If liberals and anti-war activists were really all about getting our troops out of Iraq, you would think that they would be trumpeting the good news there. It is now indisputable, by any metric you choose to look at, that things have improved remarkably in Iraq. Michael Yon reports on the growing belief in Iraq that "al-Qaeda is defeated." Attacks are down significantly, leading Jonathan Karl at ABC to proclaim:
" . . . nobody over here is anywhere near ready to declare victory. But the military statistics tell an unmistakable story. Violence in Iraq is down. And down considerably.
Baghdad's marketplaces are slowly coming back to life, as violent attacks in Iraq have fallen to less than half of what they were a year ago. Until recently, the trends had been deadly and consistent, violence steadily increasing to an all-time high in June. Since then, however, attacks have fallen four straight months—in every category.”
Here is graphic proof that violence is down precipitously since the Surge began, from General Odiero via the Weekly Standard:
And yet, the response to this and other good news from Iraq by the left is wilful disbelief. Not relief that the war is ending, because the war ending is a disaster for the left. If the war is not a quagmire, lost, and unwinnable that would make them . . . wrong. It would also make America victorious, and it is hard to say which does them more psychological harm. If their true concern was the safety and well-being of our troops, they would be screaming that the war is won and so we must bring our troops home. But no, their concern is political victory and being proven right, and both are now slipping out of their grasp. They will not, and cannot, ever admit that Iraq is anything but a complete disaster, even when their own liberal media tells them otherwise. They certainly won't admit it in order to help get our troops home, because the left openly loathes the military and holds them in contempt.
So expect the left to get even crazier as their denials of success in Iraq become more and more implausible, expect them to move the goalposts, and finally, when all hope is lost and victory become too obvious even for them to deny, expect them to claim that all their whining and caterwauling is actually what made victory possible.
9 comments:
So when surprise surprise it comes out that the white house deliberately ordered the charts to be falsified but it's OK because noone can remember who gave the order, what will you say then?
When you bring me victory I'll celebrate - but '06 levels of troops and violence does not constitute victory, just a miserable status quo.
Sean, victory in Iraq just drives you crazy, doesn't it.
When it comes out that the chart is falsified, you will alert me, won't you?
I won't expect to be hearing from you.
Er, sorry but that graph? Every miniscule sub-segment under every bar of the entire graph represents a person dying. If your definition of victory is that slightly fewer innocent people are dying, may I suggest that you need to raise your standards.
If you were to actually understand, what's going on in Iraq, it might help assuage your *fears* about the Left.
The key is, that so much of the violence in Iraq, has been sectarian violence. The numbers are *down,* for two reasons.
1) Most neighborhoods have gone through a long period of ethnic cleansing. Whereas, before our invasion, Iraqis lived in integrated Sunni/Shia neighborhoods, that is no longer true. Now, the neighborhoods are cleanesed, so obviously, the violence is down.
2) Many of the statistics are the result of *creative bookkeeping.*
If someone is shot in the back of the head, it is counted one way, and if shot from the front, another.
That anyone would take satisfaction, in a drop in deaths, is rather sad. The key is that there ARE deaths, in an unarmed country we invaded (and occupied), that had nothing to do with 9-11.
Why didn't we invade Saudi Arabia, where the attackers actually came from?
More excuses, and denial that victory in Iraq is at hand.
The fear you leftists exhibit is just palpable.
That anyone would take satisfaction, in a drop in deaths, is rather sad.
A drop in deaths is nothing to cheer about? You need to reexamine your priorities my friend.
On the contrary, repugnicans should now be ready to bring the troops home if this data is correct, right? Oh wait didn't expect that interpretation, did you?
Are you kidding? You are very predictable.
I think we should remove troops from Iraq just after we remove troops from Germany, from Okinawa, from Korea, from the former Yugoslavia . . .
If your definition of victory is that slightly fewer innocent people are dying, may I suggest that you need to raise your standards.
Dan, if your definition of victory is zero people dying, then America has lost every war in which we have fought.
an unarmed country we invaded (and occupied), that had nothing to do with 9-11.
We found out that Iraq did not have as much WMD as we thought only after we invaded.
Since when does a country have to have been involved with 9/11 in order to be a legitimate target for invasion? I would point out, however, that Saddam's Iraq harbored Abdul Raman Yassin, a fugitive from the 1993 truck bombing of the WTC, and thus was an accessory after the fact.
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