Don't shoot the messenger for the choice of words, guys...

I would have simply called him "reality-based," whereas his prosecution seemed retarded.

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The U.K. Telegraph, not exactly the voice of reason or accuracy when it comes hand-wringing hype of the possibility of war between the United States and Iran, has an amusingly self-contradictory post today by Tim Shipman that claims that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is "The man who stands between US and new war."

The thrust of the headline and the urderlying premise drummed up by the article is that Gates, and Gates alone, is the sole voice of sanity keeping the U.S. from a bombing campaign of Iran.

Unfortunately, the second half of the editorial (I hope this isn't supposed to be hard news) seems to exist merely to debunk that underlying premise:

Officials say Mr Gates's strategy bore fruit when Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, charged with devising war plans for Iran, said last month that the "constant drumbeat of war" was not helpful.

He was followed by General George Casey, the army's new chief of staff, who requested an audience with the House of Representatives armed services committee to warn that his branch of the military had been stretched so thin by the Iraq war that it was not prepared for yet another conflict.

Gen Casey told Congress the army was "out of balance" and added: "The demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply. We are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight, and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies."

Mr Gates has forged an alliance with Mike McConnell, the national director of intelligence, and Michael Hayden, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to ensure that Mr Cheney's office is not the dominant conduit of information and planning on Iran to Mr Bush.

The fact that the Army's Chief of Staff Casey, D-CIA Hayden, head of CENTCOM Admiral Fallon, and National Director of Intelligence McConnell have joined Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates in advocating that we try other means prior to war, apparently didn't register with Shipman, even as he wrote their names.

A great newspaper, the Independent. They never miss a thing.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Baghdadi Omar Fadhil of Iraq the Model has a very provocative editorial in WSJ's OpinionJournal this morning which points out a significant momentum shift in Iraq, what al Qaeda is attempting to do to counter this primarily on the media front, and what Mr. Fadhil suggests as a possible solution.

He begins:

The latest chapter in al Qaeda's war manual in their war against the Iraqi people and the Coalition is this: raiding remote peaceful villages, burning down homes and slaughtering both man and beast. It's a campaign of self destruction.

For about a year al Qaeda has been trying to build a so called Islamic State in Iraq. On several occasions al Qaeda has even declared parts of Baghdad or other places in other provinces the capital of this Islamic State.

But now that they are losing one base after another, their objective seems to have changed from adding more towns and villages to the "state" to destroying the very same towns and villages. Obviously, it's all about making headlines regardless of the means to do that.

Fahil's statement that al Qaeda has been pushed out of major cities into the countryside may seem shocking to many casual western readers, but that is precisely what has occurred over the past year at an ever-accelerating pace. While small terrorists cells cannot possibly be eliminated in major cities, most significant groups of al Qaeda terrorists have found themselves pushed out of Fallujah, Ramadi, Baquba, Baghdad, and other metropolitian areas, and strikes by the group--and perhaps more tellingly, coalition strikes on terrorist safe houses, caches, and bomb-building factories--are mostly now occurring in remote rural areas and small, out-of-the-way villages.

As the much-maligned Iraqi Army, Police, and local militia forces are taking over once-contested neighborhoods and towns, al Qaeda has no sustainable presence or large urban areas under their control. No longer holding any sizable territory, they have been reduced to dispersing out into rural areas, and they typically only come together in numbers to launch raids un lightly-defended targets.

It is during these times on raids of villages when al Qaeda elements are massed, and often overwhelm remote "villages" that may be little more than a few tribal compounds without nearby police stations or Iraqi Army garrisons to call to provide a defense. The groups of heavily armed al Qaeda terrorists typically overwhelm the residents of these rural communities quickly, and massacre them.

Fadhil makes two proposals to deal with the threat of al Qaeda assaults on these remote villages.

The first is to establish a national alarm system which would alert the nearest coalition forces that would help villagers get out the word that an attack is underway. The problem is that often times the locations under attack are so remote that coalition forces may not arrive until after the villagers have already been massacred, leaving a victorious al Qaeda standing alone, gloating over the bodies of the dead. It is during this dark time, where most or all friendly civilians are presumed dead and al Qaeda forces are concentrated, that Mr. Fadhil makes a bold suggestion:

But even then if the troops fail to arrive in time to intercept the attack, which would be truly sad, the long distance that al Qaeda fighters would have to travel to go back to their base would require them to lose precious time since they have to rely only on ground transport on mostly exposed terrain while the troops very often have the advantage of the much faster air transport.

In the worst case scenario what's left of a village if the attack is not intercepted would be only al Qaeda fighters and the remains of what used to be a village. Now isn't that the perfect target for the countless aggressive fire units of the U.S. military?

Now please let's put emotions aside for a while because this is war we're talking about and if sacrifices cannot be avoided we should make sure the enemy pays the heaviest price possible. If reaction is quick enough--and timing here is of crucial importance--the hunt would be great and the results would be spectacular.

Critics are sure to latch onto Fadhil's comment as an echo of a flustered Major Borris' infamous "We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it" description of the re-taking of Be Tre in 1968, but that would be a statement based in ignorance and sentimentality.

Without the people, there is no village, just a collection of bullet-pocked buildings amidst a massacre, where the only men left standing are terrorists, and perhaps a handful of hidden villagers. What Fadhil is advocating is the destruction of the concentrated al Qaeda force in the event that it becomes apparent that there are no villagers left. He advocates striking al Qaeda either as they escape, or in the village itself as a last resort.

The response he advocates may sound callous, but it is pragmatic. If several dozen terrorists can be identified in a given location after a village is destroyed, either while they are still in the village or are attempting to escape, all available coalition firepower should be brought to bear to wipe out the cell, if for no other reason than to keep them from surviving to carry out future attacks on other remote villages.

After a handful of such counterstrike missions are executed successfully and al Qaeda knows that each attack on a village is tantamount to a suicide mission, one has to wonder how many more they will be willing to carry out, and what options they would have remaining in a country increasingly out of their reach to control.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:33 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Sexual assault is no caused by a bacteria or prion. Rape is not a virus, with gang rape being a more virulent strain of a virus.

Rape is an act of power, control and brutality. It is not an epidemic, and attempting to call it such strips away the fact that it is caused by a brutal act of will. It is not an unfriendly act of nature, a microbe following what it is designed to do, and using language that portrays it is such is inexcusable.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:42 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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I don't know much about the "World News Network," but I can tell them this: if you're going to write a story about people killed in bombings during Ramadan in Iraq, it is probably best that you don't use a picture from a March truck bombing in Tal Afar.

Update: As noted in the comments this photo apparently came from--where else?-- a Reuters feed. At least that gave the military photographer, Chris Brogan, the credit.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:40 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Feminist author and progressive political activist Naomi Wolf has had some rather interesting statements published in the Huffington Post recently, from her April insistence that the Bush Administration is on a ten-step program to launch a military coup, to her more recent outburst/description of "Don't tase me, Bro" boy's experience as the "iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded."

Her Sept. 24 Huffington Post blog entry insists that the Senate's toothless resolution condemning MoveOn.Org's "General Betray Us?" ad is evidence of the current Presidential administration's ever-starting transformation to a dictator reminiscent of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or perhaps even Genghis Khan.

All of Wolf's cries on The Huffington Post over the past year have been erratic, and to all but the most dedicated partisan, are immediately dismissed as increasingly bizarre tropes of someone who seems to be afflicted with a regrettable degree of paranoia.

Or is Wolf just "cashing in" on crazy?

She continues down the path of perpetual paranoia today with Blackwater: "Newly Created Thug Caste," where she appeals to the readers of firedoglake (home of manbearpig?), a group that once indulged in a community-based fantasy that believed putting a Jew in blackface would win an election for a WASP.

In this latest post--which, imagine that, links to her new book--Wolf whips up the Folsomesque masses further.

But how much of what Wolf says is true, and how much of it is the most dishonest sort of stem-winding (and cash-flow generating) propaganda?

In her latest dark fantasy in the Huffington Post, Wolf penned such an insulting falsehood that it warrants a direct response instead of the usual head-shaking dismissal.

Wolf stated:

Joseph Goebbels pioneered the 'embedding' of reporters with military troops as a way to support favorable coverage; William Shirer was embedded with German troops in the invasion of France and Nazi filmmaker Leni von Riefenstahl was embedded with German troops in Poland.

This claim is made by a blinded partisan who is only capable of seeing history as it can be molded to suit her desire to link infamous totalitarians of the past with our present (and lest she forget, popularly elected) president.

Reality, of course, is something quite different.

Whether she is talking about the term "embedded reporter," or the practical application of them, Wolf is hopelessly and laughably wrong when stating Goebbels or the Nazis had anything to do with them.

The modern term "embedded reporter" came about not in Hilter's Germany in the 1930s, but in a direct and new partnership between literally dozens of news organizations and the U.S. Department of Defense in 2003.

It isn't a perfect arrangement; the unprecedented media access to war comes at the risk of a lack of objective distance between the reporter and the reporting of the war. That said, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the most well-documented invasion in human history, with no less than 257 journalists from a multitude of news organizations embedded directly with coalition military forces.

Further, Wolf was wrong and perhaps purposefully duplicitous, in attempting to link CBS' William Shirer with Leni von Riefenstahl's blatant propaganda efforts.

Shirer did travel with German troops to Paris, and he broke the story of the 1940 armistice between Germany and France, but Wolf refused to mention that Shirer wrote to CBS and complained about German attempts at censorship, and that he fled a building Gestapo case against him in December of 1940 as a result of failing to play by their rules.

Shirer's impression of Goebbels' pronouncements, "invariably banal, the product of a mind that though nimble was fundamentally mediocre," are not those of a fan.

Unlike Shirer, Leni von Riefenstahl wasnÂ’t anything remotely like a journalist, another important distinction a duplicitous Wolf tries to smear over. A dancer, actress, and eventually a director, this personal friend of Joseph Goebbels and acquaintance of Adolph Hitler created a film, Triumph of the Will, that became known as one of the most effective propaganda films in history.

It is a slap in the face of today's embedded journalists that Wolf would compare them to a blatant propagandist like von Riefenstahl. ABC News co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, who are still recovering from wounds suffered in an IED blast in January of 2006, are journalists. Likewise, Wolf smears experienced Russian photojournalist Dmitry Chebotayev a veteran of conflicts in Chechnya, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and Iraq. killed with American soldiers by another IED just this year.

Perhaps Wolf does not like the mixed reviews of some embedded journalists in Iraq and certainly loathes stories filed by others, but that does not make them propagandists. It makes them human, reporting what they find, when they find it.

There is no legitimate way to compare today's embedded journalists to Goebbels' propagandist, no way to compare Shire to HitlerÂ’s filmmaker von Riefenstahl, no honest way of linking von Riefenstahl to Bob Woodruff.

There are indeed propagandists at work. Wolf herself has become one, not to peddle her philosophy, but to pad her coffers.

Returning once again to her post today at FiredogLake, Wolf once again traffics in her own "big lies," as she attacks North Carolina security company Blackwater USA. In this post, she calls these military contractors a "thug caste" and compares with the Blackshirts:

Congress doesn’t get who Blackwater contractors are. Prince likes to wrap his people in the flag and say they are facing `bad guys.’ Prince actually systematically recruits the baddest of the `bad guys’: Jeremy Scahill reports that Blackwater intentionally recruits former military and paramilitary personnel from regimes that specialize in neofascist repression of their own populations and who train their paramilitary and military in the torture and subjugation of their own critics, journalists, political leaders and other civil society figures: Ecuadorans, Nigerians, Chileans, Syrians. That is who we can find ourselves facing in the streets of New York — or Kansas City — tomorrow unless Congress rolls back the horrific laws that gave the President and Prince these dark-side powers.

My God! Blackwater is infiltrated with neofascist foreigners looking to take over and torture Kansas City! Only, this isn't the truth... in fact, it isn't remotely close to being true.

Blackwater does hire foreign contractors in a subsidiary called Greystone Limited, but these contractors are hired for general duties (such as convoy escort) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are not deployed within the United States.

There are no armed Nigerian mercenaries plotting to take over Los Angeles, or contract death squads of Syrians to repress citizens in Sacremento, unless they wandered up from San Diego on their own over a virtually undefended border .

As a matter of real facts, a condition of general contract requirements at Blackwater is that an applicant must be a U.S. Citizen and proof of citizenship is required. Further, potential contracting employees must be honorably discharged from the military, and have no felony, violent crimes, spouse or child abuse convictions.

But this is reality, and reality doesn't excite those who the author would convince into buying her book. Wolf is trying to make a living by pandering to the paranoids, the black helicopter sect of the fringe left, in order to profit from their distrust of President Bush.

I wish her the best in profiting from her peddling of snake oil over the next 473 days. Her readers however, are likely to feel very betrayed on January 20, 2009.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:12 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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The nomination process for the 2007 Weblog Awards is now open in 49 categories until October 15.

Go on over and nominate your favorites after reading the nomination FAQ.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:49 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Via VOA News:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has expressed concern that the slow process of approval for U.S. arms sales is forcing some countries, including Iraq, to buy weapons elsewhere. VOA's Al Pessin reports from Santiago, Chile, where Secretary Gates is visiting.

Frustration over the slow approval process resulted in a $100 million Iraqi arms purchase from China, announced in Washington Wednesday by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The light weapons are for Iraq's police forces. Secretary Gates says that causes him some concern.

"We have been concerned that our process is taking too long. On the other hand, the first request we received from the Iraqis for weapons was in January. We have already delivered over $600 million worth of weapons," he said.

Secretary Gates says another two-to-three-billion dollars worth of Iraqi purchases are in the process of being approved. The secretary says he is not particularly concerned that the Iraqi police purchase went to China, but he says the United States needs to improve its Foreign Military Sales Program for all its customers.

"This is an issue that we have to look into and see what we can do in the United States to be more responsive and to be able to react more quickly to the requirements of our friends," said Gates.

If his Wikipedia bio is accurate, Robert Gates has never had any sales experience, which explains a lot. Let me take this opportunity, as someone who had sold a weapon or two, to explain what probably really happened here.

The slow procurement process may have been a good excuse, but for this particular $100 million small arms purchase from China, an excuse is probably all it was. The truth is that U.S. small arms are inferior for Iraqi needs.

The primary U.S. military assault rifle these days is the M4, a variant of the decades-old M16. It shoots a 5.56mm, .22 caliber bullet.

The M4 features a much shorter barrel than the M16, which means that the small 22-caliber bullet doesn't build up that much velocity or power. The result? Bad guys often don't go down even when shot multiple times, and are often quite capable of still fighting back. Because of this poor performance from short-barreled rifles, various other calibers are being tested as a replacement, including the 6.8 SPC and 6.5 Grendal.

In addition to stopping power issues, the M4/M16 family of weapons, while typically quite accurate, require diligent maintenance, and if they aren't take care of, quickly become inoperative. As a result, variants of the weapon with completely different operating systems are under development, and trials to replace the entire weapons system ebb and flow around the obsolete design.

Compounding all of this is that fact that these are not inexpensive firearms, with variants potentially costing into the thousands of dollars for a single firearm when all the bells and whistles are added, and the magazines (which are considered consumables), parts and cleaning kits are also costly over the life of the weapon.

By contrast, the AK-pattern rifles popular in Iraq and elsewhere are favored for a number of obvious reasons. They are quite inexpensive to produce and purchase, require far less maintenance than most comparable weapons systems, and fire a far more effective cartridge(7.62x39) than the 5.56 NATO, which also happens to be far more readily available and less expensive on the open market.

If you have $100 million to spend to arm a police force composed primarily of new recruits who will get only moderate (and uneven) training, are unlikely to practice a diligent maintenance schedule, who live in harsh environment when sand and grit will constantly be introduced to their weapons, and prefer that the people they shoot act like they've been shot, which weapon would you choose?

If I'm in charge of procurements, I'm going for the more reliable, powerful, less expensive weapon every time, a decision not made any more difficult by any gratuities that may result of this already no-brainer decision.

We've got an antiquated weapon system requiring far too much TLC that fires an anemic round.

That we're delivering it slowly isn't exactly our greatest problem.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:14 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Yep, you read that right, and no, Rosie O Donnell didn't have a change of heart.

Via MNC-I Press Release.

KALSU, Iraq - A helium blimp provided Coalition Forces the viewpoint to see four insurgents responsible for a roadside bomb attack Sept. 30.

The camera located inside the AEROSTAT, a helium blimp used for aerial surveillance, allowed forces to identify the location of the men who attacked a Coalition convoy southeast of Iskandariyah.

"This engagement was tailor-made for the AEROSTAT," said 1st Lt. Vitaly Gelfgat of Princeton, N.J. "We saw the blast, found the insurgents responsible and then responded with the necessary force."

This was the second kinetic action that was initiated by AEROSTAT surveillance.

"The mission of the AEROSTAT is to monitor roads, impact areas, provide battle damage assessments and give constant aerial surveillance for defensive purposes," said Sgt. Reuben Carrington of Cabot, Ark.

This multi-million dollar blimp is equipped with a specialized camera that allows its user to see a full 360 degrees with distances ranging from 10 meters to several kilometers 24 hours a day.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:14 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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When a heavily-armed, air-supported U.S. Army unit comes to town, it is rarely in your best interests to fire on them unless entering the afterlife is your goal:

U.S. forces killed at least 25 members of a rogue Shiite militia in a heavy firefight early Friday, the military said.

The troops were targeting a militia commander believed to be associated with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force and responsible for moving weapons from Iran into Baghdad, the military said.

A group of men opened fire on the U.S. soldiers with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and at least one man was carrying what appeared to be an anti-aircraft weapon, the military said. Two buildings were destroyed and at least 25 people were killed in the ensuing battle.

U.S. aircraft repeatedly bombed the Shiite section of Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, according to an Iraqi army official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. At least 17 were killed, 27 were wounded and eight others were missing, he said.

You'll note that groups associated with Iran's Quds Force and their smuggling networks have been repeatedly hammered since the start of the "surge," and that as a result, attacks on coalition forces with EFPs have dropped significantly.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just how long does it take to pen a retraction?

I only ask because it's been roughly a month since The New Republic had their first solid chance to interview Scott Thomas Beauchamp since he returned from duty at COP Ellis.

Since then, he's been online--hence, available--at least several days every week, including today. Beauchamp even had time to talk with Laughing Wolf from Blackfive as recently as September 30. Why not TNR?

Is Scott not talking to Franklin Foer, or is Franklin Foer simply unwilling to print what Scott has to say?

Update: More from Michelle Malkin.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:20 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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Just under 1 in 5 Democrats favors defeat in Iraq. And if that isn't bad enough, another 20-percent of Democrats "don't know" if the world would be better off with a defeat.

I never thought I'd see the day that 39-percent of Democrats were either in favor of, or "don't know" if the world would be better off if we lost a war that would essentially destroy a fledgling democracy.

They call themselves "Democrats," but they seem to think we'd be better off with one less democracy. Perhaps it is time they consider a party name change to something more in line with their beliefs.

Whatever these defeatists re-brand themselves, they should keep their mascot.

It fits.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:18 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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Via LiveLeak.com, those are Blackwater USA personnel evacuating the wounded Polish ambassador to Iraq after his convoy was hit by at least two IEDs. Polish security guard, Bartosz Orzechowski and an unnamed Iraqi civilian died in the attack.

Blackwater didn't fire a shot during this mission, as shocking as that may be to some. It is one of at least 15,805 Blackwater USA missions where shots were not fired. I'm not justifying prior behavior, just attempting to point out the behavior that is more typical.

As for the atypical missions such as the recent disastrous shooting at Nisoor Square, Congress is taking steps to rectify deficiencies under current law that some argue makes private security contractors immune from prosecution.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:22 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Desperate to salvage a defeat in Iraq before progress becomes too obvious for the professional media to contain, some leftists have decided on last ditch effort via direct action.

Due to the projected shortage in wait staff, those of you in college towns should plan to "dine in" on October 17.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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It becomes more apparent every day that the reactionary progressive Democrats that pinned their hopes of a future ascendancy upon a defeat in Iraq are psychologically unable to come to grips with the reality on the ground in that nation.

This was demonstrated again today by Senator Russ Feingold in the Huffington Post:

Over in Iraq, our troops get up every day and risk their lives in the middle of an Iraqi civil war. They have to do their job, no matter what the risk, and no matter what the cost. They do what they are asked to do...and so should Congress. Congress's job right now should be to bring our troops home safely, and we can't turn away from this issue just because it's tough going. The only way we will ever get our troops out is by putting constant pressure on supporters of this disastrous war. Let's make them vote again and again, so that they have to go back home and explain why they keep voting to keep our troops in Iraq. When they feel the heat for their vote, that's when they will change their vote, and that's how we will bring our troops home.

I have news that will no doubt come as an absolute surprise to Senator Feingold: the Iraqi civil war never materialized.

As a matter of fact, Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri al-Maliki formally stated that even the threat of a civil war in Iraq has been averted. Like many Democrats, Feingold seems mired in a past that could have been, instead of the reality of what Iraq is today.

al Qaeda bombers intended to trigger a civil war with the bombing of the revered al-Askari "Golden Dome" Mosque in Samarra in February of 2006, but though nearly 200 hundred people were killed in retaliatory strikes in the days that followed, Shia leaders refused to be pulled into a full-scale civil war. The civil war was trumpeted as about to happen or happening by Democrats and in the press, but despite these constant calls and hype here in America, it simply never occurred (as opposed to the Palestinian Civil War in Gaza, which the media stubbornly refused to admit there was a civil war until it was all but over).

Nor does Feingold seem to have a grasp of what American voters signified in the 2006 elections:

The message from the voters last November was clear -- safely redeploy our troops out of Iraq.

Actually, what voters indicated they wanted in exit polls and interviews after the election was a change in our Iraqi policy. They got that, and the change they got was immediate.

One day after the 2006 midterm elections, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down and was replaced by Robert Gates.

In January, just two months later, President Bush nominated General David Petraeus to become the commanding general of all American forces in Iraq, and was unanimously confirmed to that postion by the Senate after testifying about the revised counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine he supported implementing, including how he would use a "surge" of troops already planned for Iraq before his nomination. The American people got precisely what they wanted--a change in strategy--even if it wasn't the defeatist strategy of withdrawal favored by Feingold and others.

But Feingold, safe in his own community-based reality, continues:

Telling ourselves "we don't have the votes now, so what's the point" doesn't cut it. I understand that we may not get to 67 or 60 or even 50 votes on Feingold-Reid right now. But remember, when I first proposed that Congress use its constitutional power of the purse to end the war, support was scarce at best. Now, the majority of Senate Democrats, including our leadership and presidential candidates, are firm supporters. If we give in to the defeatist "we don't have the votes" attitude, we're playing right into the hands of the president and supporters of his war who cannot wait for the day they don't have to talk about Iraq. If supporters of this war are going to vote to keep our troops in a situation that is hurting our military as well as our national security, they should be prepared to defend it every day.

The calendar tells us it is October 3, 2007.

Even after the assassination of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the "Awakening" movement continues to spread from al Anbar across Iraq. In police patrols in Fallujah and in food drops in Ramadi, we see American Marines patrolling with police and militiamen that were once former insurgents, but who now see their hope for the future in political reconciliation instead of war.

The same has occurred in Diyala, where 1920 Revolutionary Brigades fighters--former insurgents--now go out on patrol with the U.S. Army.

Diyalal Province, Iraq: U.S. Army M-1 tank behind 1920s fighters heading back to their neighborhood.
(Photo courtesy of Michael Yon)

Just yesterday, Bartle Bull published an essay in the U.K. Prospect Magazine, offering the clear picture of the actual state of the war in Iraq, a reality that Feingold and his fellow defeatists would rather ignore. He follows up today in the Wall Street Journal with a variation of the same theme, The Realignment of Iraq.

Feingold goes on to mutter though the rest of his "Vote on Iraq Again and Again," sounding very much like a threadbare street-corner shouter as he insists that we look at his shaded remembrance of November of 2006, instead of the reality of October, 2007.

He, like Harry "the war is lost" Reid in the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha in the House and their allies, are desperate to salvage at least the appearance of a defeat from a war that the Iraqi people and embedded journalists all seem to understand is still on-going, but quite possibly already decided.

The national media, with fewer car bombs to exploit or pending possible nightmare scenarios to trumpet, are quiet slipping Iraq out of the spotlight. "If it bleeds, it leads," has always been the newsroom battle-cry, but the corollary that peace doesnÂ’t sell papers, and so it doesn't fill them.

The war in Iraq is quietly becoming the peace-keeping and nation-building operation for an ally, and yet Democrats still try to call it a quagmire and ignore the dramatic successes of the past year. One must wonder how much longer Democrats can continue to pretend we are at another place in time, and how much longer they can continue to cheer for defeat in a war all but won.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:17 PM | Comments (65) | Add Comment
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1 reactionary progressive Democrats Ah, the first attempts at turning "progressive" into a bad word. I was wondering when that was going to happen. Here's the bad news, though: if you guys really latch onto "progressive" and turn it into the epithet of choice for Lefties, we'll just go back to "liberal." Sometimes you can't win for losing.

Posted by: nunaim at October 03, 2007 02:48 PM (22/Qe)

2 good analysis CY. I find myself looking to your website more and more for a fairly balanced--and clearly opinionated--analysis such as you provide in your spare time. The inane comments of trolls notwithstanding, your comments forum also provides a wealth of relevant information on the topic. I differ with you, however, on your opinion that the war might already be decided. Democrats can always manage to pull defeat from victory--look at Vietnam and their successful termination of aide to S. Vietname, which was rapidly followed by the tanks of Hanoi driving into Saigon. As for the nostrum "if it bleeds, it leads", I think the blood needed to lead is innocent and/or American blood. There seems to be a fair amount of AQ and Iranian blood being spilled recently, but we certainly don't see that trumpeted on front pages on the evening news.

Posted by: iconoclast at October 03, 2007 03:36 PM (TzLpv)

3 Here's a question for nunaims and other progressive, liberal anti-war types. The Dems currently control the House and the Senate. Why don't they just vote to de-fund the war? You know, "Here's the FY2008 Defense Authorization. NO money may be spent on operations in Iraq, other than that pursuant to withdrawing the troops. US troops must be withdrawn by January 1, 2008 (or February 14, or pick any date." Surely, with control of the House and Senate, and with the mandate that SEN Feingold mentions, the Dems could do this?

Posted by: Lurking Observer at October 03, 2007 04:21 PM (/ZD7V)

4 It is a quagmire, as we can't leave and won't be able to leave for quite a while.. unless we want to see happen country-wide what happened in Basra when the Brits pulled out.

Posted by: stevesturm at October 03, 2007 05:38 PM (XBWtm)

5 Of course, progressives can just revert to their true name: socialist. -cp

Posted by: cold pizza at October 03, 2007 05:46 PM (VOA2U)

6 Nah, they run from that one. Take the junior Senator from Vermont. What party is he? Why is he consistently referred to as "independent"? (For those who are unaware, the junior Senator from VT, Bernie Sanders, is a self-described Socialist.)

Posted by: Lurking Observer at October 03, 2007 06:01 PM (/ZD7V)

7 Stevesturm demonstrates that delusions on Iraq are not limited to Congress. Earth to Steve: General Petraeus has announced that troops could start coming home in a couple of months.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 03, 2007 07:02 PM (ZPYB9)

8 The liberal -- cough -- progressive agenda is to (a) bring the troops back home and (b) eliminate the don't ask, don't tell oppression that limits the number of gays in the military.

Posted by: Banjo at October 03, 2007 09:11 PM (1DQ52)

9 The liberal -- cough -- progressive agenda is to (a) bring the troops back home and (b) eliminate the don't ask, don't tell oppression that limits the number of gays in the military. Yes, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. The whole smash. Those two things are all we want in the world. Also: is this supposed to be a dig at Progriberals, or something? Those are two good things.

Posted by: nunaim at October 03, 2007 09:22 PM (RVNk2)

10 Nunaim, conservatives want to bring the troops home too. The difference is, we want to bring them home (a) as victors, and (b) when removing troops won't cause a downward spiral in Iraq and the Middle East in general. The members of the Party of the Donkey in Congress, on the other hand, want to bring them home right this instant, and they don't seem to give a darn how many Iraqis die after a premature American pullout. I know you're gonna dispute that, so I should warn you right now that I am gonna demand evidence for whatever you claim, and not from sites like DailyKos. So ya might as well provide links with your first reply to me. That saves time and bandwidth, and also keeps you from looking like a person who doesn't read messages.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 03, 2007 09:34 PM (ZPYB9)

11 I know you're gonna dispute that, so I should warn you right now that I am gonna demand evidence for whatever you claim, and not from sites like DailyKos. So ya might as well provide links with your first reply to me. A: How the hell do you know what I'm going to do? B: Who the hell died and made you boss? Talk about pompous...

Posted by: nunaim at October 03, 2007 09:44 PM (RVNk2)

12 So, you are not disputing that the Party of the Donkey in Congress doesn't give a hoot how many Iraqis are killed by a premature withdrawal?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 03, 2007 10:08 PM (ZPYB9)

13 So, you are not disputing that the Party of the Donkey in Congress doesn't give a hoot how many Iraqis are killed by a premature withdrawal? Incorrect. I'm saying that I have no idea what opinion they all have on that wingnut meme.

Posted by: nunaim at October 03, 2007 10:43 PM (RVNk2)

14 iraq had NOTHING to do with the 2006 results. foleygate, maccaccagate and abramoffgate did. all exploded out of proportion by the MSM.

Posted by: reliapundit at October 03, 2007 10:48 PM (4/hbO)

15 Well, let's look at it logically, nunaim. 1) It's been admitted, even by such anti-war publications as the New York Times, that a premature US withdrawal could lead to genocide. 2) The members of the Party of the Donkey in Congress are trying their best to force a premature US withdrawal, their latest attempt focusing on cutting off funding (as they did in Vietnam). 3) Therefore, the Party of the Donkey does not care about the possibility of an Iraqi genocide, which is just another way of saying that they don't give a darn how many Iraqis are killed by a premature US pullout See what a wonderful tool logic is? You really should try it some time.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 03, 2007 10:51 PM (ZPYB9)

16 Noticed something today... in our Fortune 250 company that's going thru significant transformation, we've got people who are capable of effecting significant change, and people who are inflexible, rigid and refuse to change. Any guesses on who's a lib and who's a "conservative"? Funny thing, how "conservative" doesn't mean inflexible like the libs tell us it does. It turns out the very people who can't tolerate any volatility, change and uncertainty are... registered Democrats. People that would unionize if they could, to slow the impact of change external forces are driving. Sounds like Feingold and his staffers suffer the same problem. The voters demanded change, Bush gave it to him by replacing Rummy (who I respect), signaling throughout the military hierarchy that the status quo was dead and everyone's balls were on the table. Now, results are being obtained. Lowest casualties. Record AQ high-level captures. Significant levels of AQ supporters being flipped to our side. Yet Feingold, Reid and company are stuck in 2006. Worse yet, they're being sucked into the Soros missive of the day crap, which has got to be painful for proud libs who used to have their own identity. They're reading Soros talking points from 2006, are stuck making accusations based upon edited audio they know is bogus, and are left supporting dying causes like higher taxes, soviet-era 5-year plans, bigger union pensions and unsustainable pork spending. Increasingly, it seems the definition of a liberal is one who cannot tolerate uncertainty and change. It sure seems like we're seeing a dying ideology flail about before it implodes.

Posted by: redherkey at October 03, 2007 11:07 PM (kjqFg)

17 Yet Feingold, Reid and company are stuck in 2006. Worse than that. They are stuck on September 10, 2001.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 03, 2007 11:11 PM (ZPYB9)

18 "The members of the Party of the Donkey in Congress, on the other hand, want to bring them home right this instant, and they don't seem to give a darn how many Iraqis die after a premature American pullout." Well, if we did pull out, at least Blackwater mercenaries wouldn't be running around there like psychotic cowboys, blowing away Iraqis right and left, leaving 17 people dead like this latest incident in Baghdad...

Posted by: Arbotreeist at October 04, 2007 12:10 AM (N8M1W)

19 I find the statement by Feingold in the last quote of the post: "If we give in to the defeatist "we don't have the votes" attitude, we're playing right into the hands of the president and supporters of his war..." rather reminiscent of a line in one of my favorite WWII movies. The movie is "In Harm's Way" headlined by John Wayne. When JW delivers this line he is responding to his estranged son who was raised by his mother and her family - who just happen to be ‘elites’. The son's line is something snippy that he and his family think WWII is "Roosevelt's war". JW's line is close to this: "I seem to remember them saying the same thing about Wilson’s war…” Interesting that Hollywood - yes, Hollywood - in 1965 (when the film was released) identified and ridiculed the same attitude Feingold espouses. Seems this country has had Feingold types since (maybe) even its inception. Just something to think about for those who hold the same sentiments today when history has NEVER been on that side.

Posted by: Mark at October 04, 2007 12:58 AM (P8ylB)

20 Arbotreeist, Two thoughts: 1) 17 dead vs. million plus dead in genocide after premature withdrawal. 2) Blackwater's 'fire rates' are lower than the US military's. I'll take Blackwater's presence any day

Posted by: Mark at October 04, 2007 01:04 AM (P8ylB)

21 Tree-hugger -- excuse me, Arbotreeist -- sounds like the sort of socialist/pacifist weenie one finds in the chancellaries of the hollowed-out parts of Europe about to be buried by the Islamic hordes.

Posted by: Banjo at October 04, 2007 08:45 AM (1DQ52)

22 Is it just me, or do the cries of "Blackwater, Blackwater" from the left sound very reminiscent of earlier cries of "Halliburton, Halliburton"?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 04, 2007 09:04 AM (6c3XF)

23 Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 10/04/2007 A short recon of whatÂ’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

Posted by: David M at October 04, 2007 10:47 AM (gIAM9)

24 Arbotreeist "Well, if we did pull out, at least Blackwater mercenaries wouldn't be running around there like psychotic cowboys, blowing away Iraqis right and left, leaving 17 people dead like this latest incident in Baghdad..." This sounds pretty scary as a talking point. How many operations have Blackwater personnel actually been on? How many times have they fired their weapons and how many fatalities have they caused? Please get back to us.

Posted by: daleyrocks at October 04, 2007 02:23 PM (0pZel)

25 Is it just me, or do the cries of "Blackwater, Blackwater" from the left sound very reminiscent of earlier cries of "Halliburton, Halliburton"? Your point is well taken, CCG: it does seem that the Administration has repeatedly made questionable choices about who to partner with in this war. It's too bad, isn't it?

Posted by: nunaim at October 04, 2007 04:36 PM (22/Qe)

26 This Administration HAS made choices of partnership that Nuniam dislikes. Poland, Czechoslovakia, England, Australia, Japan, the citizens of Iraq, and Canada instead of his preferred set: China, Cuba, Venezuela, France (though the current prime minister of France has admitted that Chirac's nuniamist antiAmericanism was a terrible mistake), Germany (oil-for-bribes, anyone?), Russia, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, the American Socialist Party, the Knights of the KKK, CAIR, Lyndon Larouche... You can tell a man by the company he keeps.

Posted by: DaveP. at October 04, 2007 06:46 PM (mjjwA)

27 nunaim, please do try and keep up. There's a long post by me addressed to you that you haven't responded to yet. It's polite to respond to earlier messages addressed to you first, you know.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 04, 2007 06:46 PM (6c3XF)

28 Arbotreeist, Very often dead insurgents have their weapons carried away and they henceforth become know as civilian casualties...Be careful with your MSM news consumption. Surely, you know by now that you are only getting the version approved by editors who couldn't make it in the real world so they went into journalism...

Posted by: Nozzle at October 04, 2007 07:08 PM (+rOvD)

29 nunaim, please do try and keep up. There's a long post by me addressed to you that you haven't responded to yet. It's polite to respond to earlier messages addressed to you first, you know. I did respond this morning. Later, the post had disappeared.

Posted by: nunaim at October 04, 2007 08:29 PM (7Mls7)

30 I did respond this morning. Later, the post had disappeared. With the exception of a Russian spammer, I have not removed anyone's posts today.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 04, 2007 08:37 PM (HcgFD)

31 Trying again, then... See what a wonderful tool logic is? You really should try it some time. Gee, yeah. Okay, here's one: 1) Due to improved medical technology, more soldiers than ever before are surviving their injuries and coming home maimed for life. 2) Wingnuts want the war, which causes these injuries, to continue. 3) Therefore, wingnuts are perfectly okay with the idea of more US soldiers than ever before living with horrific injuries. Hey, you're right! That was easy!

Posted by: nunaim at October 04, 2007 08:41 PM (7Mls7)

32 Ooooh, now we have nunaim confirmed as a liar. Keep going, nunaim. By the way, if technical issues keep a reply from being posted, most intelligent people attempt to re-post it. And when asked about it, instead of whining that "it disappeared," most intelligent people would re-post at least an abridged version of the reply that "disappeared." So, I eagerly await your re-post of the post that "disappeared."

Posted by: C-C-G at October 04, 2007 08:42 PM (6c3XF)

33 Your point #2 is incorrect, nunaim. We want the war to continue only until our leaving will not cause a further destabilization in the region. In fact, continuing the war now may actually be saving lives and limbs. The logic goes thus: 1) If we leave Iraq before the region is stabilized, it will become even more destabilized (genocide is a destabilizing influence, and a powerful one). 2) If the region becomes even more destabilized, there is a very high probability that American troops will be called in at some point. Face it, we're the world's policeman now. We may not like it--I am none too fond of the role--but we have it and have to do something about it. 3) If we are called in at a later date, it will be even harder to establish stability in the region than it is now, because all the work that we have already done will be undone by Iran and its proxies. 4) Therefore, if we leave now, we face a bloodier war in the future. 5) Also worth considering, further destabilization would cost the lives of more Iraqis, whether or not American troops are called in again. So once again, leaving will cost far more lives than staying. In short, if we finish the job properly we will probably not have to go back in again for a long time, which will, in the long run, save American troops' lives and limbs. Not to mention that pulling out and letting the region go back to the status quo ante (a little Latin lingo, there) will cause all the American deaths to have been in vain.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 04, 2007 08:53 PM (6c3XF)

34 One more thing worth considering. If we pull out now, imagine Bin Ladin's crowing... he'll be declaring that Al Qaeda chased the Americans away. That will, of course, embolden the terrorists again, and we'll probably see terrorist attacks on American soil increase as a consequence of that. Do ya really want to take the chance of that, nunaim?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 04, 2007 09:05 PM (6c3XF)

35 So, I eagerly await your re-post of the post that "disappeared." What are you, a friggin' retard? Or simply too lazy to read the post immediately preceding the one in which you wrote this?

Posted by: nunaim at October 05, 2007 08:06 AM (P7g0O)

36 No, I am not a "friggin' retard," but you apparently are. If you would just look at the time stamps and use a little bit of logic, you'd see that since both posts went up within a minute of each other, it is highly likely that I was typing mine at the same time you were typing yours... which is precisely what happened. Please, don't work so hard at looking like a microcephalic moron; you do quite well enough at that without working. Now, please respond to my longer post immediately after the one you quoted.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 05, 2007 09:06 AM (6c3XF)

37 Now, please respond to my longer post immediately after the one you quoted. Nothing could be easier. If a legislator votes against a measure to end the war, then the legislator wants the war to continue. The rest of your stuff is lip flappage.

Posted by: nunaim at October 05, 2007 01:15 PM (P7g0O)

38 So, nunaim, you state: If a legislator votes against a measure to end the war, then the legislator wants the war to continue. The Dems control both houses of Congress. They could pass a bill to defund the war. Why don't they? Evidently, the Dems want the war to continue. Why, nunaim?

Posted by: Lurking Observer at October 05, 2007 05:45 PM (molCB)

39 The Dems control both houses of Congress. They could pass a bill to defund the war. Why don't they? Evidently, the Dems want the war to continue. Why, nunaim? Why, Santy Claus, why?

Posted by: nunaim at October 05, 2007 06:50 PM (ac+VY)

40 nunaim, one can want the war to continue for the motives I expressed above--because they realize that pulling out too soon will mean a bloodier war in the future. Therefore, you cannot logically support a contention that a vote to continue the war is because the person is bloodthirsty. Nor can a contention that a vote to continue the war is because the person is evil personified be logically supported. But please, continue to claim such. It makes you look like the microcephalic moron that you are.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 05, 2007 07:02 PM (6c3XF)

41 The death and maiming of American troops are, for you and yours, and acceptable cost of what's going on over there. For Lefties, it's not. You're happy to sit in your mommy's basement licking Cheeto dust from your fingers as others pay the ultimate (or, bad enough, the penultimate) price for your twisted view of reality. Lefties feel that that ultimate price should be saved for a situation that is more dire than the one we're facing. It should, in short, be a dire situation for America before American lives are spent like video game tokens. You disagree. That's your prerogative. Also: you might want to try something other than "microcephalic moron." It's getting old.

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 07:04 AM (EPXeF)

42 nunaim, you want a more dire situation? Pulling out would create just such a situation. * Al Qaeda would claim--with some justification--that they had chased the Americans off. * Iran and its proxies in the Middle East would have a much freer hand, with no American troops in the area. * Sectarian violence and possible genocide are extremely likely if we pull out... even the NY Times admits that, as I keep reminding you (and you keep ignoring). The current deaths are acceptable as a means of preventing far more deaths in the future, both American and Iraqi. Or do you not give a darn about Iraqi deaths? Clinton sure as heck didn't, he did nothing through the 8 years of his administration to liberate the Iraqis. At least George H. W. Bush tried, though his attempt stopped far too soon. In fact, the elder Bush's attempt has lessons for our current situation... the elder Bush pulled out prematurely... and look at the situation he left behind. Here's a story from a source you probably trust about one of the atrocities committed after the 1991 pullout of American forces. Do you want that to happen again, nunaim? I ask because that is the end result of the policy you advocate.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 06, 2007 10:38 AM (6c3XF)

43 If somebody is going to kill Iraqi civilians, I'd rather that it not be American troops.

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 10:56 AM (EPXeF)

44 Well, I guess so much for civility, eh nunaim? Color me puzzled by your response, though. How are the Democrats, who control the House and Senate, like Santa Claus? Surely they're not an illusion, a fable. They really do control both houses, you know. And if everyone on the Left is so all-fired concerned about death and maiming, again, why don't the Democrats do something about it? Like vote to end the war? Funding, after all, by the Constitution is the Congress' job. This is not something that is up to the President. It seems to me that you're far more interested in playing GOTCHA! with peoples' lives and limbs, and make yourself feel better parading war pr0n around and getting on your supposed moral high horse, than actually doing something about it. Perhaps while licking soy crumbs off your fingers?

Posted by: Lurking Observer at October 06, 2007 11:00 AM (Sx6SW)

45 And if everyone on the Left is so all-fired concerned about death and maiming, again, why don't the Democrats do something about it? Like vote to end the war? Funding, after all, by the Constitution is the Congress' job. This is not something that is up to the President. And if you want to go to the store so badly, why don't you just drive up on the sidewalk and drive through people's backyards to get there? After all, you have the keys to the car; you're in charge. Maybe because there are methods you want to use to get to the store--like driving on the street--and methods that you don't. The measures to withdraw troops would have given time to leave strategically and in good order; cutting funding would obviously lead to a near-desperation retreat. The former is what the Democrats in Congress have been fighting to bring about. "In good order" is better than "near-desperation." The fact that you've asked for clarification is proof enough that you didn't understand the concept. I'm glad I was able to help. The idea that the mass of Lefties secretly want the war to continue is absurd to a degree that is simply impossible to describe. It's not even in the same universe as reality as it iexists. You clearly understand nothing except whatever is floating around in your own brain--and I'd lay odds that you don't understand that very well, either.

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 12:26 PM (EPXeF)

46 I guess you really don't care about the lives of Iraqis, nunaim, if you want us to just leave so that the atrocities can go on... this time perpetrated by Al Qaeda instead of Saddam. That's a good "progressive" for you... tell me, do you even consider Iraqis human beings?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 06, 2007 01:32 PM (6c3XF)

47 Let's look at your big idea here. First, take a policy --the Iraq war--that is, by your own description, so fatally flawed that ending the war will, according to you, lead to genocide. Next, continue that policy indefinitely. Nobody accused you guys of being geniuses, but geez, aren't there limits to your idiocy? Let me fix your post here, CCG: I guess you really don't care about the lives of [American soldiers], [CCG], if you want us to just [stay] so that the atrocities can go on... That's a good [conservative] for you... tell me, do you even consider [American soldiers] human beings? There. All better.

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 02:14 PM (EPXeF)

48 Nice attempt at twisting my words, nunaim. I said ending the war prematurely will result in genocide. If we finish the job we started, however, it will not. Also, since you're saying that the war itself is fatally flawed, would you have preferred that we leave Saddam in power to fill more mass graves?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 06, 2007 04:38 PM (6c3XF)

49 Also, since you're saying that the war itself is fatally flawed, would you have preferred that we leave Saddam in power to fill more mass graves? "Ah, yes, Mr. and Mrs. Iraqi. Why are we killing your family, friends and neighbors? To keep you from being killed by Saddam. Or in a genocide." Good news, though: when we do it, it's only collateral damage, so, to wingnuts, it doesn't count. Kind of like eating ice cream standing over the sink. The calories don't count if you eat it that way!

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 06:35 PM (EPXeF)

50 A simple yes or no, nunaim. Should we have left Saddam in power or not?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 06, 2007 08:28 PM (6c3XF)

51 Don't worry, nuanim, I'll continue to refer to you as Copperheads. Copperheads and treason, ham and eggs, Laurel and Hardy.... natural pairings.

Posted by: SDN at October 06, 2007 08:38 PM (Hg2oD)

52 Interesting that Hollywood - yes, Hollywood - in 1965 (when the film was released) identified and ridiculed the same attitude Feingold espouses. Seems this country has had Feingold types since (maybe) even its inception. Just something to think about for those who hold the same sentiments today when history has NEVER been on that side. I believe that by that time, the Duke was producing his own movies, or at least had the clout to make them the way HE wanted, without regard to Hollywood's preferred slants.

Posted by: Rob Crawford at October 06, 2007 09:45 PM (byuKK)

53 Ah, the first attempts at turning "progressive" into a bad word. Eh? "Progressive" was the label preferred by people who supported massive social engineering, eugenics, and expressed admiration of the policies of a certain German. It's been a "bad word" since the early 20th century.

Posted by: Rob Crawford at October 06, 2007 09:47 PM (byuKK)

54 "Progressive" was the label preferred by people who supported massive social engineering, eugenics, and expressed admiration of the policies of a certain German. Ah, yes: Fightin' Bob LaFollette, well-known Nazi sympathizer.

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 09:50 PM (EPXeF)

55 So, nunaim, not gonna answer my simple question with a simple answer? Should we have left Saddam in power or not?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 06, 2007 09:58 PM (6c3XF)

56 Ask me a simple question and I'll give you a simple answer. Now I see your problem: two-valued logic. Everything's black and white. How simple and delightful life must be for you!

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 10:43 PM (EPXeF)

57 Nice red herring. I'll have to find a recipe for it. Now answer the question. Should we have left Saddam in power or not?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 06, 2007 10:44 PM (6c3XF)

58 You don't even know what a red herring is, do you? It's cute that you tried to work it into your post, though. I said that the war was a bad idea from the start, and I'm sticking to that now.

Posted by: nunaim at October 06, 2007 11:39 PM (EPXeF)

59 Answer the question. Should we have left Saddam in power or not? I'll deal with your various red herrings after you answer, and not before.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 07, 2007 10:27 AM (6c3XF)

60 Well, CCG, I did answer, and the answer now no longer exists. A quick summary: 1. I did answer your question 2. You are a pretentious fool 3. Stop trying to order me about

Posted by: nunaim at October 07, 2007 03:13 PM (OcyzQ)

61 Riiiiight. The old "disappearing post" dodge. So, if it's no longer there, please re-post it. And you don't have to keep responding, but every time you do, I am gonna hit you with that question until you give a simple answer. Should we have left Saddam in power or not? Answer or shut up. Those are your options.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 07, 2007 03:35 PM (6c3XF)

62 Not cool, CY.

Posted by: nunaim at October 07, 2007 06:01 PM (OcyzQ)

63 nunaim, are you accusing CY of removing your posts? I have his email, I'd be happy to ask him myself if he has or not. I'm sure he'd be happy to stop by here and set the record straight if I asked him, as well. Do ya feel lucky, punk? Oh, should we have left Saddam in power or not?

Posted by: C-C-G at October 07, 2007 06:12 PM (TBuKI)

64 Point 1: I did remove one of nunaim's comments. Point 2: The post of nunaim's I removed in no way answered the question. Point 3: I don't care. Stop. Cease. Desist. If you two want to keep up your argument, by all means do so, but do so elsewhere.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at October 07, 2007 07:28 PM (HcgFD)

65 My humblest apologies, CY.

Posted by: C-C-G at October 07, 2007 08:07 PM (TBuKI)

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Too craven to directly vote for the surrender in Iraq that they would like to hang around the neck of President Bush as a defeat, desperate House Democrats are seeking other ways to lose the war in Iraq. One technique they are trying is simply stalling the 2008 war budget.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined an almost $190 billion request last week for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming year. But House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) said this morning that he had "absolutely no intention" of reporting out a bill this year to fund "any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo."

At the same time, the same Democrats behind this plan to cut funding to our soldiers are threatening to cripple us with taxes unless they get a commitment to withdraw.

Why are Democrats so desperate to change in U.S. policy in Iraq?

Probably because the "status quo" isn't a status quo and hasnÂ’t been for some time, and their window to salvage a defeat in Iraq appears to be narrowing (h/t Instapundit)

• On Monday came news that U.S. military deaths in Iraq fell to 64 in September, the fourth straight drop since peaking at 121 in May and driving the toll to a 14-month low.
• Civilian deaths also have plunged, dropping by more than half from August to 884. Remember just six months ago all the talk of an Iraqi "civil war"? That seems to be fading.
• The just-ended holy month of Ramadan in Iraq was accompanied by a 40% drop in violence, even though al-Qaida had vowed to step up attacks.
• Speaking of al-Qaida, the terrorist group appears to be on the run, and possibly on the verge of collapse — despite making Iraq the center of its war for global hegemony and a new world order based on precepts of fundamentalist Islam.
• Military officials say U.S. troops have killed Abu Usama al-Tunisi, a Tunisian senior leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was responsible for bringing foreign fighters into the country. Not surprisingly, the pace of foreign fighters entering Iraq has been more than halved from the average of 60 to 80 a month.
• Last month, 1,200 Iraqis waited patiently in line in Iraq's searing heat to sign up to fight al-Qaida. They will join an estimated 30,000 volunteers in the past six months — a clear sign the tide has turned in the battle for average Iraqis' hearts and minds.


• Finally, and lest you think it's all death and destruction, there's this: Five million Iraqi children returned to school last week, largely without incident, following their summer vacations.

These developments are occurring just one week after Iraqi PM Nouri al-Malaki claimed that the threat of civil war in Iraq has been averted and that Iranian interference has "ceased to exist," and on the exact same day that al-Malaki announced that Iraqi defense and police forces were ready to take over all security responsibilities from the British in Basra in two months.

Yesterday, CBS News published an account by National Review's Pete Hegseth that indicates U.S. strategy has crippled al Qaeda.

Over the past few years, Democrats have shamelessly crafted their political road ahead on the future rhetoric of "we told you so," intending to be able to look back and point out to the American people that they predicted the Iraq War would be a failure well in advance, while never admitting they helped craft the failure. The goal of this plan is to re-establish some of national security credibility that the Democratic Party forfeited decades ago.

Towards that end, and to further their political goals, they have worked against the best interests of the American military, the American people, and the citizens of Iraq.

This latest attempt by Obey, Murtha, and other House Democrats shows that they will continue to attempt to craft policy to ensure the failure in Iraq that they think will most benefit their political party.

But iff the trends towards lower civilian and military deaths continues, as the Awakening spreads across provinces both Sunni and Shia, how much longer will Democrat politicians be able to claim that the war is "lost?" How much longer will out nation's media be able to hide signs of progress?

At this moment, the two most prominent stories relating in any way to Iraq are an contrived smear campaign against a radio talk show host by a special-interest group linked to a Democratic Presidential candidate, and the Congressional investigation into the apparent brutality of American security contractors working for Blackwater USA, who have fired their weapons in 195 missions out of more than 16,000 since 2005—roughly 1.2%--and recorded 16 Iraqi casualties since 2005, prior to the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square that left 11 Iraqis dead and 14 wounded.

And yet while these stories dominating the news media from Iraq are about aspects of the war, they are far from being the whole story about Iraq, or even the most important stories.

The important stories--those being largely ignored by the progressional media--are being told in food shipments to the poor in quieting towns that "al Qaeda lost," in now routine city council meetings in Fallujah, and by businessmen and mayors in Diyala and elsewhere, and written by American and Iraqi alike.

The War in Iraq is going badly for the Democratic Party, but it appears they will not go down without a fight.

Update: A very interesting and mostly concurring British opinion on the matter at Prospect Magazine (h/t PJM):

Iranian-made rockets will continue to kill British and American soldiers. Saudi Wahhabis will continue to blow up marketplaces, employment queues and Shia mosques when they can. Iraqi criminals will continue to bully their neighbourhoods into homogeneities that will give the strongest more leverage, although even this tide is turning in most places where Petraeus's surge has reached. Bodies will continue to pile up in the ditches of Doura and east Baghdad as the country goes through the final spasm of the reckoning that was always going to attend the end of 35 years of brutal Sunni rule.

But in terms of national politics, there is nothing left to fight for. The only Iraqis still fighting for more than local factional advantage and criminal dominance are the irrational actors: the Sunni fundamentalists, who number but a thousand or two men-at-arms, most of them not Iraqi. Like other Wahhabi attacks on Iraq in 1805 and 1925, the current one will end soon enough. As the maturing Iraqi state gets control of its borders, and as Iraq's Sunni neighbours recognise that a Shia Iraq must be dealt with, the flow of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Iraq from Syria will start to dry up. Even today, for all the bloodshed it causes, the violence hardly affects the bigger picture: suicide bombs go off, dozens of innocents die, the Shias mostly hold back and Iraq's tough life goes on.

In early September, Nouri al-Maliki said, "We may differ with our American friends about tacticsÂ… But my message to them is one of appreciation and gratitude. To them I say, you have liberated a people, brought them into the modern worldÂ… We used to be decimated and killed like locusts in Saddam's endless wars, and we have now come into the light." Here is an eloquent answer to the question of when American troops will leave Iraq. They will leave Iraq when the Iraqis, through their elected leadership, tell them to. According to a September poll, 47 per cent of Iraqis would prefer the Americans to leave. The surprise is that it's not 100 per cent. Who, after all, would not want his country rid of foreign troops? But if Iraqis had wanted government by opinion poll, they would have written their constitution that way. Instead, they chose, as do most people when given the choice, representative government.

I highly recommend reading the entire article. If the author is correct, it may be past the time that the Democrats can engineer a defeat in Iraq.

Have we really "turned the corner?" Frankly, I've heard the pronouncement one time too many to buy it at face value, but if the author is right, then we will be able to start bringing home American troops not in defeat, but in victory.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:49 PM | Comments (28) | Add Comment
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The televised death of Muhammad al-Dura on Sept. 30, 2000 at the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada was replayed over and over again as propaganda by Palestinians, in a conflict that eventually claimed thousands of lives.

Seven years later, the footage has been denounced as fauxtography by the Israeli government:

Seven years after the death of the Palestinian boy Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza, the Prime Minister's Office speaks out against the "myth of the murder".

An official document from Jerusalem denied – for the first time – that Israel was responsible for the death of al-Dura at the start of the second intifada.

The document argued that the images, which showed al-Dura being shot beside his father and have become a symbol of the second intifada, were staged.

"The creation of the myth of Muhammad al-Dura has caused great damage to the State of Israel. This is an explicit blood libel against the state. And just as blood libels in the old days have led to pogroms, this one has also caused damage and dozens of dead," said Government Press Office director Daniel Seaman.

The arguments were based on investigations that showed that the angles of the IDF troops' fire could not have hit the child or his father, that part of the filmed material, mainly the moment of the boy's alleged death, is missing, and the fact that the cameraman can be heard saying the boy is dead while the boy is still seen moving.

In The Atlantic in 2005, James Fallows explained why the story matters:

Al-Dura was the twelve-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed during an exchange of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian demonstrators on September 30, 2000. The final few seconds of his life, when he crouched in terror behind his father, Jamal, and then slumped to the ground after bullets ripped through his torso, were captured by a television camera and broadcast around the world. Through repetition they have become as familiar and significant to Arab and Islamic viewers as photographs of bombed-out Hiroshima are to the people of Japan—or as footage of the crumbling World Trade Center is to Americans. Several Arab countries have issued postage stamps carrying a picture of the terrified boy. One of Baghdad's main streets was renamed The Martyr Mohammed Aldura Street. Morocco has an al-Dura Park. In one of the messages Osama bin Laden released after the September 11 attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, he began a list of indictments against "American arrogance and Israeli violence" by saying, "In the epitome of his arrogance and the peak of his media campaign in which he boasts of 'enduring freedom,' Bush must not forget the image of Mohammed al-Dura and his fellow Muslims in Palestine and Iraq. If he has forgotten, then we will not forget, God willing."

It is quite possible that this defining moment in the Palestinian intifada cited even by Osama bin Laden was not the death of an innocent at the hands of callous Israeli soldiers, but the deliberate murder of a child for propaganda purposes in which the Palestinian cameraman may have been a willing actor.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:49 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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I've pretty much avoided this entire non-story, but the entire situation has become such a farce that I feel compelled to link this.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 05:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Both U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties have plummeted in Iraq. Thousands have apparently been killed and their bodies dumped in the jungle in clashes with government forces in Mayanmar/Burma. A college football player is gunned down and classes are cancelled for thousands as the search for the suspect continues.

A volcano erupts in the Red Sea, killing soldiers on a remote island outpost. There is yet another story about U.S. plans for attacking Iran.

And yet with all these developments affecting or potentially affecting lives around the globe, CNN and Fox News focus on the death of an irate passenger who apparently managed to strangle herself with her handcuffs after being arrested for disorderly conduct after missing her flight.

Don't get me wrong. It is a tragedy that this 45-year-old mother of three died. But this shouldnÂ’t be a top story in national news.

For those not related to her, her death is merely an exploited curiosity, a carny act inexplicably promoted to the the center ring. It matters little that she is the daughter of relatively obscure political figures, or that the cause of her death is being ascribed to the oddest of circumstances. This is sideshow material promoted to the front page for it's ability to shock and entertain.

I thought that the Weekly World News collapsed because they couldn't find readership for their kind of "news." Apparently, they were simply driven out of business by larger organizations more adept at exploiting a more brutal kind of infotainment.

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