Root causes of violence remain unaddressed.
Meet the New Pragmatism.
Those positive signs are attracting little attention in the United States, where the war-weary public is focused on the American presidential contest and skeptical of talk of success after so many years of unfounded optimism by the war’s supporters.
[emphasis mine]
Original title of article. h/t dre
.
Original title “Iraq violence down and gov’t confidence rising”
“after so many years of unfounded optimism by the war’s supporters.”
Zeus on a zamboni. Apparently, optimism is unfounded only when the PRESS doesn’t have it.
Narcissism, thy name is MSM.
yes, yes, the troops are completely incompetent, I never really thought they could do it.
Here’s this from awhile back about the guy the AP propaganda chief cites as saying “This relative calm is the calm before the storm… The worst violence is not over because the calm may collapse any moment.”
Actually Roger Simon should get the tip.
Link
I thought I put the url in #1
“Unfounded optimism?” You mean, like, the elimination of ol’ Saddy and his whole thug family? The obliteration of the dreaded Republican Guard in a couple of weeks? The purple-finger thingy? (several times) A new constitution from scratch? Incorporation of women (gasp!) into the government?
Is there a special journalist membership card that marks ’em as, you know, ADD/retarded?
It is unambiguous that we have turned a corner in Iraq. It is my fervent hope that it is the proverbial end of the beginning.
But to pretend that Iraq hasn’t been a pretty substantial cluster fuck is absurd. Hundreds of billions of dollars and 35k dead and wounded speak plainly enough.
Im thinking the special membership card for ADD/retarded has to go to the lot that dreamt up Iraq while Iran is in the pre-nuclear 9th inning.
History will not be very kind to Bush for maintaining the status quo for 3 plus years while troops were turned to pink clouds daily.
Don’t sweat it. I’m sure a few more UN resolutions will fix it.
Oh please. If Iraq is a happy democracy kind of place and enjoys a decreasing percentage of economic activity derivative of oil it will be a masterstroke in retrospect. Iran’s the next domino I think. And think about it. Them Persian fuckers can’t get less democratic, so there’s sort of a built-in glide-path there to a nice little legacy. You’ll be all like hey I remember back before Bush when the Middle East didn’t have them any democracies and everybody over there was all oppressed and terroristy. Then you’ll think hey my country did that.
Bush, 2003:
You know, you ought to go back to that speech and count up all the lies.
From Mcgruder:
“But to pretend that Iraq hasn’t been a pretty substantial cluster fuck is absurd. Hundreds of billions of dollars and 35k dead and wounded speak plainly enough.”
Seems like somewhat retarded, so why is he posting here?
$20 says he’s voting for the Obamessiah.
Cheers!
ChrisP
Bush and freedom is the chocolate and peanut butter of the new century I think. People should stop being so grumpy about it just cause they didn’t have the character and values to get on board the part where we liberated people from a dehumanizing tyranny and all. I’d feel sorry for them but I’m not really in the mood. Maybe later. But for real, clusterfuck thingies always happen when dehumanized people rejoin civilization. But then after that what you have is progress and the world is a better place unless you’re Baracky and you thrive on pessimism and gloom with maybe a little bonus genocide for good measure. Stunted little man.
The actions on the ground are heartening.
The actions in DC, especially at the Court of the Robed Deciders, not so much.
WE SURRENDERED LAST WEEK.
It’s not a war, it’s crime. The Judicial branch has spoken. I expect lawfare coverage to replace the collapse of Pakistan’s assistance in the log support of Afghanistan ops. The Iraqis better get their shit in one bag because after November we are going to be concentrating on “leaving with honor” in a big time way.
It’s not that the terrorists have won. The Democrats have. Not much difference, of course. I am counting the days until we kiss a city goodbye.
Bush will be remembered for having the moral plan. He just failed to get it done.
“Those positive signs are attracting little attention in the United States…”
Dang! If only there were some sort of, y’know, international wire service that could get the word out to wide array of media outlets across the globe…
ChrisP–You gonna hit me with that $20 via Paypal or do you need a PO box?
Cheers back at you, natch. I wont bust your chops on the 35k casualties, cuz’ well thats retarded.
DC–I see your pair of resolutions and raise you one more. I think three is the gold dust number that will convince Iran that this is not in their best interest. Or, maybe a visit from the UN special interlocutor on race and flatulence. I like that speech, but its just platitudes. I would have liked it more if he added a sentence to the effect of, “And to this end, I am committed to growing and expanding our ground forces, which will be led by leaders given a wide-ranging authority to implement what tactics and strategy they see fit…” but he didn’t.
Happyfeet–Sure hope Im not the stunted little man there. Im actually rather pro-military intervention. I could have imagined a strong case being made for hitting Iraq. Just picking out datapoints from my days on the terror-finance beat…9 figure line item for Hamas, Hizbollah, PIJ…global logistical framework center for terrorism…killed a lot more Americans than Saddam…pro-western middle class empathetic to US subjugated by despotic Islamist madmen elites…Squijillion barrels of oil to help economy get back on feet…will absolutely happily develop and use nukes on us and allies (read: Israel).
but, as ChrisP pointed out, discount the hell out of the above. I’m retarded.
I get it; now that there is a lull in the Iraqi violence, why not commit the next generation to a war with Iran? Oh, but we must promote freedom, but we surrendered last week. Shit, who do I put a long or short on anymore? You guys used to make me money.
Iran wasn’t violating UN sanctions and a cease-fire, so it would have had to be a much stronger case, and it would have been much harder to generate any semblance of a multi-lateral effort. You would also have been invading a country next door to Saddam, still not knowing what type of WMD he possessed or was developing. You might not have been able to get Kuwait to help as a staging area, which would have meant an amphibious assault, etc. etc.
Iraq was the obvious choice for a second front, Iran would have opened about a dozen cans of worms. I think if you would have projected before the invasion we would be where we are at 5 years most people would have considered it an optimistic outlook.
You mean like the lull in European internecene violence? The one that has required fifty plus years of US intervention to maintain? Yeah it’ll probably be something like that.
Oh. No, not you at all. Baracky is stunted; he’s not all growed up yet. Ok so now what you can almost already hear him say.
Put a short on GE!
i tell you what HF, that man is going to have to do a series of pirouettes, or walk some kind of nano line, come the autumn. he’s gonna be easy to serve an order of humble pie too.
Iraq is improving, even Olbermann would have to admit that. There is global consensus that Iran is going to be a very bad situation. Maybe Afghanistan, which should have been the gold jewel in the crown, will come around. I bet it just might.
Officially, I denounce myself for the insinuation above that Olbermann would acknowledge the plain facts about Iraq’s improving situation.
He is an appalling scum derided widely even within my MSM world for his asninity and shamelessness.
Yeah it’ll probably be something like that.
Probably similar to the “lull” we’ve had in recent years in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, too.
I’m sure the banzai charges and kamikaze strikes will be starting back up any day now, though.
I wonder. Baracky says “try me” I think to all our terrorist friends. Sort of a we’ll see what we can work out kind of approach. He’ll pirouette, no doubt, but his priorities aren’t very clear I don’t think. Maybe his VP person will take point on the whole national security thing. Someone had better.
Bad, bad weekend.
These assholes in the drive by press are determined to destroy Bush and anything he has done.
In the last two weeks, instead of meekly keeping my mouth shut when people crap on Bush, I have been confronting them.
And guess what? The ONLY thing they can say about Bush is that his “Daddy” bought his way through Yale and Harvard.
When I ask them why Gore couldn’t cut it (with a daddy every bit as influential as the Bush’s), they don’t know what to say. I tell them that your daddy might be able to buy your way into Yale or Harvard, but if you can’t cut it, you’re gone.
Oh! No! No! No!
Bush’s daddy BOUGHT his grades, and that’s that. Forget the fact that Al Gore couldn’t even make it through DIVINITY SCHOOL! And with a father who had just as much, if not more, pull than the Bush family does.
But, hey! Who gives a fuck about facts when the press and the proggs have been crucifying Bush from the moment he became president. Yeah. Eight years of bashing by the MSM won’t take it’s toll?
Yeah, right. An empty suit like O! gets daily blow jobs from the press, and Bush is the Devil?
I am getting pretty pissed off, here.
– TLD – Whao, I understand your angst my man, but you gotta slow down a few notches or you’re going to blow a gasket.
– Yes the Ptoggs hate America, yes their bullshit lies and anti-American propaganda, along with the mischief by the MSM, the ACLU, and every other commy/pinko org in the country, has been bad mouthing Bush, and making life tough for us to protect ourselves since Gore lost his ass. Even before 9/11, but after it went over the top in order to force Iraq into another VietNam, and protect Clintons fuckups that led to 9/11. They wanted to get ahead of the truth so they layed out a smokescreen of BS about “NeoCons” to cover their tracks and his too. They knew they needed the war to go away to win back some power.
– But there is some good news. For one thing the Left is as predictable as the sun coming up. For another, as you find out yourself, every time you actually hit them with facts they collapse in a puddle of name calling and whining. They got nothing, and they know it.
– For another thing as long as they are kept out of any real power its all smoke and noise. I don’t see any way that Obama can win the WH. When all is said and done, the Left is still a rather small percentage, something less than 15%, despite all the disproportionate noise and trouble they make. Even with the dumb ass Reps running a RINO, I don’t see the Dems convincing anywhere near enough crossovers, and the rascist based Black vote is going to be offset by the Hillery backlash in some regard, so the numbers just aren’t there for an Obama win.
– And for the future, if the Left can’t win it with three Liberals running, then they never will. I’m not going to argue Karls analysis, or those of any number of smart and well versed pundits. As far as it goes, its all good, but I don’t think the numbers are there for the reasons I’ve posted.
– And if all that doesn’t drive home the point, think of the effect that will build gradually against the whole game plan of the Left as we go through the next 5 months with Iran steadily becoming more quiet and fundamentally sound.
– Don’t kid yourself with all the “happy faces” the Proggs are putting on, and the hooting and whistling for their messiah, they’er all worried shitless what will happen to their grand plan if Iran becomes another “Aw shit” like Cuba. They know all the BS yakkety yak and rationalizing in the world won’t save their asses. In that sense they’re a hell of a lot more worried than you are. I even think that worry accounts for the sudden uptick in drive-by trolling.
History will not be very kind to Bush
Bush was never in it for the history books. Not like Clinton. We’ll see how “history” colors it if we’re still alive. Maybe “history” will forget that Saddam hid in a spider hole and didn’t even have the ball of Hitler to put a bullet in his own head because he liked Doritos too much. “If I shoot myself, no more Doritos. I’ll wait.”
“Comment by cynn on 6/16 @ 9:19 pm #
I get it; now that there is a lull in the Iraqi violence, why not commit the next generation to a war with Iran?”
An even better question would be why has Iran committed their next generation to a a war with the United States?
Because they think this guy or someone very much like him is going to be the next president.
Cynn, “lull”? Like the Korean Lull we have had for 55 years, or do you think that the JAM and AQI are going to rise from the dead and march as a zombie army of re-suicide bombers? I got a bellyful of people with your attitude re: El Salvador, the Morrocan/Polsiaro Front conflict, Algeria’s Islamist campaign, etc., etc. War is nasty and brutish – but it ends. This one is ending with the good guys up, and the complainers whining about casualty counts that would have comprised 5 minute periods of the World Wars, or single day battles in the US Civil War. And as for the money – just what percentage of GNP has that been…?
Bah.
History will not be very kind to Bush for maintaining the status quo for 3 plus years while troops were turned to pink clouds daily.
I don’t know what history you read, but the commanders in the field are responsible for the results in the field. You’re making Lincoln responsible for Bull Run.
Any honest historical assesment of our Iraq decision will look at it from a strategic point of view as necessary and brilliant.
Bush has done a lot of things wrong, but Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t the ones.
“Any honest historical assesment”
Yeah, good luck with that.