Nov 20 2006
Success In Iraq Continues
American and Iraqi forces killed scores of insurgents and found numerous enemy weapons caches during anti-terrorist operations conducted across Iraq in recent days, according to Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.
In one such operation conducted in the Tikrit area, U.S. soldiers with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, and soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army, teamed up to kill nearly 50 insurgents while capturing 20. A large enemy weapons cache complex containing six caches was also uncovered during the sweep.
It seems while we are ‘losing’ in Iraq (as the talking heads here in DC and NYC keep claiming) the insurgents are losing worse. Check out all the successful raids by US and Iraqi forces. You won’t see this on the nightly news here in DC – it will all be about that clown Rangel’s daffy draft proposal.
And checkout this picture of Fallujah 2 years after we cleared out the terrorists:
The Iraqi city of Fallujah, which two years ago was the site of one of the fiercest battles between insurgents and Americans, has become a stabilized safe haven.
In fact, the city, termed “a gated community†by one of the Marine commanders responsible for it, is receiving as many as 150 people per day seeking to escape the ongoing violence in Baghdad.
“While the fleeing of Sunni citizens from Baghdad is in itself a tragedy, the fact that Fallujah has become the overwhelming destination of choice for these seeking refuge and peace is a great testament to the work done here in Fallujah by the coalition forces, the Iraqi forces and our local government,†said Marine Col. Larry Nicholson, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5, in a recent briefing with reporters.
In two years, when Bush is finishing is term, it will be interesting to see how many more Fallujah’s will have been established.
Suppose we knew that in three years, five months, and one day Iraqi would beable to stand on its own. Should we still leave in 4 months? There are known unknowables and there are knowns . If we leave in the next 6 months we know the results. Other then to take the other side of the argument I just can not understand why we would want to leave. Why patience isn’t a better alternative to all hell breaking out in the middle east.
PS to the above, Lebanon on the brink of a civil war. Maybe we can stop talking about Iran helping with the civil war in Iraq. Maybe a few here will think about pulling out of Iraq and letting Iran go into Iraq with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt massing to help the Sunnis in Iraqi. Come on people a little thought and less emotional diatribe would be helpful.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1998828.ece
How about Afghanistan? Before Strata tells us how Bush’s democratic utopia is working so well there, let’s check out the
somber reality. Linked above.
So Ken lets move all our troops out of Iraq into Afghanistan. It would empty out fast right into Iraq, then what? Oh I didn’t think of that?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2001512.ece
by the way, AJ, didn’t you toot the “successful” trial of Saddam as
a biiiig feather in the Bush/US cap a week or so ago?
Not so fast! Why the silence on the findings of an objective neutral
body with expertise in legal fairness?
The trial was an ignoble failure and blemish to America. Link
above.
Ken,
Your little links don’t mean anything. Although there are problems with your “evidence”, I don’t think trying to reason with someone like you will get me anywhere. That’s not what you’re about.
However, on a more philosophical note:
Why do you keep beating up on AJ over this? You are obviously arguing cross-purposes. If one believes that our ultimate success in both Iraq and Afghanistan is essential for our long-term national security, one is going to want to see it through to the end; even if it appears progress is not being made, or even if it appears we have suffered a major setback. You were (I’m guessing) against entry and you certainly don’t think our success is vital to our security.
My question is:
What’s the point of citing these articles? Should AJ be dissuaded by bad news (even a lot of it)?
What I want to know is how are the Democrats going to make this appear as a success for them? Since they have lied, distorted, mischaracterized with the complicity of the MSM this Middle East conflict for the last five years to blame Bush and all Republicans, calling it a losing proposition and quagmire, are they now going to turn around and slap themselves on the back for all the successes they haven’t spoken about in all that time? They have been lying about themselves to their consitituents, supporters and themselves for over fifty years now. I am beginning to suspect anyone who does believe them lives in the Kindergarten Twilight Zone . If it weren’t so serious, it would be hilarious to see them do this 180 degree spin. And they say it with such straight faces. Unbelievable. Reality turned on its head.
People like little Kenny above and the Human rights watch are a prime example of why we haven’t accomplished more in the war on terror. Over all they are more interested in the poor mistreated terrorists and other assorted brutal killers.
I believe Human rights watch has repeatedly named the U.S. law enforcement as violating Human rights, why is Kenney not at his local PD. Protesting?
Kristen,
Actually, I hope the Democrats do just that. Probably the best thing that could happen for the country right now is for the Democrats to decide that working toward success in Iraq (and taking all the credit for themselves) is in their interests. It would be hard to swallow all of the ‘Iraq was a mess before we took control of Congress’ talk, but in the end, it would be worth it, I think.
The thing that is so maddening about the opposition is that it has nothing to do with soldiers, deaths, years of conflict, it has everything to do with the money being spent on this project. Dems want the money at home to support what ever project they can think up to buy their power. MSM just wants us to lose to bring this country down a notch. Actually I’m not really sure what MSM is thinking, but I know they hate a strong America that they see as being arrogant. So it doesn’t matter how many battles we win the opposition will only report what will support their outcome. How can we get out the fact that we are making progress? The families who went to Iraq got zero publicity, Cindy gets tons.
I’m in academia (currently in the DC area) and I have to admit that I’ve grown totally accustomed to leftist as the default setting in everyday discourse. I don’t discuss politics very much with people I know professionally (some of whom are good friends) except on the most superficial level. I think it may be hard for people who do not have regular contact with this kind of mindset to understand the scope of the problem. Just after our invasion of Afghanistan, when some stories were being run about how things weren’t going well (turned out to be bunk a couple of weeks later), I had a close friend (an academic) express to me how he enjoyed the fact we were apparently getting bogged down. You see, our potential humiliation in Afghanistan and Iraq represents the confirmation of an entire worldview. That worldview has a lot of facets, but an important one is that capitalist systems are evil. Since the U.S. is the symbol of world capitalism, it must be evil at its core. It may seem strange for me to bring up “the evils of capitalism†in the same discussion as the Iraq War, but they are inextricably linked, implicitly or explicitly, in the minds of many on the left. They hate capitalism so much that, in order to damage the U.S., they are willing to team up with people who hate virtually everything for which they have spent their lives fighting. It’s really twisted.
I suffer the same problem in that most I am surrounded by are very far to the left. That isn’t surprising in the San Francisco Bay area. Most people here are of the “war is never the answer” persuasion. An analog I would like to use with one if there was ever a chance to engage in a thought exercise would be something like:
What would you do if I walked up to you and hit you in the face? Their answer would be that they would call the police and press charges. But what if there is no police to call, what then?
That conversation always seems to find its way to the UN. Until I ask about holding the UN accoutable to voters. And again the conversation comes around to yes, sometimes war IS the answer when the other party you are dealing with decides that it is. In other words, you can not make a unilateral decision that war isn’t the answer when your survival is at stake. The problem with the left is that they don’t understand the magnitude of the problem and fear for the survival of their culture. They are still of the opinion that if the US fails, it advances their world view that war is not the answer so to them war must always fail … as long as the failure of that war doesn’t impact their life.
I live in rural Indiana so people around here think that a lot of those people in academia complaining about socialism are parasites living off the money of other people. Most of us do believe in capitlalism, even though we are not rich. One thing I do appreciate about that rare creature, a conservative in academia, is that he or she generally understands where the money for their little Ivory Tower comes from.
I think a lot of the negativity you see in the MSM has to do with their dislike of the military. It has been there for so long that it has become the perspective from which they view all things.
If there is too choices: they can believe an American soldier or they can believe an enemy in civilian clothes hiding behind a bunch of women and children while he takes potshots at the American soldier, they will believe the guy shooting at the American soldier.
If they have to make the choice between believing some guy burning an American flag and screaming Death to America and a military spokesmen, they will believe the guy torching old Glory.
And that is why the American people by and large have so little respect for the press.
Are we making progress in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes, but it is slow and the question whether people are willing to give it the time necessary for a military success.
And the people on the right who expect the Iraqis to start acting like Americans will have to get over that too. These people may eventually develop a functioning representative government, but they are not westerners. And they live in a very tough neighborhood. I get tired of negative people on one hand who say there is no progress and purists on the other who freak every time Maliki talks to a neighbor.
AJ: this has been written about before, but still, a crazy and humbling story to read, again!
R/dale
http://torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Burnett_Thane/2006/11/19/2417550-sun.html
Cochino,
Don’t blow your cover!
I suspect that the only absolute in academic circles is “academic freedom” and certainly not economic freedom.
Cochino
“You were (I’m guessing) against entry and you certainly don’t think our success is vital to our security.
My question is:
What’s the point of citing these articles? Should AJ be dissuaded by bad news (even a lot of it)? ”
Right, American Empire is not American nation.
Yes, Strata’s continual depictions of overly optimistic “facts”
on-the-ground needs exposure when proven rosy-colored.
Enough exposures should be “come home” awakening….
Ken,
I think the first sentence in your response is a response to the first quote (from my post). Assuming that’s true, I don’t understand it. As to the second part of your response: you didn’t address my question directly. Let me state it another way:
What if someone’s belief in what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is not tied at all to news about how well (or how badly) things are going?
Academia is full to the brim with geniuses with no common sense. They get so deep into their one subject they are oblivious to the world around them and latch on to abstract theories that sound right or what they would like the world to be. This is why the things they believe do not make sense sometimes. And also why they seem to have no sense of survival. They feed on each others’ ideas and theories. How can they think war solves nothing when if we are defeated in this war their world will become a shambles? Even if they don’t believe their world is in danger how can they have that much faith and take such a chance? The so-called intelligencia has been the downfall of many civilizations in the past and they are trying to bring down our civilization also.
Cochino
“What if someone’s belief in what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is not tied at all to news about how well (or how badly) things are going? ”
Then that person is an otherwordly cultist, something like
the average “Heaven’s Gate” member waiting for Hale-Bopp’s
mother ship.
Hale-Bopp? But, seriously, my otherworldly cultist friend, I think we’ve made some progress here. We’ve identified the philosophical divide. You see, there are a lot of people, both on the left and right, in the United States (probably a large majority, but I don’t know) who would say there are SOME things worth fighting for, and to continue fighting for, even in the face of possible or even probable defeat. However, it is true that there are a lot of differences as to what those things are. You, on the other hand, are of the opinion that fighting for something is only worthwhile when final victory is fairly clear. Once it appears as though you may, or even probably will, lose, it makes the most sense to quit. It’s a “when the going gets tough, I head for the hills†kind of mentality. I understand where you’re coming from a little better now.