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Posted on 07/22/2008 10:36:48 PM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
The Nutroots are already gearing up. The next Big Lie they're going to breathlessly promote is that McCain was lying when he said, in a recent interview, that the U.S. troop "surge" led to the Anbar Awakening.
The lefties (I saw some at DU, also you can Google) are saying that's a lie, McCain should know better, the Anbar Awakening happened in September 2006, well BEFORE the surge was even announced in January 2007. They're playing fast and loose with the facts. What they want you to believe is that because the Anbar Salvation Council was formed in September 2006, then the "Awakening" was in full swing long before the surge troops got to Iraq.
Fred Kagan at the National Review wrote about the Surge and the Awakening in September 2007 and refutes the lefties' argument:
Anbar and the Surge The tribal leaders in Anbar began to turn against al Qaeda in Iraq last year, largely due to unspeakable atrocities committed by the terrorists against their own hosts. Many analysts and observers have seized upon this fact to argue that the movement in Anbar had nothing to do with the surge, began before the surge did, and would continue even without the surge. This argument is invalid. Anbari tribal leaders did begin to turn against AQI in their areas last year before the surge began, but not before Colonel Sean MacFarland began to apply in Ramadi the tactics and techniques that are the basis of the current strategy in Baghdad. His soldiers and Marines fought tenaciously to establish a foothold in Anbar’s capital, which was then a terrorist stronghold, and thereby demonstrated to the local leaders that they could count on American support as they began to fight their erstwhile allies. Even so, the movement proceeded slowly and fitfully for most of 2006 and, indeed, into 2007. But when Colonel John Charlton’s brigade relieved MacFarland’s in Ramadi and was joined by two additional Marine battalions (part of the surge) elsewhere in Anbar, the “awakening” began to accelerate very rapidly. At the start of 2007 there were only a handful of Anbaris in the local security forces. By the summer there were over 14,000. Before the surge, Ramadi was one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq; now it is possible for Americans to walk through its market with limited security details and without body armor. David Kilcullen describes the relationship between the surge and the movement very well in his Small Wars Journal posting, and I have also addressed the issue in detail in a recent Weekly Standard article . The fact is that neither the surge nor the turn of the tribal leaders would in itself have been enough to turn Anbar around — both were necessary, and will remain so for some time.
The Anbar Awakening would not have gone anywhere without new U.S. strategies, tactics, and troops.
Here’s Kagan’s article re: the surge:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=
Another article by Kagan discussing Anbar as an example of how to defeat Al Qaeda:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/043delki.asp?pg=2
‘National Review’, good to see you aboard (finally).
How did Mitt taste?
Here’s a video clip of empty suit Anderson Cooper, implying that McCain is confused or senile, because the “Anbar Awakening” supposedly happened before the surge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWy9-TgAwQw
Huh?
I have no idea what you mean.
Do you have a comment about the main topic of the thread, or...?
I saw that. The “pin up” which CNN kept up nearly the entire story was something like “McCain gaffes about surge timeline.” Made my blood boil.
Obama’s multitudinous gaffes? No big deal. The media mostly ignores those, because they’re in love with Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC-yMUQ8KzI
I saw that too. They went on and on with David Gergen and Joe Klein hammering McCain for this “huge mistake.” At the end, they read a McCain statement that suggested McCain was actually right but they never apologized.
Bookmarked. I have a hunch we’ll be needing this one. These guys are all about narrative, and juggling the facts to arrange a good storyline is about the closest to truth they’ll ever come. BTT.
He was breathless when he announced it.
He said this could be a “game changer.”
He did his spiel and I looked at my mother and said, “I didn't understand any of that gobbeldy gook and never heard of the Awakening.”
This isn't a story that most people will pay attention to.
...or what?
What, actually. WFB’s legacy has been ruined by a bunch of worthless prisses. I don’t need to comment on the message because the messenger has no credibility. All the crap TNR has spewed against McCain—including propping up such an obvious of phony as Mitt Romney—is, quite possibly going to get O’Bama elected.
Excuse my disdain for their newfound horror. And yes, they have made it personal.
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We have to fight as hard as we can to let everyone know that these are just liberal lies and McCain is NOT confused and NOT too old to be president.
Please spread this to your PING lists.
McCain’s lovers in the Drive By Media are turning on him as predicted.
These things have got to be cataloged somewhere. Where was the “pin up” (not the right term) when O. Hussein gaffed about 57 states? Of course if MCain did that, have catstrated him, running whole segments speculating what flaws it suggested (senility, torture trauma, etc.) it that would disqualify him from office.
How about in the Philadephia debate, when pressed by the questioner, Obama basically acknowledged raising capital gains taxes historically reduce federal tax revenues but then rationalizing his stated policy by saying it was about fairness. Just imagine the MSM’s breathless scrutiny and criticism if McCain were to give such an obviously inane answer. If the shoe were on the other foot and McCain was behaving like Hussein, they’d have panels of psychologists diagnosing all manner of mental traits and disorders.
MSNBC has already gone there.
We’ll see if any of our guys pick up on this and state the truth or let the left get away with yet another damned lie.
I believe it would be wise to not respond to the nuts. I usually dislike Dick Morris, but this morning in a spot on Fox he mentioned that McCain needs to drop arguing the earlier phases of Iraq, those were Bush plans, and start nailing Obama on what he will do, if after a pullout, if there is major trouble after leaving Iraq.
This McCain campaign gets pulled into ruts they can’t get out of. The campaign lacks any vision or bold ideas and energy. I just figure they are trying hard to lose.
Time to stop responding to the past and pushing accountabilty in the future.
Remember, a couple of weeks ago, billy klinton making a statement that former POWs forget things and sometimes act irrationaly?
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