to and did their duty bravely. The tenacity of our soldiers and Marines in the face of mortal enemies in Iraq and blithe traitors at home is the No. 1 reason why Iraq has turned around. TE]
[QUOTE] [What’s the impact of success in the war in Iraq here at home? Well inside the Beltway, your Congressional leaders see success in Iraq as a bad thing, and they are pulling out all the stops to scuttle that success. The continuing drumbeat from Senate and House leaders is that we losing in Iraq, despite the positive news being reported from both military leaders and now, in the press.
The Congressional leadership is nothing if not sneaky. Their latest ploy is to find ways to cut key military funding while talking about how they “support” the troops in Iraq. They understand that it is political suicide to not fund the combat forces, so they are delaying funding to support critical infrastructure and training accounts here in the U.S. If you can’t man the force, train the force, and equip the force, you’ve no forces to deploy.
The budget masters on Capital Hill are zeroing out critical training and support monies from the current military budget and delaying spending bills, hoping to force the Pentagon into making impossible choices – pay for training and infrastructure or pay for the war. For instance, the USMC may lose $40 million used to support key pre-deployment training at its Twenty-nine Palms, California training base. This allows them to talk about supporting U.S. forces without actually doing it.
Despite increasingly positive news coming out of Iraq, the Congressional leadership is determined that they will find a way to ensure we will not win – you see, it doesn’t fit their political views. /QUOTE]
Seriously, what Democrats should fear is that are running against the wrong opponent. They ran against the war already, last year, and won. Their opponent next year won't be the war. It won't be George Bush. It will be someone new. If too much is invested in taking on the war (again) and the war turns in our favor (it has) and the public starts believing the war has turned in our favor (as a whole, they have not) then they are SOL.
Posts: 7649 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02
And our mortal enemies, al Qaeda's terrorists, have suffered a defeat from which they may never fully recover: They've lost street cred.
Our dead and wounded have not bled in vain.
Al Qaeda in Iraq is on the run. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Taliban, accomplices of the al Qaeda people who actually perpetrated 9/11, are resurgent. There wasn't a significant al Qaeda presence in Iraq before Bush's invasion.
Triumphalism concerning the partial success of the surge rings as hollow as the bally-hoo around the original fall of Baghdad, toppling of Hussein's statues and so on. Colin Powell said "you broke it, you bought it". It's broken - and at best the surge is a start to picking up the pieces. It's not "success"; hundreds of thousands have died, billions have been spent, opportunities to deal with the people who planned and the situations which led to 9/11 have been squandered. Now, the surge - through allowing Sunni groups to arm, through partitioning Baghdad, through a ceasefire (which could be called off tomorrow) on the part of some Shia, and through a change in tactics by the US - has led to a fall in this violence which didn't exist before the invasion.
There has been no political progress which might make any return to normal life more secure and permanent.
Trying to portray that as a success which will affect US elections is just spin. Aren't the official Republican and Democrat positions on Iraq pretty much the same anyway - gradual withdrawal as events allow? The surge has to finish by next summer, whatever the situation in Iraq, because there aren't enough troops to continue it.
This article tells of how much progress has been made - the positive change in areas like Ghazaliya. There's also concern about the future, though (which shows more realism than that complacent New York Post article):
'Some combination of the surge, the Sunni Awakening, and Sadr’s freeze has helped to stabilize troubled areas of the capital and Anbar; it is unclear whether the gains can be expanded upon—or even sustained—with fewer troops, but further increases alone will not win the war. And no more troop additions are planned; instead, President Bush has promised to withdraw, by next July, almost as many troops as were brought in for the surge. Iraq’s future, for the moment, is in limbo. The best one can say, perhaps, is that the U.S. has bought or borrowed a little space to work with. But there have been costs, some more obvious than others...
...Zaidan said that Anbar’s Sunni tribes no longer had any need to exact blood vengeance on U.S. forces. “We’ve already taken our revenge,” he said. “We’re the ones who’ve made them crawl on their stomachs, and now we’re the ones to pick them up.” He added, “Once Anbar is settled, we must take control of Baghdad, and we will.” There would have to be a lot more fighting before the capital was taken back from the Shiites, he said. “The Anbaris will take charge of the purge. What the whole world failed to do in Anbar, we have done overnight. Baghdad will be a lot easier.”..
...Developing a nonsectarian national police force is an essential part of the U.S. military’s plan to disengage its own troops, but, as the officer saw it, the police were still part of the problem. “Please don’t print my name, or Petraeus will kill me,” he said. “The national police are supposed to be our salvation; all our hopes are pinned on them!”"
The invasion of Iraq has been, any way it's looked at, a disaster for US security in the long run. That bush finally woke up enough to send in more troops does not change that central fact. It's like setting your own house on fire and claiming victory when you put it out. Except that in the case of Iraq, it's not yet clear to what extent the fire is actually extinguished. But the damage has been done.
Posts: 1505 | Location: Puget Sound, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
The plain facts are easy for anyone to see, the surge has done a very good job, and NNN can deny it all he wants, but it's there and even the media is picking up on it now. That's saying something.
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
Hey! I'm not denying what success the surge has had. I'm nitpicking. There's a difference.
A little more nitpicking of and realism about the military success of the initial invasion could have saved a world of trouble later.
Is there any evidence that Democrats are 'shunning' the topic of Iraq? It's been pretty prominent in the Clinton/Obama fight, and still makes the front page of 'liberal' newspapers and websites.
But the positive indicators are now so strong that the left's defeatist lies are losing traction among the American people.
'Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.'www.latimes.com
I can see where the Democrats have cause for worry. With their lies & propaganda, while unsuccessfully painting George W. Bush as the worst President in history, they have inadvertantly earned the distinction of heading the worst Congress in history. While many may not see it right now, I personally think 2008 is ripe for a Republican take-over of Congress again. Provided they get off their scared butts & debate the issues, follow through and not cave in when challenged by the Democrat propaganda machine.
As for the Presidential race, I think they are really worried. For the last 4 years Hillary appeard to be a sho-in. Now she looks very vulnerable. And should she get beat out by Barack Obama, then what??? While he presently puts on a great appearance, I think the more the voters get to know about him, the weaker his chances of winning the Presidential race becomes.
While many do do see this right now, I see potential for the 2008 election year to be very disastorous for the Democrats.
Posts: 2277 | Location: Martinsville, IL | Registered: 06-03-02
I can see where the Democrats have cause for worry. With their lies & propaganda, while unsuccessfully painting George W. Bush as the worst President in history,
Is this what is now called "cognitive dissonance", or what I would call "whistling past the graveyard"? Or alternatively, just plain old wishful thinking?
I don't know what to think about how the 2008 election might shape up. A huge time element has been introduced: the major party candidates may be determined very early in the year. I think a lot of people are going to sit around and become bored with the entire process.
Posts: 7649 | Location: in the backwoods of North Carolina | Registered: 06-07-02
Originally posted by frankvan: Is this what is now called "cognitive dissonance", or what I would call "whistling past the graveyard"? Or alternatively, just plain old wishful thinking?
I look back to the '94 off year elections. Bill Clinton & the Democrats had made a clean sweep. They won the White House, gained seats in both houses of Congress 2 years earlier. I remember about a year before the '94 elections, seeing predictions the Republicans were going to win both houses of Congress after 40 years. I thought they were dreaming. Low & behold, they did it.
So call it whatever you like, I've done learned when it comes to elections, we can throw crystal balls out the window. Unexpected wild cards can & do happen.
Posts: 2277 | Location: Martinsville, IL | Registered: 06-03-02
The idea is that (in the same way that Scotty's link suggests - although without much in the way of fact to back up what it says - that the Democrats are suffering politically from "success" in Iraq) the scaremongers of the Republican right will miss the boogie-man of Iran, politically.
'But as Giuliani's turnabout demonstrates, they may be recognizing that they may no longer be able to convince the public that military action against Iran is warranted, or that Tehran poses a dire threat to the American way of life. According to recent polls, even this fall, when it was plausible that the Iranians were actively attempting to acquire a nuclear weapon, more than two-thirds of Americans opposed a military attack on Iran, while less than a third favored it.'
On the original point, more polls that point to the Democrats not needing to 'fear success' in Iraq:
'The public appears to have concluded that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an event rather than an ongoing condition. Most polls show that terrorism and national security are the chief concerns for about 15 to 18 percent of the electorate, but one recent Washington Post-ABC News Poll found that only 5 percent of the respondents listed those issues as their top priority.'
