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The Iraqi Upturn
Washington Post ^ | 1 June 2008 | Editorial Staff

Posted on 06/01/2008 5:47:59 AM PDT by shrinkermd

Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.[From the Washington Post!]

THERE'S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington's attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have "never been closer to defeat than they are now."

Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained "special groups" that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans.

...Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; alqaedainiraq; baghdadsurge; iraq; iraqiarmy; liberalmedia; mosul; progress; sadrcity; surge; upturn
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To: tsmith130

I thought the same thing. But giving credit where it is due, they actually “get it”.


21 posted on 06/01/2008 7:19:30 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: tsmith130

took the words right out of my mouth!!


22 posted on 06/01/2008 7:26:06 AM PDT by bubman
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To: Tribune7

Great!


23 posted on 06/01/2008 7:31:53 AM PDT by Temple Owl (Excelsior! Onward and upward.)
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To: frankjr
Actually, it’s not odd. Things are going well so the MSM does not want to report on it.

Which makes the McCain Challenge such a smooth move. He has forced Obama to go to Iraq and this in turn will force the MSM to give Iraq the front page big time, something they really don't want to do.

This war is looking like it is over.

The Sunni's have made peace, Al Qaeda is decimated and dismayed which leaves only the Iranian surrogate, Sadr's militia, to be defeated. And surprisingly, the Iraqis appear able to do that. If they do, who is left to fight? IMHO - nobody.

24 posted on 06/01/2008 7:41:07 AM PDT by InterceptPoint
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To: jveritas; FARS; Ernest_at_the_Beach; knighthawk; Marine_Uncle; SandRat; Steel Wolf; CAP; ...

The one of the biggest organs of the MSM recognizes the success of the surge ping.


25 posted on 06/01/2008 7:58:47 AM PDT by elhombrelibre (99% of the world's dictators prefer Obama in 2008.)
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To: elhombrelibre

So has Obama, apparently. He’s been backpedaling fast lately.


26 posted on 06/01/2008 7:59:31 AM PDT by pissant (THE Conservative party: www.falconparty.com)
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To: peeps36

I am hoping that there also might be a couple of surprises in Iraq before the election that could influence the 2008 election.


27 posted on 06/01/2008 8:00:40 AM PDT by Perdogg (Four years of Carter gave us 29 years of Iran; What will Hilabama give us?)
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To: Dako no tane
"As if it doesn’t really matter that Obama misjudged the situation completely. He just needs a new plan for the new situation that is totally different from the old situation, and everything will be fine."

BINGO!

28 posted on 06/01/2008 8:16:26 AM PDT by HawaiianGecko
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To: shrinkermd
Iraq will be our strategically located ally in the middleast.


29 posted on 06/01/2008 8:35:44 AM PDT by Donald Rumsfeld Fan ("Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, youÂ’ve got it made." Groucho Marx)
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To: pissant
Had we followed Obama's proscription we'd have had an ignoble defeat similar to our departure from Vietnam, which, after all, was the template, and the only one, that the Liberals saw in Iraq. They'd have assured the perpetuation of the Vietnam Syndrome assuring we'd face it today and for another generation at least. Is it love of one's country that leads them to play this game?

Waking up these damn dilettante's that there are still things that matter, that there are still things that are worth fighting about (besides mindless anti-Republicanism), things that will impact the way we live and how civilization can continue to evolve with self-government instead of dictatorship...these are not things Obama recognizes or cares about.

Obama must back pedal. He has no cojones to face down his core supporters who disdain America as much as he does the white rubes who go to church or go hunting or own guns. And this Obama will never face down.

30 posted on 06/01/2008 8:43:34 AM PDT by elhombrelibre (99% of the world's dictators prefer Obama in 2008.)
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To: shrinkermd

How much you want to bet there was a debate at the Washington Post on how to handle the fact that last month had the fewest casualties of any month since the war began.

How to portray this? Say nothing at all or minimize it?

They had to choose a way. It would have been funny if they had taken a moonbat approach, but they took the best way, I think.


31 posted on 06/01/2008 8:49:02 AM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: All
Did anyone else see this as an cute little tidbit of admission in this excerpt:

"...Still, the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise..."

I found this more revealing than anything else in the article, that anyone in the media (especially not the Washington Post) would openly admit the Dems are defeatists, and if so, that makes it all the more true that the conclusions we draw from the liberals complete betrayal and mismanagement of Vietnam are correct as well.

32 posted on 06/01/2008 8:54:36 AM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: Donald Rumsfeld Fan

Funny how you don’t hear many people acknowledge that.


33 posted on 06/01/2008 8:56:07 AM PDT by rlmorel (Clinging bitterly to Guns and God in Massachusetts...:)
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To: shrinkermd

Washington DC averages 15 murders per month, population 588,000. Monthly Murder rate 1:39,2000

Iraq had 532 murders/killings last month (including Iraq Army) - population 27.5 million. Monthly Murder rate 1:51,691

You are safer in Iraq than in DC.


34 posted on 06/01/2008 8:57:10 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: elhombrelibre; NormsRevenge; Allegra; SandRat; tobyhill; G8 Diplomat; Dog; Cap Huff; ...

Just amazing....thanks...adding to the pinging blitz...


35 posted on 06/01/2008 8:58:04 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (No Burkas for my Grandaughters!)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

BTTT


36 posted on 06/01/2008 9:21:48 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar (Who would the terrorists vote for?)
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To: Donald Rumsfeld Fan; shrinkermd; pissant; Ernest_at_the_Beach
Iraq will be our strategically located ally in the middleast.

That would be strategically perfect, but we can still lose this as Michael Yon points out in the end of his book "Moment of Truth In Iraq". A RAT controlled House & Senate and maybe, God forbid, a Hussein President, can still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as the Viet Nam redux, posts here, so accurately portray.

37 posted on 06/01/2008 9:25:47 AM PDT by BOBTHENAILER (One by one, in small groups or in whole armies, we don't care how we do it, but we're gonna getcha)
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To: rlmorel
"...Still, the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise..."

Yeah I noticed it big time.  This is something that John McCain can leverage for a long time this summer.  Obama won't be going to Iraq too soon and when he does it will look like he obeying the presumptive new commander in chief.  He also wants to give as much time as possible for someone involved in Iraq to start some kind of trouble, be it Iran, al Sadr, Syria, Nancy Pelosi or George Soros, so he can continue his dialogue.

Although this man wasn’t the one to tell General Petraeus that to believe him would require one to have a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’, Obama was certainly four square in this corner.  He owes the American people and especially the United States military a huge apology followed by days of serious groveling.  To have any credibility he needs to admit that his judgment  was terribly wrong, that he nearly dispatched the lives of 4000 men and women to the dustbin of irrelevancy. 

This war has been won, and the nation building is definitely at it's tipping point.

 

38 posted on 06/01/2008 9:34:10 AM PDT by HawaiianGecko
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Fred Nerks; george76; ...
military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda... the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Thanks Ernest. Of course, the partisan media shills will avoid coverage of this, and no one that I've noticed has called the miserable Party of Treason on their continuing anti-American screed. It's pretty easy to compose the question -- "given the fact that the Iraqi forces and US forces have eliminated 99 per cent of the terrorist threats in Iraq, how do you justify saying that the war is lost, that this is a losing effort?"
39 posted on 06/01/2008 9:44:53 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_________________________Profile updated Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: aflaak; TXHubbard

ping


40 posted on 06/01/2008 9:53:22 AM PDT by r-q-tek86 (If you're not taking flak, you're not over the target.)
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