"The Iraq war is over. We won."

Pajamas Media ^ | NOVEMBER 14, 2008 | Glenn Reynolds

[RobinMasters]

"THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON:" Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq.

And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. toops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.

[HardStarboard]

Michael Yon - the modern day Ernie Pyle.

[NordP]

Great news - thanks for sharing! THANK YOU EVEN MORE FOR MY FREEDOM AND YOUR SERVICE TO THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!!!

[petercooper]

With no help from DemocRATS!

[napscoordinator]

Americans will only consider the Iraq war a victory when all the troops are out and not before than. That is the realistic view of your average American. Here at FR we tend to be more knowledgeable about it and can see victory already but your average American will not know this or even agree to this....the same Americans who just voted Obama which is why I am confident in my post.

[ladyvet]

Thank you and God Bless!!!!

[Volunteer]

I just know this will be the lead story on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow morning....

[SnarlinCubBear]

Could the troops please come home and kick a little a$$ here? We may need them!

[max americana]

Chris Mathews should feel a tingle up his leg when he hears about this...

[fella]

With no help from DemocRATS!

Sometime shortly after January 20th the MSM will suddenly be full of war news and how The Great ObamaNation turned it around simply by talking and will give him all the credit for a huge victory.

[generalhammond]

Watch Obama turn it into “his” win after he tinkers around the edges to make it look like he’s dramatically changed the situation on the ground. It’s be 4 years of form (also known as BS) over substance and it seems the American voter just laps it up.

[tacitus voltaire]

A series of bombings Saturday pointed to the fragility of security gains in the past year. The violence also was likely to strengthen the argument of the pact’s proponents, including the interior and defense ministers, that there is still a need for U.S. forces.

In Tal Afar, a suicide car bombing struck a commercial district, killing 10 people and wounding 20, according to the U.S. military. Iraqi police and hospital officials said seven people were killed and up to 32 were wounded. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

In Baghdad, a bomb in a parked car exploded near the National Theater in the mainly Shiite district of Karradah, killing at least five and wounding 23, according to police and hospital officials.

[RFEngineer]

“That is the realistic view of your average American. Here at FR we tend to be more knowledgeable about it and can see victory already but your average American will not know this or even agree to this”

Victory actually used to mean that the troops come home. There is nothing wrong with that concept, except that we all know that Iraq, while relatively peaceful now, is destined to be an Islamic terrorist-supporting state soon after we do leave - which despite your self-proclaimed “knowledgeable” position is going to happen sooner or later.

The concept of not having our troops on foreign soil except when absolutely necessary for a specific (military) objective used to be a conservative concept. We can either leave now, on our terms, or later on someone else’s terms.

[GoodDay]

Have we really won? Or is the enemy simply biding its time until January 20th when a new, soft-on-terrorism administration takes over? What assurance have we that Iran will not back some massive shi’ite invasion of Iraq sometime after January 20th? None, it seems to me.

Is this actually the peace of victory? Or is it the quiet before the next storm?

[repubmom]

My son is scheduled to go back for his second tour in the beginning couple of months of next year...(it would be wonderful if he didn’t have to go)...but he did say that the unit they’re replacing have had very little to no activity...and they’ll be in an urban area vs. last deployment when they were more in the countryside. Last deployment they were there when the surge happened and for the last 6 months of that 15 month tour, he said they were “bored.” (Moms think “bored” is good :-)).

[tsmith130]

Not to worry. Soon we’ll have a Civilian Security farce (no, that’s not a typo).

[brushcop]

With no help from DemocRATS!

Good one-liner that needs to be repeated ad nauseam at every opportunity. That, and "Obama's policies have FAILED!, a FAILED administration (before it begins)!"

[HokieMom]

This morning's Email from my MAJ USMC (baby) brother, who has just moved from Fallujah to Al Asad Air Base. There are two photos of the handover, but I don't know how to post them.

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Camp Fallujah set to close four years after two majorbattles

By Gunnery Sgt. Matthew A. Butler

Camp Fallujah, Iraq (Nov. 14, 2008) – The Multi-National Force - West command element, and the last major Coalition force units, left here for the final time today marking an end to the two historic battles for Fallujah and the long fight to return the city to normalcy which started more than four years ago.

“The name Fallujah and Camp Fallujah is the most recognized name of the entire Iraqi war - the city of Fallujah – it’s always been a tough place,” said Marine Maj Gen John F. Kelly, commanding general, MNF-West. “It was a tough place when we took over from the 82nd Airborne and until very recently it was the symbol of al-Qaida and the terrorist power.”

“As we leave here and shift the headquarters to a different part of Iraq we’re closing down a chapter. I think Fallujah has turned more into a symbol of what these cities can be if you defeat the terrorists and empower the Iraqis to take over for themselves.”

Camp Fallujah was home to nearly 8,000 service members from combat and service support units in February when the Camp Pendleton, Calif. based I Marine Expeditionary Forces took charge of al-Anbar.

Now only a few hundred Marines remain to clean up the base before officially handing it over to the Iraqis in the next few months.

Coalition forces began the transition to greater Iraqi control this spring and have been in an advisory and support roll since Anbar returned to Provincial Iraqi Control in September. Closing Camp Fallujah is a direct result of the continued stability in Anbar that made PIC possible.

Some of the bloodiest fighting in the Iraq war, with approximately 95 American deaths, occurred during the second, 46-day battle for Fallujah in November and December of 2004 after al-Qaida and the insurgency laid claim to what is known as the Sunni triangle.

With the insurgency all but eliminated the camp has seen dramatic changes. It no longer needs many of its fortifications. Rows of dirt-filled wire and cloth HESCO and concrete barriers placed around living quarters and soft buildings have been removed.

Sand bags by the thousands have been pulled from windows and emptied. Of the three chow halls only one remains open; the others have been disassembled.

With the level of violence down so are the causalities at Camp Fallujah’s combat hospital.

The hospital, which has seen 7,750 patients in four and half years, is also closing. The last six month the hospital’s staff of 25 Navy doctors and corpsmen has treated only one casualty. During sustained combat operations in 2004 the hospital of more than 115 doctors was treating more than 3 serious casualties a day.

The Marines took over Camp Fallujah from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division on March 24 of 2004. A week later four Blackwater security contractors were ambushed while escorting a supply convoy. Their bodies were desecrated and drug through the street of Fallujah before being hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River.

According to Kelly, then the assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division during his first tour at Camp Fallujah, the Marines received orders to launch the first battle of Fallujah. They moved quickly through the city without the aid of heavy artillery or air support and cleared the urban area in many small squads. However, after a combination of political pressure and orders from higher, they were told to hold their positions and eventually ordered to back out of the city without riding the city of the terrorists.

By November Fallujah had become a sanctuary for the insurgency. On November 7, 2004 Operation Al-Fajr commenced. Coalition forces, led by Marines, fought back in to the city. “It had to be cleaned out. Of course in that battle there were a great many American casualties and a far greater amount of destruction to the city,” Kelly said.

As the transition to peace and Iraqi self governance continues, Kelly said they are asking for less and less help and for fewer convoys during the day through the city because of the traffic it causes. “They’re worried about traffic congestion more than they are about terrorism because the terrorism for the most part is gone.” Kelly, accompanied by Anbar’s provincial chief of police, walked through the streets of Fallujah, Oct. 29, without body armor.

“I walked down to the middle of Fallujah, guarded only by Iraqi Police, walking with the police chief with no helmet – no flack jacket. We were trying to make a point and the point was that Fallujah for all intents and purposes is a safe city,” Kelly said.

Marines have pulled out of Anbar’s cities and urban areas and set up in out lying areas, Kelly told a Pentagon Press Briefing recently.

Some Marines from here have relocated to nearby Camp Baharia, but in fewer numbers than have moved west to the Al Asad Air Base.

Al Asad, the new home of the MNF-W command element and several other units, is located in north-western Anbar, roughly half-way between Fallujah and Iraq’s border with Syria. In addition to moving units around the province, Kelly has reduced his overall troop strength by 40 percent since taking command in February.

“We've closed, actually, a fair number of bases since I've been here. Al Qaim is an example.” Kelly said.

Other bases, like Camp Blue Diamond in downtown Ramadi, Combat Outpost Manion and several checkpoints across the province. “We've actually turned over the base at Habbaniya to the Iraqis. So they own the base and we're tenants, but they run the base.” Camp Ramadi is in line for the same type of turnover next year while MNF-West continues to step aside and Iraqi security forces and government assume more and more responsibility.

[The_Reader_David]

Here’s hoping: I keep hoping that one of the times when Karl Marx was, like a stopped clock, right by coincidence, was when he wrote, “History repeats itself, the first time is tragedy, the second farce.”

Though I’m not sure, is Obama a farcical analog of the tragic Hitler, Lenin or Allende?

[LiberConservative]

This story needs more legs. What a fitting way for W to leave office: victorious.