Like the spate of national polls mantioned in my prior post today, there were at least three pieces on the state of Iraq that popped up on my radar in the past day or two.
Mike Hill notes that when “the Administration tried to sell Iraq as a success story in 2006, reality made a mockery of these claims,” but surveys the recent progress in security (US casualties, Iraqi casualties and capability of Iraqi forces), economics and sectarian reconciliation. At the Chicago Tribune, David Byrne takes a look at progress on a wide variety of statistics measured by the Brookings Institution’s “Iraq Index.” And at PJM, Abe Greenwald listens to the dogs that are not barking — Congressional Democrats who have stopped talking about the various Iraq benchmarks they passed into law in May 2007.
I am getting a vision … Sometime after the New Year … should O! be elected … I forsee great announcements of victory in Iraq, followed by caveats such as “Now that we’ve put our efforts on the right track, we’re seeing results …”
You heard it here first.
foresee … whatever bitches.
TEH NEW NARRATIVE* (Now with 20% more BS!) will be to ignore the progress as usual but to really trumpet Iraq as a distraction that takes away from the real war in Afghanistan. They’ll use last week’s attack on the prison as an example of our Continued Failure* there as well as pointing to the supposed major upcoming battle.
PT
*Uh, can I ask how to do the trademark thingy?
PT: &_trade_; (no spaces, sub “copy” to get that as well.)
When I heard that the Taliban had taken several villages east of Kandahar and were massing for an attack on the city my first thought was … good!
The Lord blesses us with a dumb as dirt enemy. They will move and attempt to attack, they’ll be counterattacked, they will die, then they will run, they will die and then die some more as they cross the border. Tell the Pakistani troops to get the hell out of the way.
And here I thought things were going well enough here… I suppose I should wait to be told how things are by my betters, rather than believe my lyin’ eyes. I am rather afraid that Carin is correct – come late January, should Sen. Obama prevail, the Heavens will resound with victory, and none of us who had labored for lo these many years will have had anything to do with it.
May I be indignant in advance? Heh.
MJ! It’s great to see your comment, an answer to prayers. Have you whipped those Iraqi recruits into shape?
Godspeed!
Time to move the goalpost!
Carin – that is a given.
Great to see a comment from you, Major John. Godspeed, indeed.
That would be incredibly tedious, with his affected big-baby-talk pseudo-non-pseudo-pseudo-non-intellectualism, but fortunately, it’s not him.
Sure, but “Psycho Killer” was a good song.
Oh, and “This must be the place” is pretty good too. What did I do with myself before iTunes? Oh, my favorite Talking Heads song eva- just found it. “Girlfriend is better.”
“the Administration tried to sell Iraq as a success story in 2006, reality made a mockery of these claims,â€Â
“Reality”, what a joke that is.
It’s not only conceivable, but likely, that actual successes that took place in Iraq in 2006 are contributing today to the wider success that even the blind can now see here in the states. While great evils took place in 2006, many setbacks to Iraq as a nation and to our strategy as a whole, many good things happened as well, though they won’t be soon credited, they happened, must have happened for events to turn out as they are. The administration knew then as it knows now that ultimate success in Iraq is a matter of political will here among the people of the US and as such, is not a matter for our enemies to decide. Do we will to succeed or do we not.
Born Under Punches
Don’t you miss it; don’t you miss it; some of you people just about missed it. Remain In Light is, IMO, their best piece of work.
Just got a text message from my son, Matt the Marine.
He was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal today.
May cheers rain down on Matt and his mates. There’d simply be no safety without them.
Seen the latest MoveOn offering against McCain, O’Brain? It proves blood can boil.
Excellent! Congrats and God bless :)
#13
Exactly. In order for there to be a Basra sucess story there had to be a Fulluja. In order for there to be a Sadre City there first had to be a Bagdad. His timeline is disengenuous. Tehran sees this and worries.
My crystal ball says Obama wont get a chance to announce victory because GW will produce Osama bin Laden in late September or October (dead or alive)….
Benchmarks? We don’ need no steenking Benchmarks! We don’ have to remember no steenking Benchmarks!
Yeah but Major John, you’re on the ground in Iraq and you certainly cannot possibly understand the POLITICAL situation, like Obama and the vast majority of democratic senators. After all, you’re only a soldier, where as they are men of learning, who understand talking and nuance.
In fact, if Obama is elected, he will meet with Al Queda in Iraq and will literally talk them out of ever attacking western targets again. Change indeed ! And Hope !
(On a more serious note, its great to see Major John here- thanks for your service and keeping us up to date on how things are going.)
– The new, new Narrativeâ„¢ is, according to Allen Smith, one of Obamas security people”
“[If] al Qaeda is destroyed in Iraq like the Republicans claim they are, then we should have our troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the people that attacked us on 9/11 are.”
– So from now to the election that will be the mantra, along with Pelosi’s “With the help of the Iranians” bullshit comments. Apparently any sort of the smallest credit for Bush would put these assholes in a ward somewhere.(I suspect back where they came from in the first place.)
– Ok Robec, you grab one end, and I’ll grab the other, and we’ll move them down to the other end zone. It isn’t going to matter what really happens, the Lefturds are behind 76 to nothing, but they’ll celebrate their “triumph” in beating Bush into the ground and saving their beloved Glorious Jihadi freedom fighters, just like they “beat” Lieberman in CT.
– O’Brain, both you and your son are great Americans, the best to you both, and a happy safe return home for him.
– MJ – As field transportation and Materials Chief, PO1, SUBPACFLT, You have My blessings to drop a TU-38 15 ton troop carrier on any SecProg you may run across in performing your duties, and you can be as indignant as you want while doing it!.
– Ooooorah – Sempre fi – carry on.
CArin-BONC,
Anybody with a brain has known forever (and I don’t mean that sas a dig at you. Honestly.) that the Dem’s will take credit for ANYTHING that Bush has done that turns out positively. Even though they have fought him every step of ther way, and called him stupid for the policies that they will take credit for,
What a bunch of morons. I am watching some stupid Florida representative (Schultz) argue that drilling our own oil is useless. How fucking stupid can these idiots get?
AAAAAARRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!
TLD, yeah, and of course no one asks why it is not a problem with China drilling off our coast. Like the fact that China drilling there won’t pose a threat to the environment or security. Incredibly ignorant. Chamomile tea and potpourri! And what’s with the brill cream look? Do they still sell that stuff?
As noted above that would be Dennis Byrne rather than David Byrne. Otherwise the title of the piece might have accurately been Life During Wartime.
– I’m just going to sit back and watch the blood bath between the public, who have to do everything less in their lives just to get by, while the dems stand like a bunch of belligerent children blocking every sort of possible answer.
– First they are about to bite it unmercifully on the Iraq war, and now they decide to obstruct on the oil mess.
– I’m convinced they are caught in a form of apolitical the tiger or the lady, with the lady being replaced with another tiger.
– If they stay in place and continue to obstruct they are certainly going to fuck themselves for the upcoming election.
– If they get some sense in their heads and do a 180 on the oil mess, a sizable number of people that think a tree is their fuck-buddy will jump ship, and that loss since they are already in a minority, will certainly fuck them in the upcoming elections.
– Lose-lose. Gee what a fucking shame.
Pay no attention to those benchmarks behind the curtain!!!