Tuesday, September 04, 2007
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Kagan On Bush's Visit To Iraq
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Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
1:07 AM
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The surge is working, and the president's visit underscores the success.
From Frederick Kagan's write-up:
President Bush’s Labor Day visit to Iraq should have surprised no one who was paying attention. At such a critical point in the debate over Iraq policy, it was almost inconceivable that he would fly to and from Australia without stopping in Iraq. What was surprising was the precise location and nature of the visit. Instead of flying into Baghdad and surrounding himself with his generals and the Iraqi government, Bush flew to al Asad airfield, west of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. He brought with him his secretaries of State and Defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commander of U.S. Central Command. He was met at al Asad by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, as well as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kemal al Maliki, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and Vice Presidents Adel Abdul Mehdi and Tariq al Hashemi. In other words, Bush called together all of the leading political and military figures in his administration and the Iraqi government in the heart of Anbar Province. If ever there was a sign that we have turned a corner in the fight against both al Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni insurgency, this was it.
The anti-war hysterics will hate this, but the American people will understand: Winning is in the country's interest, and that's what the surge is delivering.
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this visit to a province once deemed irretrievably lost and what it means to Iraq's long-term future will be overlooked in the mainstream media by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or the latest on Larry Craig.
Jeff Goldstein's admirable dissection of the mainstream media's failures on war reporting in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://www.proteinwisdom.com/?p=9678) should be the jumping-off point of a full-court press for media accuracy and accountability when it comes to military reporting.
You wouldn't trust a sports reporter who thinks the Browns play baseball, why would you trust one who doesn't know the difference between a bullet and a cartridge (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/15/credulous-photojournalism-of-the-day/) ?
ExurbanKevin
http://www.exurbanleague.com |
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And bush is restoring honor and dignity to the White House, too! |
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Is that it works. All the anti-war organizing, all the bleating and all the words of the weakened "opposition party," means for naught. They have accomplished virtually nothing for the past four years while the neo-conservatives have gotten everything they ever dreamed of.
I fully expect a bombing campaign in Iran, alienating that nation's internal opposition against us while encouraging that nation's nuclear ambitions.
I further expect yet another "surge" of public ignorance that will overwhelm the sheer flood of facts showing what a mistake invading and occupying Iraq was, to the detriment of the United States. We'll keep "turning the corner" as we stumble on as a party to a civil war our leadership barely understands.
And I fully expect all this done on behalf of "freedom" and "democracy" even as Bush's actions turn those terms into cynical words sarcastically made at the dinner tables of countless families all over Asia.
http://www.themechanicaleye.com
DU |
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.... get a photo-op of yourself standing in front of the troops. |
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South of Baghdad, U.S. troops find fatigue, frustration
MCK-SOUTHEAST OF SALMAN PAK, Iraq — Standing in a small room in the Iraqi home they’d raided an hour earlier, a dozen soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division were trading jokes when 1st Sgt. Troy Moore, Company A’s senior enlisted man, shouted out.
“We’re bringing democracy to Iraq,” he called, with obvious sarcasm, as a reporter entered the room. Then Moore began loudly humming the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Within seconds the rest of the troops had joined in, filling the small, barren home in the middle of Iraq with the patriotic chorus of a Civil War-era ballad.
U.S. officials say that security has improved since the Sledgehammer Brigade, as the 3rd Brigade is called, arrived five months ago as part of the 30,000-strong buildup of additional U.S. troops to Iraq and took control of an area 30 miles southeast of Baghdad. The brigade, with 3,800 soldiers, has eight times the number of troops that were in the area before.
READ MORE
http://controlcongress.com/uncategorized/south-of-baghdad-us-troops-find-fatigue-frustration
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Congratulations!
My apologies for the miserable trolls on this thread.
Thank you for your service, Lt.! |
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..but the American People will understand.."
The Surge is working and,predictably,the Nutters
are working themselves into an embittered frenzy.
BRAVO to the Armed Forces and their CinC.
We must WIN.The spittle on the chins of the anti-
America crowd(in America!)indicates that is precisely what's happening. |
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Right on mr President, I love how you got the Drive by Media and DUMBOCRATS on the run. How many standing Presidents have you seen going into a combat zone.NONE,NONE,NONE Not even the LIBS high and mighty BILL(THE SCUD) ClINTON would ever have the B#lls to go into the combat zone. Keep it up I love the hate that the DUMBOCRATS who claim they support the troops display everyday. We knew people like Christopher would distain this feat with the ty picle PHOTO OP crap. WHA WHA WHA what a bunch of whining losers. GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS FOR THE DUMBOCRATS |
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Americans want to win, and will, if we continue to persevere against the Socialist Progressives in this country. |
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as he spoke in NH over the weekend... Press reports make him out as a waffler...
Say it ain't so... |
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If things are so great in Iraq, how come Mitt is saying this:
Confronted by an unhappy questioner, Mitt Romney said tonight at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that the situation in Iraq "is a mess."
Romney's assessment was delivered by way of agreeing with a gentleman who stood up at a Nashua VFW post and complained that the conflict is "an unmitigated mess."
"What I'd like to know is, what, if you get elected, precisely what would you do?" asked the unidentified citizen at an event carried lived by C-SPAN.
"Ok, well first of all, it is a mess," Romney quickly admitted. "So, so when you got a mess, there is no easy, good answer.
From The Politico |
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It is wonderful to have a President that stands up for what he believes. It is sad that the voters don't seem to understand that they have a President that isn't playing politics with this war but feels this is in the best interest of America in the long run. Dems just play politics with the war but they wouldn't get away with it if the voters didn't back them. |
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You LIBS are ones for talking about tapping toes in the Bathroom, Hell you guys have one tapping votes from your Anti-War peeps, BARNEY FRANKS known DUMBOCRATS DRAG QUEEN. I was going to ask you have you ever been in the military but I figured I would be wasting my time. When we REPS fine one of ours that is acting like that we throw them out, but you DUMBOCRATS reelect the DRAG QUEEN of the DEM party over and over. Sounds like allot of toe tapping to me. |
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I knew that we could count on you to take a positive piece on the results of the surge and turn it into a bash Romney diatribe. |
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"Your LEADER ran from his war as many of his peers died."
Yeah? Well he volunteered for service in theatre at least one more time than Rhoades Scholar Cigar burying Clinton, and the "How'd the hell did I end up here, and where is my movie camera?" blue water, yellow belly sailor Kerry. And I'd like to see either of those self-preserving, self-aggrandizing losers spend a few hundred hours in F-102s.
Who ran the war into the ground? Despite concerted and prolonged efforts to convince the world that we are weak and lazy and don't have the stomach to protect our interests by you and your biased "see-no-good if it doesn't benefit a pacifist liberal" media, our leader has done exactly that: lead. Poll-watching, intern-banging "leaders" like clinton couldn't take the heat to stand up and do what needed to be done. Getting serviced by a fat 19 year old was more important. |
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If the surge SO successful,
If Anbar is SO safe...
Why is the president's trip SO secret?
And why are civilian deaths up...
1200 in June, 1700 in July and August?
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We are winning against al Qaeda in Anbar. That is great.
We are not winning with the Iraqi Shia Malaki government, which is a complete mess. We do not have a competent partner there and short of staging a coup there is not much we can do about it.
So keep it in perspective. The efforts in Anbar should continue, but we still have a long ways to go. |
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"maybe - but Bush - cutting wood on his phony Cowboy ranch kinda slept through the murder of 3000 Americans on 9/11"
Talk about revisionist history!!
The 9/11 hijackers were here YEARS before Bush was in the White House. OBL slipped through Clinton's fingers, more terrorist attacks occurred under that man's tenure than after 9/11. Maybe getting a piece was more imprortant than protecting us against terrorists.
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Somewhere, a bridge is missing its troll. |
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Despite the plan, which has brought an additional 28,500 U.S. troops to Iraq since February, none of the major legislation that Washington had expected the Iraqi parliament to pass into law has been approved.
The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has increased, not decreased, according to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration and Iraq's Ministry for Displacement and Migration.
Military officials say sectarian killings in Baghdad are down more than 51% and attacks on civilians and security forces across Iraq have decreased. But this has not translated into a substantial drop in civilian deaths as insurgents take their lethal trade to more remote regions. Last month, as many as 400 people were killed in a bombing in a village near the Syrian border, the worst bombing since the war began in March 2003. In July, 150 people were reported killed in a village about 100 miles north of Baghdad.
And in a sign that tamping down Sunni-Shiite violence is no guarantee of stability, a feud between rival Shiite Muslim militias has killed scores of Iraqis in recent months. Last week, at least 52 people died in militia clashes in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
At best, analysts, military officers and ordinary Iraqis portray the country as in a holding pattern, dependent on U.S. troops to keep the lid on violence.
"The military offensive has temporarily suppressed, or in many cases dislocated, armed groups," said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. "Once the military surge peters out, which it will if there is no progress on the political front, these groups will pop right back up and start going at each other's, and civilians', throats again."
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BiPolar:
The LAT is incorrect the last of the 28,500 only arrived recently. |
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Mr. Hewitt,
Your claims are becoming more and more desperate.
Your entire justification for the "surge is working" this time is ANBAR province. I know that you'd find this hard to believe, but we can't judge ALL of Iraq on ONE province. Your author cites progress in other areas, but that progress is extremely subjective and is extremely thin.
The author then goes into the "benchmarks" and tries to discount the failure to meet those benchmarks.
The reason for the "benchmarks"? Very simple. This President has CONTINUALLY moved the objectives for this war, as have you. When one goal isn't met, President Bush has simply come up with another goal.
NOW goals were established, and are NOT being met and the President and his supporters are whining. What a surprise there.
The Iraqi government is in disarray and there is NO sign that it's getting any better. If anything the last few weeks have shown that it's getting worse. Of course they're STILL on vacation, so I guess things could be worse.
Yeah the surge is working. So Mr. Hewitt and his cohorts are caught moving the goal posts again. |
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You don't think Iraq is a mess? What word would you use to describe it?
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..perhaps"morphs"of the ineffable BiggDog??
Yep,same embitterd sentence structure and
terminology.Lads,we have OneDogScheiss masqerading as three.
BUSTED!! |
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I didn't read where Allawi was. Interesting statement if he wasn't there...and what were the Shias thinking of this display? It's quite a freaking statement that the group (Sunnis) that stood down during the first elections is visited now so visibly by Bush.
And from the media about such a thing: not a sound.
Yeah, no anti-war bias, guys. |
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The troops have been increasing since February. They have been at full strength for about two months, long enough for Bush to claim credit for success.
They were at full strength while civilian casualties rose by nearly 50%.
The surge has not been the success Bush claims. We cut a deal with the Sunnis in elAnbar. The tribal leaders cut the deal because al Qaeda proved to be the disgusting group of people we know them to be. Because of al Qaeda's thuggish tactics in Anbar the deal would have gone down without the surge. Bush is exaggerating the success.
While Bush secretly sneaks into Iraq bragging on what he deserves no credit for, civilian deaths are on the rise and the Iraqi government is proving to be a failure.
The LA Times got it right. |
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..and,after that headline,they were outraged at FDR for saying that a "state of war has existed"
with Japan...So,Bipolar,you keep on reading Pravda--errr,LATimes--but,may I suggest Lithium is better in treating your condition. |
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El Negro or who ever you are taday, Its funny how you state that Clinton tried to get OBL the only thing Clinton was getting was a OBJ. What you mean blowing up an Asperin factory was going after OBL. If Clinton had not lied under oath, which seems to be the way DEMBOCRATS say they are telling the truth then he wouldnt have had to worry about REPS after him. As I recall the CIA and FBI were all CLLINTONITES anyway so what are you trying to say. That is what got Bush in trouble he kept all them CLINTONITES and look what it got him. I recall Clinton being on the golf corse when the CIA had BIN LADEN in their sites but Clinton would not react the only thing he was mad about was people interfrerring in his Golf game. 1ST WTC, KOBART TOWERS CONSULANTS IN ZINBABWE, ZAIRE THE USS COLE, SOMALIA ALL THESE WHERE ATTACKED UNDER CLINTON and allot of people died so when you DUMBOCRATS state that Bush lied and people died at least Bush did something about it instead of SCUDDING MONICA. |
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..Billy C's memoirs.Why,the Bow-Wow,of course. |
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El who ever you are. Its is so funny how you DUMBOCRAPS are always tagging the REPS for robbing the poor, UM lets see, D FEINSTEIN abeting her husbands in Millions of MILITARY CONTRACT MONEY and then blaming REPS, Harry REID and his property Scandals, Al Gore and his millions in BIG OIL MONEY(THANKS TO GOOD OLD DAD)
Hell you guys even have DUMBOS hiding money in FREEZERS. You have the DRAG QUEEN OF CONGRESS IN FRANKS. How could BILL(THE SCUD) CLINTON be hunting OBL, I think it would be pretty hard to track down a TERRORIST when you are under your desk dropping SCUDS. And by the way Im not your pal |
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El who ever you are. Its is so funny how you DUMBOCRAPS are always tagging the REPS for robbing the poor, UM lets see, D FEINSTEIN abeting her husbands in Millions of MILITARY CONTRACT MONEY and then blaming REPS, Harry REID and his property Scandals, Al Gore and his millions in BIG OIL MONEY(THANKS TO GOOD OLD DAD)
Hell you guys even have DUMBOS hiding money in FREEZERS. You have the DRAG QUEEN OF CONGRESS IN FRANKS. How could BILL(THE SCUD) CLINTON be hunting OBL, I think it would be pretty hard to track down a TERRORIST when you are under your desk dropping SCUDS. And by the way Im not your pal |
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President Bush. Your visit is a solid statement. To all interested parties.
BTW, Can you *imagine* Clinton visiting Bosnia? Bwahahahaha |
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I remember CLINTON telling AMERICA that we would be out of BOSNIA by that XMAS. DA, we are still there and I dont hear DUMBOCRATS screaming about getting out of that one do you? NO bedause a DEM started that WAR. The reason he wont go there is because the SERBS will probably take him out. I have some SERB friends and they stated that they were just trying to get the muslims out of their country because the MUSLIMS were trying to instill the ISLAMIC Religion/beliefs/Laws on them. Europe is ate up with MUSLIMS and that will be there downfall. I was there in the 70 and 80's when they were letting MUSLIMS in by the thousands. We cannot let that happen in AMERICA |
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Just like always a DUMBO telling a REP to watch the DRIVE BY MEDIA, Hey TOUJBO my cousin is staioned in BOSNIA SO MAYBE YOUR drive by media LIED AGAIN HUH. I wish you DUMBOS would leave the military subjects to people who have BEEN IT DONE IT AND who SERVED IT. As usual a DUMBO with a LOSERS ATTITUDE. I have never seen so many people afraid of WINNING. Thats why your party is a bunch of losers and COWARDCRATS. |
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Well, Touj, Clinton never actually said WHICH Christmas, now die he? lol
Actually, the troops finally got home early in December...2004. Nine years later than Slick Willie implied.
Once again, when a war started by a Democrat needs stopped, a Republican steps in and does it.
Truman was the sole exception -- but he was an old-time Democrat, the kind with the balls to drop a nuke to stop the slaughter. I cannot picture a post JFK Democrat doing that... |
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My last should have been addressed to chuck.
Touj -- Never Mind! |
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Not all troops home, ny cousin is there now and he even thought we were out of their. He was shocked to get orders for BOSNIA. |
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Our troops in Bosnia were used to escort Serbs to and from markets, their kids to school, etc. The Muslim "ethnic Albanians" would shoot them if we left them alone...
What does your cousin do there? |
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He is out of FT BRAGG Special OPNS, Has 2 more years before he retires. He didnt tell me what his job was, but most of time they would not send
Special ops in if they didnt need them for something important. |
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He is out of FT BRAGG Special OPNS, Has 2 more years before he retires. He didnt tell me what his job was, but most of time they would not send
Special ops in if they didnt need them for something important. |
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He is out of FT BRAGG Special OPNS, Has 2 more years before he retires. He didnt tell me what his job was, but most of time they would not send
Special ops in if they didnt need them for something important. |
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Yeah, they're quiet on those things. Interesting. Now my curiosity's up. |
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It seems to drive the kossies krazy.The ever classy Doggy at 8:30am says you're "a fool"for giving honor to the Prez.At 8:34,he classily follows up with "Let the War Crimes continue..."
While you Marines must chortle aplenty at such wacky nonsense,I'll call it deranged and anti-American.There.The truth is out.
Thank you for your brave service,Marine Devil,
and that of your friends.Semper Fidelis. |
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Hey, W got THREE of his goals!
That's a pretty good average for him.
"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" |
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"It seems to drive the kossies krazy.The ever classy Doggy at 8:30am says you're "a fool"for giving honor to the Prez.At 8:34,he classily follows up with "Let the War Crimes continue..."
While you Marines must chortle aplenty at such wacky nonsense,I'll call it deranged and anti-American.There.The truth is out."
Imagine it's 1996 and we're talking about Clinton visiting the troops in Bosnia. Then imagine a military man toadying up to HIM and gushing about it on this website. then tell me how unamerican the derision would be... |
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The surge is a failure. Only three benchmarks have been met.
The Iraqi people have shown no interest or ability to fight for their freedom.
Yet, our idiot in chief keeps sending more and more troops to die. Not to mention $2 Billion dollars every week. And we're less safe than before 9/11.
And most Townhall'ers think this is all just great. What a wonderful group of people you are. |
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Or who evere you are today. REPS backed the War in BOSNIA so your comment as usual dont mean squat. Christopher/ or who ever you are today it wouldnt mattere to you DUMBOCRATS if the 18 benchmarks were met you would still be a whining, WAAAAA WAAAAA WAAAA. Hell your fearless leader called the war lost a long time ago so why would you DUMBOCRATS even care. I think that it is shameful that you are belittle so bad on the internet that you have to have alias to get anything thru. I would wish that one day you DUMBOCRATS would talk to the soldiers coming back from IRAQ becuase they would tell you more than that blog you are always referring to. After hearing from allot of soldiers coming back I think there is a chance. What is really funny is that you DUMBOCRATS are always spouting about money but you always believe in BIG GOVERNMENT taking care of your lazy arsssssesss. |
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