Monday, July 30, 2007
New York Times Says U.S. Winning In Iraq
Two uber-uber Liberals, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, who returned from a visit in Iraq, writing for the NYT say:
[The Bush] administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.
[...]
[The situation in Iraq] look[s] much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners
[...]
A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
[...]
But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.
The surge and General Petraeus' plan is working. This of course begs the question that the U.S. and our Allies didn't enter Iraq with enough force from the very start for purely political reasons - those to appease the Pacifistic Left, of course.
People and civilizations do not change overnight. I'm surprised the Left expected the Iraqis to immediately embrace a democracy after Saddam Hussein was removed from power. Normally, the Left is willing to take as much time as they want to change whatever it is they want to change; the war on poverty and the war on drugs are two prime example of the Left willing to accept that passage of decades before "change" happens - and sometimes change doesn't happen or the degree of change is negligible.
Oh, but not with a war and situation that it took a Republican President to have the fortitude to take on. The previous administration had a draft-dodging president who was too much of an appeaser to deal with or handle Iraq. If Hussein had had 22-year old female interns, well, it probably would have been a different story for Bubba.
The KoS Krowd - as of the time of my publishing this - have nothing on their site about the NYT story. Think Regress bravely calls O'Hanlon and Pollack "wrong". Both sites do have time to note that approval ratings for Bush plummet in Alabama. That's funny - perhaps these demented and deranged writers don't know that Bush isn't running for re-election in 2008.
The LiberTard sites are too busy hyping and supporting the Democrat Dog and Pony Show on the non-story of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. The Dems have yet to substantiate one, single, solitary offense committed by Mr. Gonzalez.
The Dems are on a fishing expedition, no doubt about it. And they're not catching a damn thing, as usual.
So...who will be the first LeftTard to call the NYT a ROM? Will it be the Kossucks, ThinkRegress or maybe the ChubbyTard in Maine? Who cares what this slim minority of Marxists Haters think or say? They are as irrelevant as they've always been.
©2007
Labels: Dems Are Haters, Dems Enable Terrorism, Dog and Pony Show
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