Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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Is The Surge Working? An Interview With General Petraeus
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
7:04 PM
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Iraq is not a breeding ground for terrorists, but a burying ground. General Petraeus, from my interview with him this morning:
[A]s you know, we try to avoid body counting, but inevitably, obviously, it is something we keep track of, because we're trying to have some sense of the damage we are doing to al Qaeda-Iraq, its affiliates, other Sunni insurgent groups, and also certainly to the Shia militia extremist elements. And the answer to that in a general sense is that they are losing many, many hundreds of their, of these different elements each month, certainly since the onset of the surge.
Why such an increase in effectiveness? Part of the answer is in the incredible effectiveness of the allied special forces operating in tandem with the conventional forces:
Our best operators in the world are here in the largest numbers of anywhere in the world by several multiples, and conducting a very, very high operational tempo, and doing extraordinary operations. When I think back to the operations we did, for example, going after war criminals in Bosnia, or something like that, you know, and one of those would be a big deal, and you'd dine off that for the next several months. On a nightly basis here, you know, ten or twelve serious operations are going down by these forces. And any one of those is far more significant than we conducted for decades. They are very sophisticated, very complex, very lethal sometimes, and very effective. Having said that, although they may be the most important operations, because they can take down, as they did the senior Iraqi leader in al Qaeda-Iraq, or kill all three al-Turki brothers, or what have you, it is also the weight of the operations conducted by the, if you will, the regular special forces, the Green Berets and the others that make up the special operations task force, and operate throughout the country at a very high operational tempo, and of our conventional forces. I mean it is our conventional forces who cleared Western Baquba. Certainly, augmented by, again, our special forces and our special mission unit elements, but they're the ones that, you know, killed the 80 or 90 confirmed kill, and perhaps another 80 or so more, and captured a couple of hundred in addition to that as well. And they're the ones who will hold that area against attempts that have already taken place by al Qaeda and their affiliates to try and get back into these neighborhoods.
Read the whole thing for a broad assessment of conditions in Iraq, one that completely contradicts assertions that the surge has failed. The audio will also be posted and can be listened to by hitting the "Talk Radio Clips" button above.
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Trochilus writes: Wednesday, July, 18, 2007 7:52 PM
Petraeus Is for Real
Given the recent and utterly dishonest characterizations by both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- to wit, that we need to get out of Iraq so we can get back to fighting al-Qaeda - the capture, on July 4th of Abu Shahid, is as significant an event as one can imagine."
And it just so happens that this "capture" occurred days after the report came out saying that we and the Iraqi government failed to meet the majority of the benchmarks. I'm just surprised they didn't announce we caught Bin Laden.
They should just rename this site the college chickenhawk board. A bunch of cowards. What? Flat feet, ADD? Sign up wimps.
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Why does Hugh "The cowardly lion" hate America and spreads his Nazi propaganda?
It's good to see the fine General has time to visit these extreme right shows and show that he's a political tool for Bush instead of running a war. Guess what General... 2 more American's died today. Shouldn't you be doing something about that instead of being on the cowards show spreading propaganda for the Nazi Party of America for the brownshirts?
Let's see how long it takes for the cowards to remove this post if it gets posted at all. |
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“If you have serious, factual objections from sources that are knowledgeable, feel free to produce them. Re-read the Lancet study, just to make sure what you're objecting to. (I am perhaps optimistically assuming you've read it once.)”
Stop pretending, Brian J, that you’ve read the study thoroughly, that you understand statistics in even a rudimentary manner, or that you even have the slightest clue what you’re talking about. A fool who is foolish enough to state that Iraq fought the Iraq-Iran war with Western weapons (like Russian MiGs, Russian T-series tanks, and Russian AK-47s) is so hopelessly behind the times as to barely deserve a response. Jeez, those sorts of myths were debunked FIVE years ago when the pre-war dialogue was just warming up in the Summer of 2002. I know you were only 25 years old at that time, probably fresh out of a community college humanities program, but really ....
Here is a decent compilation of criticism about the study, although nowhere near complete. Frankly, I don’t want to go digging around for information again -- as I’ve said, this was covered last year and I’ve already had this discussion. Unfortunately, the software for this forum doesn’t support HTML tags, so I cannot highlight the main points, but here ‘tis anyway.
(And remember, you thought there was ‘consensus’ about the study. The only consensus is that other estimates are far more reliable. The consensus is 50K-100K additional civilian dead, not 600K. The problem isn’t that the study has issues, per se, it’s that it’s conclusions are so far out of whack with anything anybody else has done, including the UN, that it raises red flags, not to mention the fact that at least one the study’s authors, Les Roberts, is on record stating that the original study in 2004 was rushed to publication prior to the 2004 elections specifically with the intent of influencing the elections, or as he put it, to force “both candidates to pledge to protect civilians lives in Iraq”. What a hero, publishing deeply flawed studies in pursuit of political ends.)
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The Iraq Body Count project (IBC), which compiles a database of reported civilian deaths, has criticized the Lancet's estimate of 601,000 violent deaths out of the Lancet estimate of 654,965 total excess deaths related to the war. The IBC argues that the Lancet estimate is suspect "because of a very different conclusion reached by another random household survey, the Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004 (ILCS), using a comparable method but a considerably better-distributed and much larger sample." IBC also enumerates several "shocking implications" which would be true if the Lancet report were accurate, e.g. "Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued" and claims that these "extreme and improbable implications" and "utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas" are some of several reasons why they doubt the study's estimates. IBC states that these consequences would constitute "extreme notions".
Jon Pedersen of the Fafo Institute and research director for the ILCS survey, which estimated approximately 24,000 (95% CI 18,000-29,000) war-related deaths in Iraq up to April 2004, expressed reservations about the low pre-war mortality rate used in the Lancet study and about the ability of its authors to oversee the interviews properly as they were conducted throughout Iraq. Petersen has been quoted saying he thinks the Lancet numbers are "high, and probably way too high. I would accept something in the vicinity of 100,000 but 600,000 is too much." Both Iraq Body Count and Lancet authors have noted that the ILCS estimate of 24,000 was roughly twice the Iraq Body Count figure for the same period. The "100,000" figure Pedersen gives in the quote above is roughly double IBC's October 2006 figures, which would make it consistent with his own ILCS estimate scaled-up according to the IBC timeline.
Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, was quoted in an interview for Nature.com saying that Burnham's team has published "inflated" numbers that "discredit" the process of estimating death counts. "Why are they doing this?" she asks. "It's because of the elections." However, another interviewer a week later paints a more measured picture of her criticisms: "She has some methodological concerns about the paper, including the use of local people — who might have opposed the occupation — as interviewers. She also points out that the result does not fit with any she has recorded in 15 years of studying conflict zones. Even in Darfur, where armed groups have wiped out whole villages, she says that researchers have not recorded the 500 predominately violent deaths per day that the Johns Hopkins team estimates are occurring in Iraq."
Fred Kaplan of Slate criticized the first Lancet study and has again raised concerns about the second. Kaplan argues that the second study has made some improvements over the first, such as "a larger sample, more fastidious attention to data-gathering procedures, a narrower range of uncertainty", and writes that "this methodology is entirely proper if the sample was truly representative of the entire population—i.e., as long as those households were really randomly selected." He cites the low pre-war mortality estimate and the "main street bias" critique as two reasons for doubting that the sample in this study was truly random. And he concludes saying that the question of the war's human toll is "a question that the Lancet study doesn't really answer".
Madelyn Hicks, a psychiatrist and public health researcher at King's College London in the U.K., says she "simply cannot believe" the paper's claim that 40 consecutive houses were surveyed in a single day. "There is simply not enough time in the day," she says, "so I have to conclude that something else is going on for at least some of these interviews." Households may have been "prepared by someone, made ready for rapid reporting," she says, which "raises the issue of bias being introduced."
Dr. Hicks published a thorough account and clarification of these concerns, which concluded that, "In view of the significant questions that remain unanswered about the feasibility of their study’s methods as practiced at the level of field interviews, it is necessary that Burnham and his co-authors provide detailed, data-based evidence that all reported interviews were indeed carried out, and how this was done in a valid manner. In addition, they need to explain and to demonstrate to what degree their published methodology was adhered to or departed from across interviews, and to demonstrate convincingly that interviews were done in accordance with the standards of ethical research."
Borzou Daragahi, Iraq correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, in an interview with PBS, questioned the study based on their earlier research in Iraq, saying, "Well, we think -- the Los Angeles Times thinks these numbers are too large, depending on the extensive research we've done. Earlier this year, around June, the report was published at least in June, but the reporting was done over weeks earlier. We went to morgues, cemeteries, hospitals, health officials, and we gathered as many statistics as we could on the actual dead bodies, and the number we came up with around June was about at least 50,000. And that kind of jibed with some of the news reports that were out there, the accumulation of news reports, in terms of the numbers killed. The U.N. says that there's about 3,000 a month being killed; that also fits in with our numbers and with morgue numbers. This number of 600,000 or more killed since the beginning of the war, it's way off our charts."
The Lancet estimate also drew criticism from the Iraqi government. Government spokesman Ali Debbagh said, "This figure, which in reality has no basis, is exaggerated". And Iraq's Health Minister Ali al-Shemari gave a similar view a month later, "Since three and a half years, since the change of the Saddam regime, some people say we have 600,000" killed, he said. "This is an exaggerated number."
Steven E. Moore, who conducted survey research in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority and was an advisor to Paul Bremer for the International Republican Institute, also ridiculed the Lancet study in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. In a piece entitled, "655,000 War Dead? A bogus study on Iraq casualties", Moore wrote, "I wouldn't survey a junior high school, no less an entire country, using only 47 cluster points. Neither would anyone else..." |
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You know just enough to think yourself competent. That's a dangerous point in education. Hopefully, your teachers can see you through. Allow me to do my share.
Contrary to your claim, consensus is very important in science. The term means general agreement. Not everything is up for grabs in science- we no longer take seriously anyone who says the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Supporters of controversial theories must convince others to accept those theories. When they succeed, those theories become widespread and ultimately what is taught to future generations. When they fail, their theories are forgotten.
You outline a few objections to the Lancet study. However, those objections are erroneous. Wide error ranges are inevitable when hard information is hard to come by- as one example, many genetics stuides estimating the number of genes involved in determining traits range from 2 to infinity. And every province of Iraq was sampled, contra your claim. If you have serious, factual objections from sources that are knowledgeable, feel free to produce them. Re-read the Lancet study, just to make sure what you're objecting to. (I am perhaps optimistically assuming you've read it once.)
As for advocating genocide, the US-led occupation has seen to the deaths of more Iraqis than Saddam did, if you don't count the Iran-Iraq War, which he started at our request and fought largely with US and Western European weapons. Res ipsa loquitur, Catalonia: The thing speaks for itself. |
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Giuliani: U.S. should focus more on Pakistan
I agree with Rudy we need to focus more in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unless we understand the real issue in Iraq is political our troops will be bog down in a civil war which will keep increasing al-Qaeda’s strength. We must recognize the different groups in Iraq and stop forcing a strong federal government. The Parliament in Iraq spoke by refusing to meet to iron the differences between the groups before the September deadline and going on vacation for the month of August.
A surge or withdrawal is a tactic not a plan. Neither idea has a chance without calming sectarian violence.
USATODAY-The United States has been distracted “for a while” by military setbacks and political heat surrounding the Iraq war, Giuliani said, not focusing enough on al-Qaeda’s resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
…Some of Giuliani’s comments echoed critics of the war in Iraq who argue that the invasion drew attention and resources away from the battle against the home base of al-Qaeda, which carried out the 9/11 attacks. Giuliani, however, called the Iraq war “enormously important,” but he said other challenges from Islamic terrorism also demanded attention….
….”I said it a long time ago … America is too consumed with Iraq,” he said. “We’ve got to be patient and committed (in Iraq), but we’ve got to multitask. We’ve got to have conversations beyond Iraq. We’ve got to talk about Iran — Iran is more dangerous than Iraq — and we have to get the job done in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.”…..
READ MORE
http://controlcongress.com/uncategorized/giuliani-us-should-focus-more-on-pakistan
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Seems that President George Bush and Adolf Hitler has the same profile. Hope our Bush will not do a powergrab as hitler did near the end of his term.
Found this on Wikipedia under Big Lie:
Used in Hitler's psychological profile
The phrase was also used in a report prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler's psychological profile:[2]
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.[3]
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Great interview with the General. It was refreshing and insightful.
Great work HH. |
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“I was born in 1976. My father went through Vietnam, and it turned him into a lifelong liberal Democrat.”
That’s what I wanted to know. Thanks for answering my question. Since your particular, anti-military, faux-pacifist stance is vintage 1960s/70s, I just wanted to know whether you’re a Boomer or a Boomerling (a Boomer in spirit but not in age).
Another reason I asked is that there is an 80% correlation in the politics of parent(s) and child. I just wanted to know, out of curiosity’s sake, if you were a GenXer (or younger) who actually managed to forge his own political identity separate from those of his parents.
“Just because you don't like the conclusions of a study does not mean it is discredited.”
Yeah, that’s the problem. It couldn’t be that the study cites a range of deaths equal to 2/3rds of its estimated total, which is basically meaningless and a severe statistical no-no, nor is it the fact that death totals were pulled only from war-torn parts of Baghdad and its environs and extrapolated to the entire Shiite south, Kurdish north, and less war-torn regions near the Iranian border, nor was there a problem with the practice of just showing up at a hospital, ignoring official reported death counts, and just basically asking doctors how many people have died in the last few weeks due to ‘violence’, or somesuch, equating all violence to war violence, and so on.
Not to mention that the study was published a few weeks before an American election.
Nope. No problems there. Must be the study is discredited because people didn’t like its conclusions.
“That requires a consensus conclusion by knowledgeable scientists, which has not occurred.”
I’m tempted to ramble on about why ‘consensus’ has absolutely nothing to do with science, but I think that would confuse you.
Instead I’ll just ask why lack of consensus re:inaccuracy of the study (untrue, by the way) means that the study must be true, but a lack of consensus re:accuracy of the study does not mean the study is untrue. A lack of consensus is lack of consensus.
(Did you get that? Do you see the problem?)
Maybe a more relevant question is why you aren’t aware that there are serious problems with the study. What were you doing in Oct 2006 when this was being discussed all over the blogosphere?
“As for the rest of your attempting fisking, your statements only make sense if the goal is just killing Iraqis, regardless of what group they belong to or who they are.”
All I did was correct your inaccurate statement about the impossibility of assessing the number of total enemy dead, pointing out that the military does have data about the ‘categories’ of dead enemies but chooses not to release it, and basically noted the unreliability and inaccuracy of your ‘irrefutable’ source re:number of total Iraqi dead.
How in the world can you equate this with supporting “the goal of ... just killing Iraqis”? Dear God tell me you’re just being silly and trying to win some cheap rhetorical points, and that you really don’t have such severe problems in logic. I know you’re an amateur, but really ....
“I suspect that makes sense to you, but not even most conservatives wish to declare themselves supporters of genocide.”
This is rather fascinating, actually. We’re basically just arguing about the difficulty of getting reliable data concerning enemy and Iraqi civilian dead, and how it relates to how the war is going, and how it’s being reported, and you then proceed to conflate disagreement with your data and sources into outright support for genocide.
Wow. Since Saddam killed well over one million people either through the wars he started and through his own regime, do I get to say you support genocide because you opposed the removal of Saddam? Is that fair? |
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Was not existing. I was born in 1976. My father went through Vietnam, and it turned him into a lifelong liberal Democrat.
Just because you don't like the conclusions of a study does not mean it is discredited. That requires a consensus conclusion by knowledgeable scientists, which has not occurred.
As for the rest of your attempting fisking, your statements only make sense if the goal is just killing Iraqis, regardless of what group they belong to or who they are. I suspect that makes sense to you, but not even most conservatives wish to declare themselves supporters of genocide. |
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Big Black Dog,
Er, I didn't say anything about left-wing or right-wing sources in my post. It is you who is is applying the liberal/conservative label, not me. All I did was note that the Lancet study is discredited and unreliable, and imply that the anti-war agit-propness of its the Lancet journal (British) editors had a lot to do with such a poorly designed study even getting published.
In other words, I did not say that it is the left-wing nature of the Lancet that makes the study unreliable, per se, it is the anti-war bias of the Lancet editors that allowed a bogus study about Iraq to be published.
The only time I mention 'Left' was in reference to Brian J, who is clearly on the Left, and in that case I was NOT referring to sources or studies, just the doddering creakiness of his bygone-era rhetoric.
capiche? |
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Great interview Hugh. General Patraeus is a fine commander. I'm a Vietnam Vet and would gladly serve again under his command. God bless those who are for us winning the war. The Left is not only unpatriotic they are traitors to our country - this includes the Democratic Party as a whole. |
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....the strategic reserve. I am against the notion that the government should outlaw all future refinery construction unless they own and run it.
What is desperately needed in the oil industry is de-control and the elimination of government interference in exploration, extraction, refining and distribtution.
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The counts don't have to be perfect, just reasonable. Even if the army cannot identify which particular group a body belongs to, I'd still like to know how many bad guys we are killing. |
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“The reason we don't know how many "enemy" were killed is that we don't know who "the enemy" is in most engagements. Sunni? Shia? Al Qaeda? Al Qaeda in Iraq? Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia? Al Qaeda With Chocolate Sprinkles?”
Since all those can be categorized broadly as ‘enemy’, a statistic citing the total number of enemy killed would still be fairly accurate. What you describe only matters when you try to break down the total into different categories. The military does have this information -- their best guesses – but they simply aren’t broadcasting it.
“Worse, "the enemy" in Baghdad may be allied to our declared "friends" in Kirkuk or Basra.”
True. Then again, some, many, or most of our enemies in Baghdad may NOT be allied to Kirkuk or Basra. Alternatively, they might also be allied to cross-dressing Ecuadorian sherpas and radical grannies from Iowa. Your point?
“We have had a couple of attempts to count all the people killed as a result of our actions, in the articles published by the Lancet.”
Ah. The famous Lancet study published by anti-war Brits that applied a methodology so precise that the estimated total deaths ranged somewhere between 0 and 1.2 million, so therefore the average of 600,000 deaths sounds just about right (and this by October of last year, and yes I’m exaggerating. A little.). Is that the laughingstock study to which you refer, a study that only those who have trouble with math and therefore can’t possibly understand what is wrong with it like to cite?
“... we've killed about 200 Iraqis for every American fatality.”
Er, setting aside the agit-prop methodology applied, the study did not say ‘WE’VE’ killed 200 Iraqis for every American fatality. More accurately, insurgents of every stripe have been killing Iraqis. The American military goes after the bad guys; your buddies in the insurgency go after civilians and therefore account for most of the Iraqi fatalities.
“Since there's nothing else measurable in Iraq, that's all we've got to go on, so that's what gets reported.”
Thanks for the re-cap. Aside from the fact that it isn’t true, excellent point.
And just out of curiosity, Brian J, what were you doing in the Vietnam War? To paraphrase one of your own statements, your rhetoric is the same boilerplate, literally verbatim in some cases, that the Left has been uttering for 40 years regarding the veracity of our military, regardless of the situation or the era. You cannot be taken seriously. |
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The reason we don't know how many "enemy" were killed is that we don't know who "the enemy" is in most engagements. Sunni? Shia? Al Qaeda? Al Qaeda in Iraq? Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia? Al Qaeda With Chocolate Sprinkles?
Worse, "the enemy" in Baghdad may be allied to our declared "friends" in Kirkuk or Basra.
We have had a couple of attempts to count all the people killed as a result of our actions, in the articles published by the Lancet. Conservatives, of course, didn't want to hear that, which seems odd: according to the Lancet studies, we've killed about 200 Iraqis for every American fatality, which is the conservative criterion for success, so far as I can tell.
The Army cannot conceal its own fatalities, as much as it might like to. Since there's nothing else measurable in Iraq, that's all we've got to go on, so that's what gets reported. |
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What's the problem? We already have body counts, don't we? Every day we hear about more Americans killed in action. Today, two more. Yesterday, there were four. By telling us these facts, even naming the fallen, even showing their photos on TV, the anti-American press can be certain the people are getting a picture of our young men and women being slaughtered in Iraq, presumably in order to persuade them to vote for Democrats.
Day by day we get the totals. Thirty-seven so far this month. What was it, 107 last month? And the inevitable grand total: 3,456 total now dead from the war in Iraq.
But conveniently, we never hear about enemy killed. We have to wonder, are we killing any of the bad guys? The people who behead captives on video, the ones responsible for the dead, tortured bodies found in the streets of Baghdad every morning? This is just another device to convince Americans that the war is a failure, and we ought to leave Iraq. After all, if they are killing our guys, and we don't seem to be effective in fighting back, why not just bug out?
Of course, counting our dead and not counting theirs is just one of the many devices the media use to nudge us to surrender. The daily gloomy reports from NBC, ABC, CBS et al, the gloomy speculations and predictions by journalists and pundits, the refusal to recognize that the surge is scoring points, and even the reluctance of reporters and news personnel to identify with the American cause——when was the last time you heard the term "our forces?" As in "our forces have surrounded an insurgent stronghold in Baquba..." all calculated to lower our morale and persuade us to support the Democrats.
And these vermin have the gall to complain that their "patriotism" is being challenged!
Have a nice day. |
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You may have seen it on the net: two guerillas plus one probable plus two pigs equal 37 enemy KIA. The Army doesn't like to see its credibility undercut.
As for General Betray Us, I see nothing here but boilerplate. No verifiable statistics. No numbers, just cant about how victory is just around the corner (as for what victory is or where that corner is, he couldn't tell you if someone put a gun to his head).
And it's the same boilerplate, literally verbatim in some cases, that he's been uttering for three years while the situation in Iraq has gotten steadily worse. He cannot be taken seriously. |
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Mstessyrue writes:
"According to the Borgen Project, it only takes $19 billion dollars annually to eradicate world hunger and poverty."
In the last four decades, the United States government has spent some 6.6 trillion dollars on various anti-poverty programs in the US alone -- yet the leftists and liberals still claim we have poverty in the US. And you think the paltry sum of $19 billion is going to wipe out poverty across the entire globe? |
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General Petraeu said:
"[A]s you know, we try to avoid body counting, "
I've never understood the Pentagon's and the Administration's reluctance to release body counts of terrorists and/or insurgents we've killed in battle.
By refusing to tell us how many terrorists we are killing -- while at the same time telling us of every US soldier, Iraqi soldier and civilian that gets killed -- we get a completely one-sided view of the war. We get the view that our soldiers are accomplishing nothing, just standing around or driving around getting picked-off and killed.
I can't think of a better way to destroy public support for the war than to let the media convince the public that our boys are dying for absolutely nothing while inflicting no losses on the enemy at all. |
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John Konop writes:
"What’s striking, though, is the way its story line diverges from the standard White House portrayal of the war on terror, which casts Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network as on the run and the Iraq war as the primary front."
You should mention that it isn't just the White House that "casts the Iraq war as the primary front". That is also what Al Qaeda says, repeatedly.
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.... that Marxism has been thoroughly refuted and exposed.
You wrote:
"The only new refineries built in the
United States should be owned by the U.S. government, with all distillates distributed by lottery at strictly controlled prices."
Statism -- to whatever extent it has been tried -- has produced economic disaster in proportion to the degree of its implementation. See the history of the 20th century for global-scale proof. Free markets and free trade is what works.
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Sobering intelligence report undercuts Bush’s story line
How has the war in Iraq helped when al-Qaeda has reconstituted northwestern Pakistan? And if we had focused on Afghanistan would we have been able to stop the re-originations of al-Qaeda on their boarder in Pakistan?
USATODAY-New estimate demonstrates need to refocus on threat behind 9/11.
This week, the Bush administration issued what amounts to a status report on the war on terror it launched almost six years ago in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The report came in the form of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which distills the best analysis of 16 intelligence agencies about the battle against Islamic extremism.
The document itself — a two-page summary of a wider, still-classified report — isn’t particularly new or surprising. Its findings reflect trends that are visible in daily news reports. What’s striking, though, is the way its story line diverges from the standard White House portrayal of the war on terror, which casts Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network as on the run and the Iraq war as the primary front.
The intelligence agencies say al-Qaeda has reconstituted its central organization, putting the United States in a “heightened threat environment.” Al-Qaeda’s leaders have established a new haven in remote, tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan.
READ MORE
http://controlcongress.com/uncategorized/sobering-intelligence-report-undercuts-bushs-story-line
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We know that war is not a solution; it is only a defence against radical, divisive, corrupt nations who do anything to expand control and their unholy wrath to over power and control the world by fear and blood shed.
This war does not have a face on it. It is multi-national; it is affecting the whole world. However, we need to put God, as the LEAD commander in chief, for it is not good for man to glory in man. If Americans do not support a man of faith, a man who chooses to serve his country out of love and compassion for the people, a people whose own corrupt mind heart is divided and lead by fear and ignorance. If good men fail to overcome the corruption and bigotry that lingers form false teachings and ungodly traditions. Then comes violence and destruction, for God is not mocked.
This warning to Israel may very well apply to us today. Moreover, if we are not humble and take heed of the dangers, if we do not let God's Spirit work through and in our lives, we must learn by default by the things that we suffer.
(Old Testament | Jeremiah 6:13 - 14)
13 For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
May God bless every nation and every people to overcome an evil that lies within each one of us, to humble ourselves and live by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God! God Bless Our soldiers, men and women of valour who risk their lives daily, so we all may worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and that one day we may all see eye to eye, having an eye single to the glory of God, to dwell in peace among all people. Amen |
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When the Bush-ies are forced to admit that the surge is a failure, they will blame Patraeus.
I wish him well. When it comes to personal attacks, no one can do it like Bush. |
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I don't know what your intentions are, but if they are to join the debate and not just spout your opinion, please, be more concise. As it is, noboby reads your posts because they tend to be considerably longer than the columns and articles on which they comment. |
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You have a sparse use of language. |
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I wish the best for General Petraeus. I do not know what the outcome will be in Iraq but I believe that General Petraeus is making things better, not worse. |
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"If we were getting the oil we should have been getting 2 years ago"...
how much should that have been?
" Our importers are paying high prices for oil as well. If we had the production coming in from Iraq that was originally estimated in the war plan, we would still have the Congress."
Gas prices didn't lose the Republican majority...where does that come from? Republicans lost the majority because they abandoned their base on spending, defense of the war, and an embrace of BIG government.
Iraqui oil....??? Call some one at , say Amerada Hess...we don't need Iraqui oil, the enemy does. Repeat that, lather, rinse, and repeat. We don't need their oil. The enemy does. We need to produce our domestic reserves!
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This country and this war are in desperate need of radical changes. First and foremost is the need to pull our troops out of Iraq and stop the violence, poverty and terror that we are creating overseas as well as in our homes. Even now, President Bush would not admit defeat and the fact that this war is a disaster. The Bush administration has yet to recognize the Iraq war is a complete failure and mistake. There are more critical issues that affecting the lives of millions of americans and people world wide that our president is not taking actions against. Now the war has proven to be a failure and is causing more violence, terror and poverty in this world. According to the Borgen Project, it only takes $19 billion dollars annually to eradicate world hunger and poverty. However, our government has already spent more than $450 billion dollars over this fruitless war in Iraq. It is time for the Bush Administration to take a real interest in the lives of the American people as well as people who are in desperate needs around the world. Stop the lies and stop poverty now. Put away the arrogance and put the needs of the people before political gains. |
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His tone was remarkably measured -- he noted the complexity and logistical problems inherent in his mission, and used words like "nuance" -- words that, according to the above post, would get you a slap or two from real 'Mericans like Patton. Rather, glib assertions were forgotten in favor of logistics and planning. I think its too little, too late, but there is real progress, however temporary I think it ultimately is.
Also, he emphasized the difficulty of his mission -- he would never be actually be pessimistic, but it seems to suggest that the upcoming September report will not be the vindication the Victory Caucus will expect.
DU
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"I'm glad the general admited we are there for the oil. That said, lets get down to business. I am sick and tired of paying $3 per gallon. It is starting to hurt my business. We need a general over there that can get Iraq up to 4-6 MBD ASAP! Why are we p*ssy footing around? We need that oil NOW, not decades from now. General Patton would not play any games. "
No, Patton would call you a fool. He might even slap you to get your attention. He understood supply and demand. You pay more for gas because the US Govt will not issue Part A or B Haz Waste
Permits...without those you will see no new refineries in the lower 48. But you will see imported distilled petroleum. Figure on that a while, Keynes! Tell your congressamn to allow construction of twenty new refineries in the Gulf region, ten on the Left Coast, and let OUR OIL COMPANIES spud a few thousand holes in ANWAR (which will harm nothing but your ego) and maybe your gas price will drop. And your heating bill. And the cost of all goods and services that are heavily reliant on energy costs.
Or you can stand on your soap box at the circus while Hugo Chavez pics your pocket.
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Thanks for passing along this interview.
With what I observed last Sunday on the morning news programs, you would think we're talking about two different countries. The one the General is just referring to, and, then the one the "talking heads" are speaking about.
Godspeed General Patraeus. |
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Thanks for doing this interview |
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Given the recent and utterly dishonest characterizations by both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- to wit, that we need to get out of Iraq so we can get back to fighting al-Qaeda - the capture, on July 4th of Abu Shahid, is as significant an event as one can imagine.
Consider the intelligence coup this represents, both within the terror organizations in Iraq, and within al-Qaeda and it's affiliates worldwide.
Couple that with what the General is saying about the significant number of operatives our forces are taking down, and you cannot but conclude that the scales will begin to fall from the eyes of the doubters.
The scramble will be on to try and mimimize this. By late this afternoon, the AP had an update to the Abu Shahid story posted, citing a former Pentagon analyst, Anthony Cordesman, who said that only 15% of attacks in Iraq during the first half of this year, were from al-Qaeda.
The left will seize on claims like that to poo-poo the significance of al-Qaeda in Iraq. But to me, that sounds like a key element in a real success story. I wonder what it was during 2006? I wonder what the percentage of body count it represents?
Looks to me like General Petraeus is for real. and he should be -- he wrote the book on counterinsurgency. |
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As a Marine officer its tough for me to give accolades to an Army type.
God Speed General Patraeus and get some! |
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