So perhaps the braintrusts of certain liberal blogs might want to get all of their facts straight before pitching a hissyfit over the fact General Petraeus ended up giving a Republican-only briefing last month.

It turns out that invitations to the videoconference were extended to both Democrats and Republicans, but no Democrats showed up.

Perhaps they were out of spit.

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Russ Feingold and Harry Reid say that the war in Iraqi isn't being lost fast enough, and will sponsor a retreat bill in the Senate that would largely defund the war and require a pullout to begin 120 days after the bill became law.

Meanwhile, on the ground in al Anbar, soldier/blogger "Teflon Don" speculates that the insurgency may be reaching a tipping point.

I'll try to keep writing about the winds here in Al-Anbar. I'll go out on a little bit of a limb and say that the insurgency is quickly approaching a tipping point. If things continue as they are right now, our military won't need a surge to chase the terrorists out of Anbar- the citizens will do it for us, which is as it should be. It's beginning to show already: more local tips, more police recruits (far more than anticipated), and sadly- in bigger and more desperate Al-Qaeda attacks.

He concludes this thought-provoking post by stating:

It's a big job, but I think we may have finally learned enough forgotten lessons from places like East Timor, Vietnam, Ireland, Malaysia, and others that it just might work this time.

Color me hopeful.

It might not come as much of a surprise to discover that others on the ground in Iraq are also seeing these same hopeful signs, which is perhaps why Reid and Feingold are so desperately trying to push to lose the war now before signs of a positive change become more widely known.

Perhaps Harry and Russ should do a little reading.

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It was all for show:

If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops," Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

"My expectation is that we will continue to try to ratchet up the pressure on the president to change course," the Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage."

I think Obama is stretching the truth a bit when he says, "no lawmaker wants to play chicken with the troops." Playing chicken with the troops is the preferred Democrat tactic these days, and passing the recent meaningless pork-laden bills through the House and Senate when they know they could not override a veto are concrete examples of this in action.

What Obama perhaps should have said is that no Democrat wants to get caught playing chicken with the troops, as John "Okinawa" Murtha has done several times, first when he accused Marines in Haditha of "cold-blooded murder" well before the investigation had concluded, and just months ago, when he attempted to undercut deployments by the arbitrary setting of readiness standards which would mark units as unfit for combat if they did not have key equipment before deploying.
more...

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John Noonan at OpFor has an interview with Commanding U.S. Gneral David Petraeus posted that is certainly worth a read.

In addition, I'd strongly recommend reading this Arthur Herman article article on how to win the war in Iraq, which provides the historical background of the COIN strategy currently being rolled out by General Petraeus in Iraq.

Once you've read it you'll wonder why the strategy contained within wasn't rolled out in 2004.

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