Update: We have in one story complete clarity on what is happening in Iraq as described below. In reporting on the successes, the SurrenderMedia tries to remind us of the challenges, but also reminds us of what kind of brutal animals work for al-Qaeda, the kind that we cannot run away from and leave to reign terror in Iraq:

U.S. officials on Sunday declared a 55 percent drop in attacks since the launch of an offensive nine months ago, while bombs across Iraq killed at least 20 people, highlighting the country’s continuing security threats.

The dead included three children who were playing soccer when a roadside bomb exploded at a playground near Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

While the new media neglects (deliberately at times) to mention the 3 dead children are the victims of the enemy we are now aligned with Iraqis to defeat, it really doens’t need to be said. Our efforts are focused on eliminating the killers and protecting Iraqis. al-Qaeda is hell bent on massacring Muslims. The media’s old tricks are backfiring on them as they are on the democrats. The story is still the same, we cannot leave our new found allies in the Muslim world to be massacred by our common enemy – al-Qaeda. – end update

The stories now come out daily on how the Surge has liberated Iraqis from the horrors of al-Qaeda atrocities. It turns out America could win this war by simply being Americans – good natured, fair and brave people who believe people have basic rights to liberty. In comparison al-Qaeda was doomed, unless of course we ran away like the Dems have been proposing for years now. The only way for America to lose was to give up. But now that we haven’t we see what our efforts have won and they are worthy of pride.

First read of the horrors of al-Qaeda who came in as supposed allies to the Iraqis, only to terrorize them with sadistic lust:

A big story in the blogs is about a new militia called “Awakening” (Al-Sahwa) that has taken over the streets of the Baghdad suburb of Adhamiya that was formerly controlled by Al-Qaeda and, with the help of US Troops, brought some sense of normalcy to the streets. Now, to understand how bad life is in areas controlled by Al-Qaeda, here is a description by Last of Iraqis:

I took a vow on myself not to go Adhamyia unless it was a matter of life and death because of the situations that deteriorates more and more every day there, specially after Al-Qaida has stopped a doctor’s car that I know with his wife, dragged him out and killed him and his wife in the middle of the street in cold blood and no one could do anything for them. After Al-Qaida entered a house of newly wed couple, locked the husband in the bathroom and they raped his wife one after the other and finally killed her while the husband couldn’t do anything other than screaming in the bathroom, things were getting really dangerous out there.

Read the whole thing. There are multiple posts by Iraqi bloggers on the sea change in Iraq. On their now brighter future. A future democrats were planning on denying the Iraqis as we gave Iraq over to al-Qaeda as we withdrew our forces. There are doubts out there, the change is not completely run its course. And there are concerns about those who once believed the Bin Laden’s siren song – but being lied to and becoming part of a group that then goes on to kill your people and controls you under threats on you and your family means many ex-terrorists may have honest changes of heart. The people in Iraq will distrust those who changed until they prove themselves. Which is what they are doing. These things do not happen or settle in overnight. Trust takes time to build.

Speaking of trust and credibility, in hindsight the Dems plan was one of the most despicable, cowardly and self destructive ideas to ever be uttered. The fact is the Surge is bringing al-Qaeda’s brutality out into the open, and causing the Iraqi Muslims to rise up and join forces with America in fighting this humane scourge. It has stopped much of the blood letting.

And as much as the SurrenderMedia must be choking on the news, they must report the fact violence is down in Iraq – way down, and continuing to fall.

The American military said Sunday that the weekly number of attacks in Iraq had fallen to the lowest level since just before the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, an event commonly used as a benchmark for the country’s worst spasm of bloodletting after the American invasion nearly five years ago.

…

The data released Sunday cover attacks using car bombs, roadside bombs, mines, mortars, rockets, surface-to-air missiles and small arms. According to the statistics, roughly 575 attacks occurred last week.

That is substantially fewer than the more than 700 attacks that were recorded the week that Sunni militants set off a wave of sectarian violence in Iraq by blowing up a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006. And it represents a huge drop since June when attacks soared to nearly 1,600 one week.

American officials said other measures indicated that civilian deaths had dropped. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a spokesman for the command, said civilian deaths had dropped by 60 percent since June.

Earth to Democrats; The Surge is NOT a failure. The political sands have shifted and the far left is in quicksand of their own making. They bet on America to lose and al-Qaeda to win, and they were wrong. More and more people are “awakening” to the disaster that is now facing the dems:

Recent monthly declines in US troop deaths, signs that sectarian violence might be ebbing and claims by the Bush administration of grassroots political progress in Iraq, have lent new angles to the furious war debate.

Upbeat commentary on the war is also complicating life for Democrats in Congress, who have repeatedly failed to fracture President George W. Bush’s firewall of support among Republicans on the war.

Lawmakers who backed Bush’s troop surge strategy are jubilant.

“You would have to suspend disbelief to believe that the surge is not working,” said South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, in a jab at Democratic 2008 frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who used such a phrase to reject war commander General David Petraeus’s claims of progress in Iraq in September.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, who quit the Democratic party to sit as an independent as a result of the war, proclaimed “thrilling” progress in Iraq.

Democrats “continue to be in deep denial,” he claimed, and “emotionally invested in a narrative of retreat and defeat.”

It is never the mistake that gets you in political trouble – it is trying to cover it up. In this case the far left is trying to create a failure where success now exists. They are trying to spin reality to the point they now live out delusional fantasies that cause most people to simply shake their heads in wonder.

Accompanying the horror stories about al-Qaeda’s brutal and bloody actions on their fellow Muslims are stories of Americans reaching out to help Iraqis:

Several soldiers push into the house, while some take positions outside in the compound and on the rooftop, alert and ready to fire.

“I am Lieutenant Janis from the United States Army,” the broad, six-and-half feet (1.98 metre) tall officer tells a group of six men huddled inside a room, who rub their sleep-laden eyes as they warily watch the soldiers towering before them.

“I am your friend and we have come at the invitation of your sheikh,” Lieutenant Ted Janis tells them through his Arabic-speaking interpreter.

“Ahlan wasahlan” (welcome), says one of the men, covered in a black blanket, gathering the courage to utter some words as the interpreter flashes a torch.
“I am here to help you get rid of Al-Qaeda and make Al-Awsat a safe place for you and your families,” says Janis.

Just compare the two stories. The first has al-Qaeda raping and killing and the second has Americans coming to the rescue. This is a PR nightmare for the Dems because their proposals – and it would seem their deep down preferences – would have continued al-Qaeda’s reign of terror and never allowed America to help save all those victims of al-Qaeda. The Dems did all they could to see to it America left Iraq to the continued atrocities of al-Qaeda.

Jack Kelley said it best when he channeled Osama Bin Reid (or Harry Laden – whichever you think is best):

We’re floundering in a quagmire in Iraq. Our strategy is flawed, and it’s too late to change it. Our resources have been squandered, our best people killed, we’re hated by the natives and our reputation around the world is circling the drain. We must withdraw.

No, I’m not channeling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. I’m channeling Osama bin Laden, for whom the war in Iraq has been a catastrophe. Al-Qaida had little presence in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein. But once he was toppled, al-Qaida’s chieftains decided to make Iraq the central front in the global jihad against the Great Satan.

Reid and Pelosi and the far left needed al-Qaeda to win because they needed to win. And for them to win more political power President Bush had to lose in Iraq. And that meant for Dems to win votes America had to lose to al-Qaeda. There is a reason why Kelly can make the connection he did between the Dems and al-Qaeda. It is because the Dems put their future hopes on al-Qaeda beating Bush for them.

It was a crass and opportunistic and ugly act of political posturing. And the Dems will now be paying the price for their decisions for years and decades to come.