This Baghdad is not the Baghdad that Barack knew, says the AP (!):
The United States is now winning the war that two years ago seemed lost.
Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue, possibly for years. But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace  a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago.
Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.
That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.
Scattered battles go on, especially against al-Qaida holdouts north of Baghdad. But organized resistance, with the steady drumbeat of bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and ambushes that once rocked the capital daily, has all but ceased.
This amounts to more than a lull in the violence. It reflects a fundamental shift in the outlook for the Sunni minority, which held power under Saddam Hussein. They launched the insurgency five years ago. They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.
Okay, sure . . . but what about the kite flying?
In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.
Not to nitpick, but picnicking isn’t exactly kite flying, is it?
I’m sure they all long for the good old days, under Saddam’s dictatorship. [h/t Hot Air Headlines]
– Ok. So now AP is officially under the MagicBusâ„¢. That guy you posted earlier will be needing to update his “Obama campaign casualties” web site.
– Wonder if the AP has closed down its “Arab desk”. Only way this sort of heresy could have gotten into print.
– SecProg trolls rushing to condemn the AP for going off teh narrative – priceless, in 3 -2 -1…..
This is Bush’s war.
I’m sure that’s how it will be named in the public school history textbooks, hf. ;-P
Until freedom is restored, the terrorists have won.
Oh, it definitely is, hf, nobody is going to take that infamy from him away and all the death he , not Saddam , was a cause of on his own….
– Which only goes to prove, its the guy who really knows how to shoot his gun that gets the babes.
Kites? Not. In. My. Name!!!!1
Serr8d’s cartoon post in the pub has it about right, I think.
I sent my sister this e-mail Nov 17, 2007. I still don’t have a good answer for the question posed.:
IBD editorial follows: http://tinyurl.com/2et22c
At the end of this article you’ll find the question I have been asking myself for somewhat longer than nine months now, to wit, “what will they do if we win?” I used to ask, “if we win” but at this point it really is beginning to look like a foregone conclusion, so how about “when” instead of “if”. I think the mere obviousness of the question should prompt ordinary prudence (the politician’s preeminent virtue, always consonant with his own interest) to demand a different answer than that which the Dems are offering now. “Don’t paint yourself into a corner” is one of the first lessons every politician learns. So, how can it be that these seasoned professionals have put themselves (and the rest of us with them) in this soon to be, if not already, untenable stance? Genuine, meaningful, philosophical questions about the ‘nature’ of reality aside, the overwhelming weight of evidence coming out of Iraq (not to mention the evidence that sits in the brains of all our soldiers, airmen and marines, who are, after all, voters and who will be coming home eventually: who are over there, experiencing the changes for themselves and who must be wondering, “what the hell are they talking about back in Washington and why are they denying the reality we’re living every day?”) will soon overtake the posturing, obfuscation and goal-post moving going on in the press and Democratic Party. So what then?
Of course I already know the answers the ideological enablers offer to the question “how can they have put themselves here?”…..like: “they have to do this to please their base”, “they just can’t stand allowing Bush to have a win”, “they promised they would put an end to this stupid war”, but it seems to me that these sorts of answers miss the point altogether or should I say, mistake the question? When the proposed solution to a problem is the metaphorical equivalent of “here, get in this car, drive it over that cliff and expect it to fall up”, surely it must occur to some sentient agent in the process to say “Wait. We need to stop and re-think this thing here”. Yet, I see no sign, not the tiniest hint of anyone in authority in the party stopping to try to find the right question. (There is one (D) congressman I can think of who has changed his mind on whether the surge would work, but he is a minor figure in the party without enough power to sway anyone else. This http://tinyurl.com/6kmcom is what he got for his hopeful report on the ‘surge’ ). I mean, really, when I stop to think it through, it is stunning. Political parties are enormous co-operative enterprises with millions of adherents working together to find the right policy to fit their and the nation’s perceived interests. How can it be that millions of smart people can agree to take the one position practically guaranteed to blow-up in their faces? Yet here they are, still in the car and it is speeding right over the cliff edge. Again, they are in the car, not us, it is their future prospects, their very personal political interest involved here. It is a self-inflicted harm. So why? How? The major damage will be to them and them alone, yet they insist on proceeding to their detriment (which is not to say that there isn’t ancillary harm to the troops in Iraq and thus, to the rest of us, but I don’t think the Dem’s decision can even approach changing the ultimate outcome there).
I still don’t get it.
SDF
Remember, Baracky had the judgment to leave Saddam in power. And then he had the judgment to abandon the Iraqis while they strugged to put a government together. Also remember that if you havent accepted Baracky as your personal Lord and Savior, you’re a racist. Change you can believe in™.
– Sdferr, even though this is an “outlier” year, the 12 year cycle thing, and thus normally would be a Dem year for elections hands down, back in 2002, when the Dem Leadership to a man and a woman, was calling for removal of Saddam as an “imminent threat”, someone reminded them that the sitting party retains during wartime. That has never failed in our histort, so for the Dems/Left, it was get the Iraq war over with or forget it for who knows hoe many more years.
– That is what has automated the whole “peace” movement.
– The Left has always been caught between a rock and a hard place on Iraq. Amit it has worked and they give Bush credit, and aid and abet the Right. Admit its ongoing and they buck history.
– So you get the assinine argument that Iraq is a failure, the surge didn’t work, but now that Iraq is under control for any number of reasons aside from the surge or our military, we need to focus on Afghanistan.
– Effectively the Left is screwed no matter which way they talk about Iraq, so they want to talk about something else, anything else.
10 BBH, I like that delusional mental corner you put yourself in.
It feels so warm and fuzzy.
But, Please, make sure you have enough hard core anti-depressants when you venture out in the real world…
– Powerful counter point sash-hole.
– You know its true, so you go with the ad homs.
– Pitiful.
nah, no ad homs at all, you know I love you, so I do not want you to get hurt by the reality in the existing world.
Seriously, no bad feelings, just a concern….
– Theres an old saying sashal, which in your case applies 100 fold. Take care of yourself, and you’ll have your hands full.
– In the mean time son, since you want to comment so badly on all the good reasons to ignore the enemy at your door and hide under your bed, how about responding to what I wrote instead of veering off topic with empty personal attacks?
– Think in all your deep wisdom you could manage something so sophomoric as that?
Oh, I agree, the left is screwed, it always was…
Think in all your deep wisdom you could manage something so sophomoric as that?
BBH,
Just refer to sasha’s comment in the “Goodbye” post to plumb the depth of his idiocy.
Part of me wants to work through the question with you BBH. But given what Jeff’s just posted I’m kinda distracted for the time being. I think I should go get a bourbon and wait a bit.
Buy a bottle.
But… but.. Michael Moore told us that the true minutemen would defeat the US!
Insta-lanche. *sigh*
Yeah. yeah
The AP has come under the demonic influence of Bush, et al.
I know this because Harry, Nancy, John (Murtha, or is it John Senile Moron?”), and Barry have all TOLD me, point blank that we gave lost this war. “We are screwed and murdering millions of Iraqis every day!”
You right wingers are just a bunch of war mongering lunatics!
And, please. Before anyone new here flames me, check out where I stand.
Thank you, my acolytes.
This is the moment! No wait. This is the moment. No, this. Wait, this one. No…
Shaping the battle space is a part of strategy. The AP is shifting from Bush losing this war to a narrative where Obama is winning the war.
“Not losing” is as much as they will give Bush.
ha ha, mishu every time I hear that I think of this song. (I’d link a video, but youtube seems to be not working at the moment.)
Limited, sometimes sharp fighting and periodic terrorist bombings in Iraq are likely to continue
WOW! The AP actually referred to the “insurgent” practice of bombing civilian targets with the T-word!
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter–I guess the AP finally decided to switch sides, now that they know we’re going to win.
But the Iraqi government and the U.S. now are able to shift focus from mainly combat to mainly building the fragile beginnings of peace  a transition that many found almost unthinkable as recently as one year ago…
In Baghdad, parks are filled every weekend with families playing and picnicking with their children. That was unthinkable only a year ago, when the first, barely visible signs of a turnaround emerged.
They keep using that word, but I do not think it means what they think it means.
I think AP was just waiting for Obamagod to go to Iraq so they could declare the war won. Another incredible accomplishment by the MAO (Media Annointed One).
[…] anymore”). But now AP reports that the U.S. is winning in Iraq, and these bloggers have grown credulous, because it gives them a chance to give the speeches they’ve been rehearsing […]
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Yeah, Sashal, once I finish working on my part of the master plan to finish terrorizing women and children, I can walk past the beggars and rubble piles to go sleep in my palace built by the obscene oil profits of EMPIRE.
What is so hard about saying it looks like the “civil war” in Iraq didn’t pan out, and the foreign insurgents have been largely if nearly totally defeated, and the domestic insurgents have reconciled with the rest of the people? You can still complain it was not done perfectly, you can still carp about Rumsfeld and neocons and all sorts of stuff. But what is darn hard for people to say – “yeah, looks like it is winding down”?
Now that I am out of the field and up in Baghdad – I see an Iraqi military that is starting to work toward a plan for 2020. There is plenty of short term work, but the day to day survival thing is gone.
I have a simple question. Who or what has taken over the Democratic Party that it cannot even act in it’s own best interests, only against those of America?
Isn’t it obvious that the safest, quickest, most humane and ethical tactic to end the war would be for the Dems to join in a bipartisan pledge to win it as soon as possible? Why then do they persist in playing games with it?
Since 2004, they have had the option to get on board with defeating terror, take the war off the table by helping to win it, and potentially win the political battle on domestic issues. But they have been unable to muster the discipline to do anything except angage in a pretracted propaganda campaign for America’s enemies.
Again I ask: who or what has taken over the Democratic Party that it cannot even act in it’s own best interests, only against those of America?
“It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to accept this story” — Hillary Leftard Commentariat
Who or what has taken over the Democratic Party that it cannot even act in it’s own best interests, only against those of America?
Part of the problem is they seem to have become purely political animals. Getting Democrats elected is as close to an ideology and the only principle they exist for. Tax the wealthy for vote buying programs, promise anything it takes to get a vote. When in office if the majority are for it, rail about democracy, if the majority oppose, twist the Constitution to cover it. Other than that, they are completely devoid of substance or concrete, principled positions. They are a party of petty salesmen and hucksters of limited intellect and contrarianism is the only thing at which they are competent.
But the thing is BMoe, the stance against their own fighting forces and the nation’s interest is so counterproductive to Dem political interests that it is very hard to believe they could be that irrational in the aggregate.
It is easy by contrast, for me to believe that individuals who are ill informed and ideologically driven, for example Mrs. Pelosi, Sen Boxer and the like, who have “safe seats” made so by deluded constituencies, could take that stance. But not the Sens Nelson (Fl, Ne) for instance, or Lincoln (Ar), Bayh (In), Johnson (Sd) and the like.
Even the sometime ideologue like Levin (Mi) has to see the danger to his personal power in a stance like this, even if they don’t see a genuine danger to the nation. It’s just too irrational a behavior for me to believe possible for the party as a whole.
Which leaves me with a puzzle.
Oh, it definitely is, hf, nobody is going to take that infamy from him away and all the death he , not Saddam , was a cause of on his owm
You mean except for the fact that Saddam ordered the killing of, and at times participated in the killing of others, right?
Your moral equivocation is disgusting.
You “patriot” you.
The Party elders made a bad (political) choice, or took a gamble let’s say, in the summer of 2003, promoting the Bush lied meme along the Wilson/Plame line, but the military circumstances on the ground in Iraq were themselves not bad at that time. Their choice was longer term politically however, looking to the 2004 elections, attempting to undermine the credibility of the Bush Admin and the Republicans who were locked in to support Bush.
It seems to me that was the moment of decision. That set in motion all the political stances on the war the Dems have subsequently made. They invested in (political) opposition to an Administration without considering the entailment in warfighting (winning) policy.
There was no anti-war principle involved in this (except in the minds of the deluded, but I think we can safely ignore them). The time for anti-war principle had long passed (as of the passage of the Authorization in 2002).
Right now it is pretty clear that what the Democrat Party wants is to start a new war. They are already laying the groundwork saying that no matter who gets elected, the fighting starts again right after. Obama because he cut and ran, and opened the battlefield, McCain, because they will realize we aren’t going to cut and run, so they will abandon that strategy and fight again. It is almost religious in its undisprovability. I say “almost” because there is one way to disprove it, that is to elect McCain and see if peace in Iraq is possible.
It’s just too irrational a behavior for me to believe possible for the party as a whole.
Which leaves me with a puzzle.
It is for the party as a whole, which is why you have the blue dogs and the Liebermans and what not, but the base, and therefore the leadership I believe are every bit this irrational.
The problem with both parties goes to the organizational requirements Karl has highlighted so well. Both sides need a grassroots, volunteer base to get things done. For the Republicans, it has lately been the Church, McCain’s problems with organization are the direct result of distancing himself from the religious right. Whether you agree with their positions or not, most churches have a large volunteer base with transportation in place and can get the shit done if you can motivate them.
For the Dems, it has traditionally been unions, but the shape of unions has changed dramatically lately from blue collar to a more teacher/government employee value system that is not as traditional value based, or as large. The radical left has filled the void with excitable children “activists” and True Believers who like to raise hell and money.
Obama is trying to pander primarily to his base for the organizational and financial perks, while flirting with the middle to get the required votes, which has been the traditional approach the past several elections. McCain seems to be holding to his maverick label and bucking that trend, by going primarily after the middle voters, and flirting with the base just enough to meet the minimal organization requirements.
But again, BMoe, while I can agree with you as to the ‘inside baseball’ particulars, I’m trying to understand the decision made in 2003. How can it be that sober, patriotic, experienced Democrats decide to oppose an ongoing war, the ultimate outcome of which they understand they cannot know at that time and will not be able to control in detail as it proceeds and which may turn out to be a success (cheers!) for their political opposition, leaving them hung out to dry on the other side of a self inflicted injury?
When in the alternative they can support the war, co-operate with the Administration, avoid the suspicions of the public, get credit for the successes should they come, easily deflect the failures which may also come onto the Administration, help the whole thing go more smoothly and quickly, have their honest input taken seriously by the Admin, see to it they insert their care for the troops legislation (healthcare, GI Bill stuff) to win favor with the service personnel, in short win-win! Win for the party, win for the nation! And they can still oppose the Admin on domestic policy going forward into the political season.
The risks to their strategies failure seem to me to utterly outweigh the gains. And so it has come to pass. And this knowledge is seeping into the conciousness of every sentient American, no matter how little attention they may pay to “politics” as such.
Supporting and co-operating would violate two basic beliefs of a noisy part of the Democratic Party; Bush is not a legitimately elected president, and the use of military force is never acceptable.
Chameleon in Chief.
I just want to see how the left spins the victory in Iraq as something they, the left, engineered.
There’s gonna be a lot a smokin’ an grindin’ when those gears git to shiftin’
I don’t think that will work for them. In fact, I think the harder they try that tack, the harder it will go for them come the next election. Which assumption, I guess, underlays the question I started with last Nov. or so. They said too much stuff in public that’s on tape and what-not.
They said too much stuff in public that’s on tape and what-not.
Indeed. It’s much, much harder to put stuff down the memory hole nowadays.
I think they mostly badly underestimated W, Sdferr. They thought they could put enough domestic pressure on him to ensure our defeat, in which case they would have been in the catbirds seat for years to come. Basically, they decided to go all in against a very good poker player, and now they are fucked.
Yo got that right B Moe. I voted for the dude and I can tell you he’s done way better than I thought he would back in Jan 2001.
And that goddamn Steel tariff right out of the gate to please a bunch of West Virginian’s? Man was I pissed.
Well and truly fucked by their own hand. I like saying that.
Sdferr, I mostly find it cute you think Dems are rational. ;D
Hey, don’t misquote.
They now are either sidelined or have switched sides to cooperate with the Americans in return for money and political support.
Do you think that they were losing and getting their heads blown off by Iraqi and American military forces had anything to do with it? Not at all!
Oh, and BTW we lost WWII. We bribed the Nazis to stop the fighting. Military action like D-Day by US forces only made things worse. Nearly 70 years later we are still stuck in an endless quagmire there. It took a political solution to end the civil war in Europe. Americans deliberately slaughtered European civilians, caused the Holocaust (which was a neocon lie anyway), and alienated close allies like Vichy France. We are now at greater danger of attack from Japan than we were on 12/7.