Feb 16 2007
When The US Shows Up In Force, Our Enemies Leave
If there ever was a better indication that (a) the Bush plan to surge forces into Baghdad and Anbar Province was correct and (b) Murtha, Pelosi and the Dems plans to run away were abysmally wrong it is in today’s news:
U.S. and Iraqi forces are meeting little resistance as they sweep through Baghdad, a U.S. officer said on Friday, a day after Iraq’s president said a Shi’ite militia had ordered its leaders to leave the country.
The head of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was wounded on Thursday when Iraqi forces intercepted a group of al Qaeda militants heading to a volatile town north of Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.
…
In Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. troops were out in force on Friday, manning checkpoints and searching vehicles for weapons under a new crackdown that exhausted Iraqis hope will stabilize the city after four years of war and worsening sectarian chaos.
U.S. Major Steven Lamb, a spokesman for U.S. forces stationed in Baghdad, said the offensive was going well.
“I wouldn’t say there has been a high level of resistance. I mean if you take a look at the stuff that was going on yesterday, we had relatively few incidents, but that may change today,” Lamb said.
Granted, one day is not going to make a trend, but the fact we found, attacked, wounded and nearly captured al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq coming with the news the Mahdi army has decided to blow town and hide out of country is what we needed to change the dynamics in Iraq. And we are still weeks away from full strength.
Actually, I am not surprised and I doubt the military is either. As more and more of Iraq became stable (and something like 14 out of 16 Provinces are fairly peaceful) there would be a time when the US would try and move forces to focus on the remaining hotspots. Up until now they tried to do that with forces in country, which allowed the insurgents and terrorists to move to the peaceful areas. So we adjusted by holding what we had and applying a surge of external forces. Not all that complicated – if you are looking for ways to win.
But the media should (and it won’t) be asking Democrats how retreating to Okinawa would have created these results? It is a simple question and one the begs the issue – why run away when our enemies do all the running when we show up in Force? If the Dems had their way, we would have been out of Iraq last year, and al Qaeda in Iraq would be a strengthening danger. Now its leader is injured and on the run. We are making our enemies redeploy – and someone needs to point that at to that clown Mad Murtha. If the Shia Militia have left Iraq, why should we leave and let them back in?
This goes beyond surrender. These insane ideas from the left seem more about helping our enemies survive to fight us another day, if not just letting them win without a fight. The Dems need to be pressed: why leave Iraq when our enemies our now leaving?
Yes, watching those chop off the heads of their enemies…will get you very quickly to “reality”.
Some might want to check this editorial on Murtha’s “plan”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/16/AR2007021601792.html
From the vote today that F-A-I-L-E-D:
FROM Michelle Malkin’s site:
SNIP/”The only Republicans to vote with the Dems last time were Coleman and Susan Collins. Joining them today: John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith. Not voting: McCain, who was out campaigning, Lisa Murkowski, Bob Bennett, Thad Cochran, Bob Corker, Kit Bond, John Ensign, Jon Kyl, Orrin Hatch, and of course Tim Johnson, who’s still recuperating from his stroke. All are Republicans except Johnson. Reid was hoping to get Lamar Alexander and Larry Craig to cross the aisle, since both are up for reelection in two years and were rumored to be wavering, but he couldn’t pull it off.
Update: Of the seven Republicans who voted for cloture, only Snowe and Specter aren’t facing reelection in 2008.
There will not be five of these 7 in D.C. in ’09.
DennisZzzzzz
“Al Zawahiri was talking about the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan. If you believe the people in these governments are “collaboratorsâ€, then you and al Zawahiri are in agreement”
I quoted Zawahari just like I’m quoting you now, sleeper.
It doesn’t mean I agree with you because I quote you. I
corrected YOUR misquote of Zawahari.
Further , I made clear Iraqis are about as equally opposed to
jihad rule as they are to American occupation and to a
pro-American Iraqi puppet government .
Lasso-untruth,
You & Soothy speak from the wayward left, who do swoon over Castro & Chavez. If you don’t support them them, just say so — but you didn’t. You speak with absolutely no facts about the Iraqi govt. You’re naive & ill-informed — much like the current speaker of the House and too many college professors.
HAdit is finally right about something:
That’s right – they will have been replaced by Democrats. You can add Kit BOnd to the lsit, too. He’s done in Missouri.
Young Sooth, Your insults are a compliment to me.
And we’ll see ’bout those five REPUBLICAN seats…
As a former assistant defense secretary told me today, yes Sooth, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense…watch in one year when we have successfully secured Baghdad…The heads will be twirling from the democrats reversal of position…
And it will all have been documented….HEHEHEH!
Did Dougie Feith whisper that in your ear, Hadit?? Or is this another anonymous source??
Tell you what, suggest you go over to Hugh Hewitt’s place and check out this interview with William Eldridge Odom, a former U.S. Army General, Director of the NSA under President Ronald Reagan, and a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=d7f52e21-cf46-4115-b397-ed1dc70fcdab
Some high points:
So don’t argue with me – argue with Reagan’s National Security Advisor.
Both sources will remain anonymous to you and your narcissitic view of the world…as if it only revolves around you.
Did everyone read macsmind.com regarding Mr. Odom? Amazing.
And, no I don’t personally know Doug Feith. Does anyone here?
Wiley-
“Lasso-untruth,
You & Soothy speak from the wayward left, who do swoon over Castro & Chavez. If you don’t support them them, just say so — but you didn’t. ”
You’d make a great Spanish Inquisitioner , but campuses and
government buildings will be the scenes of Vietnam Era-like
activities after a necessary draft is implemented ,before
Americans will allow you and yours to demand answers such
as you would love to obtain by force.
Today the prototypical chickenhawk WLW radio Clear Channel talk jock Mike McConnell called Vietnam War Hero Murtha a “traitor.”
McConnell joins the list of Limbaugh et al who ran when it was their time to serve but who promote unwinnable wars which former heroes who did not run attempt to shorten and save American lives.
McConnell criticised the citizens polled who by two-thirds majority reject the “surge,” saying they have no military expertise. Yet McConnell himself, as Limbaugh, has no expertise and had none when he visited Iraq in 2005 as part of a crew of chickenhawk talk jocks,trumpeting the lie that the insurgents who attacked US troops were held in contempt by Iraqis and on the way out.
Polls had shown and still show most Iraqis SUPPORT attacks
on the occupiers .
So when McConnell says the surge should be supported
because the officers Bush didn’t fire and replace say it can work,
he is the prototype hypocrite and when he says the two-thirds
who oppose it do so because they don’t like Bush, he has it exactly
wrong: most don’t like Bush BECAUSE of his failed war, based
on WMD lies.
McConnell also called war reporters “whiners” if they depicted the truth, which was and is ,the failed occupation.
He purveyed lies in early 2005 about basics like how much electricity
Baghdad was getting and how police stations had grown practically immune to suicide attacks. (tell that to today’s victims)
McConnell brayed that America was going to stay in Iraq
until it defeated the insurgency ,stabilized a friendly government and rebuilt infrastructure to the point “it will be a better place than when we arrived.” And the media/caller/citizen”whiners” should just shut up and wait out the fait accompli.
Now, to save his reputation amidst a failed war, a resilient
insurgency and a failed corrupted rebuilding program,
chickenhawk McConnell is alarmed and affronted by the war hero Murtha who he had ridiculed as an ineffectual over-the-hiller in 2005.
A war hero who is speaking for the military he served and identifies with more than cluckers like McConnell/Limbaugh who have done little but stage a four year regurgitation of Bush /war propaganda , ridiculing callers who effectively portray the Bush presidency and that war as failures.
Perhaps the worst lie of all is for the likes of McConnell to ignore the majority of troops which told Zogby in February 2006, if Iraq was not stable by December of that year, it would be a failed mission of which they wanted no part. The hero Murtha speaks for them, while McConnell and company have betrayed America’s interests from
before the war’s inception in serving as unquestioning cheerleaders
for a doomed venture.