Speaking of worms---is the worm turning in Iraq?

[Murffieus]

All I see on national TV the last couple of days is about several domestic murders, fires in California, and Paris Hilton getting out of jail on Tuesday (very little on Iraq)----sure sign that things are getting better there( the national news media isn't going to promote something it wants to fail)----when they do talk about the war's progress  the positive things are drowned out by highlighting the number killed in Iraq that day/month/year so far).

Then when you read the fine print on the back pages you see where there is less and less sectarian violence (civil war) in Iraq----and the more sunnis and shia uniting to fight Al Quida----not only in Anbar province but in Bagdad and Diyala Provence as well. Al Quida is surrounded and being slaughtered in Baquoba----numerous of weapons caches are being turned up in Bagdad and elsewhere.

According to reports 1/3 of all battalion commanders of the Iraqi army are now sunnis (up considerably from a year ago)-----while more and more sunnis are joining the police force. The other day Al Quida blows up the bookends of the great Mosque in Sammarra to stoke sectarian violence as they did a year ago when they blew off its dome----but this time ----no such reaction as both shia and sunnis are learning who the enemy is and what their motive is (to promote sectarian violence)!

It is getting more and more obvious to Iraqis that the enemy of both the Iraqi people and the USA is Al Quida-----and yet the Dems want to pull out of Iraq and leave Iraq to Al Quida to establish a terrorist base to plan attacks on America and elsewhere----and to pullout under the banner of surrender-----go figure!

[gjreda]

Don't you ever get sick of posting the same crap every day?

[Pakuni]

Not according to that noted anti-war liberal Richard Lugar.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070626/ap_on_go_co/lugar_iraq

WASHINGTON - Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior Republican and a reliable vote for President Bush on the war, said that Bush's Iraq strategy was not working and that the U.S. should downsize the military's role.
 
The unusually blunt assessment Monday deals a political blow to Bush, who has relied heavily on GOP support to stave off anti-war legislation.

It also comes as a surprise. Most Republicans have said they were willing to wait until September to see if Bush's recently ordered troop buildup in Iraq was working.

"In my judgment, the costs and risks of continuing down the current path outweigh the potential benefits that might be achieved," Lugar, R-Ind., said in a Senate floor speech. "Persisting indefinitely with the surge strategy will delay policy adjustments that have a better chance of protecting our vital interests over the long term."

[Murffieus]

Pakuni----that statement by Lugar (at this time) is called "manipulating the media"----in otherwards so that Bush can go back to Malicki and say, "see even members of my own party are now pressuring me for political results in Iraq (oil revenue sharing and political reconcilliation)", which in turn turns up the heat on the Malicky government.

Better to judge people by their actions than by what they say----in Lugar's case (as your link says) he voted for the "surge" (so it's not only GWB's plan, but Lugar's plan too)----and also voted against all the Democrat timetable for Withdrawal bills)!

[tower912]

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20070626/NEWS01/306260041/
Apparently, Senator Voinovich is co-ordinating this media misdirection ploy with Senator Lugar.   The dominoes have begun.

[77ncaachamps]

I think it's funny that two sides (pro-war and anti-war) are using the same source: the media. Yet it is both of their contentions to question the other side's sources!

So I ask about the war: WHAT IS THE TRUTH?

To Murf...does it bother you if we're still there ten years from now?

[Murffieus]

Doesn't bother me one bit if we're in Iraq 10 years from now----we'll probably be in Afghanistan the too and who knows where else----we've been in Korea for over 50 years----we still have some troops in Germany & Japan----this war against Islamic facism will go on at least another 10 years----when/if we let up, we'll get hit again----but worse (with WMD at some point).

Watch how Voinivich and Lugar vote----that's the important thing to this point they have supported GWB and Lugar indicated that won't change----this puts pressure on Malicky to make the necessary political accomodations that Iraq needs----that's Lugar's objective here-----I don't know too much about Voinivich.

[ilovefreeway]

"----we've been in Korea for over 50 years----we still have some troops in Germany & Japan----"

Very true, but they're not being killed, and are welcome by the locals (except the Japanese do get a little mad when our individual troops do something stupid)

[Murffieus]

Regardless of whether they are being shot at now or not , they are in South Korea to keep the peace to prevent hostillities----war could break out there anytime.

We're in Japan & Germany more for the purposes of maintaining strategic bases.

Ten years from now----we could be there in either capacity----to help keep the peace-----and/or as a strategic base in a very volitile part of the world----in either case we are there at the request of an elected government!

[77ncaachamps]

Regardless of whether they are being shot at now or not , they are in South Korea to keep the peace to prevent hostillities----war could break out there anytime.

We're in Japan & Germany more for the purposes of maintaining strategic bases.

Ten years from now----we could be there in either capacity----to help keep the peace-----and/or as a strategic base in a very volitile part of the world----in either case we are there at the request of an elected government!

Why don't we just pull out of Korea, give the South Korean weapons, and let them handle it?

Or better yet, divert a good portion of the troops to S. Korea since they have a nuclear capabilities and Iraq doesn't.

I hear that there's unrest in that continent south of Europe that's rich in oil, heavy in the black market of arms, and hosts Al-Queda cells....what's it called again? And why are we not there?

[muarmy81]

Very true, but they're not being killed, and are welcome by the locals

Actually, most of the Iraqi's love us...we're the most stable source of income for about 70% of the population.  We ensure the military and police are paid, we pay interperters over there ungodly amounts of money (In Iraqi terms its ungodly, about $1000/month) We pay civilians to collect garbage, provide electronics, movies, and other consumer services/products to soldiers on base, if we left this population would be hard up to provide for their families.  This issue is that if they publicly display an interaction with us terrorist see this and kill them.  So out of fear they hide who they are when they're around us and who they work for.

[Murffieus]

The key element in the insurgency is Al Quida----and the turning point was when Al Quida blew the dome off that Mosque in Sammara----this set of the sectarian violence. I heard a general say that 70% of the roadside bombs and suicde bombers are Al Quida sponserd with the rest coming from Iran.

Iraq is on the back pages now and is playing second fiddle to the weather (fires in california, etc ) on the major networks----no acceleration in sectarian violence after further bomb damage to that Mosque-----furthermore look for some key political deals by the Iraqi government (oil sharing, etc)just prior to Gen Petraeis's report in september.

A major negative is that development of the Iraqi army/police is behind schedule.

[nathanziarek]

Don't you ever get sick of posting the same crap every day?

(Needed to be asked again.)

[Murffieus]

"crap" is in the eye of the beholder!

[ChicosBailBonds]

Murff....you might like this....I'd also suggest reading the military blogs from the guys that are actually overthere, and not the hippy lefties running the MSM.

-------------


Friday, June 29, 2007

WASHINGTON -- "Does anyone know or care that we're turning things around over here?" The query was in one of several dozen e-mails I received this week from troops with whom our FOX News "War Stories" team has been embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them are on their third -- some even their fourth -- combat tour. The sender was chiding me for going to the Philippines to cover his comrades-in-arms in the campaign against Abu Sayyaf instead of heading back to Mesopotamia. In fact, his plaint could have been aimed at anyone in the so-called mainstream media -- where good news is no news -- and no bad news story is too old to resurrect with a new lead.

The soldier's lament is valid. As congressmen prepare to embark on their weeklong Independence Day recess, there will be no vacation at the beach for the 177,000 U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. While the rest of their countrymen are carping about $3 per gallon gasoline and whining about long lines at airports, young Americans deployed along the Tigris and Euphrates will don 50-pound flak jackets and Kevlar helmets and do battle against suicidal Islamic radicals in 130-degree heat. But no matter how effective our troops are, it's unlikely to make its way to the front page of your newspaper or the evening news.

If things continue to go as they began this week on Operation Arrowhead Ripper, there will be major successes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates in Baqubah and Diyala province. In Al Anbar, the Marines and their Sunni allies will continue the process of building new police stations and bringing security to neighborhoods once dominated by Al Qaeda. And in Maysan province, Iranian-supported Shiite militias will continue to get rolled up by U.S. and British Special Operations units. But little of that -- other than the inevitable casualty figures -- will be worthy of being called "news" by the potentates of the press.

Instead of good news from the war zone -- the masters of our media have decided to feed us a steady diet of bad news from a different battlefield -- Washington. And to do so, they have had to scrape the bottom of every political barrel they can find.

Tony Blair's departure from office -- after more than a decade as Prime Minister of Great Britain -- was depicted as a "major blow to Bush." Descriptions of Blair as the president's "last foreign ally" were a common theme, along with prognostications that the new PM, Gordon Brown, would move to "expeditiously withdraw British troops from Iraq." The fact that Blair had announced his intention to step down nearly a year ago was barely mentioned in these commentaries.

To ensure that younger Americans who weren't even alive in the 1970s know just how evil our government really is, the media hyped the re-release of 693 pages of internal reports on "CIA misdeeds" and "bungled illegal operations." The Associated Press ballyhooed the release as a catalog of "misconduct" and "agency excesses" as though the information was brand new. Only those who are very young, illiterate or suffering from amnesia would think of this as news -- but that's the treatment it received. Fidel Castro had to be pleased. Resurrecting the CIA's failed Kennedy-era assassination attempt against the Cuban communist may give the fading dictator a new lease on life -- and help Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Patrick Leahy build support in Congress for new limits on counter-terror wiretaps.

Messrs Blair and Castro weren't the only ones making "war news" this week. Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, depicted as a "wise man" of the Republican Party, also made headlines by declaring in a floor speech that, "In my judgment our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond." Though his remarks continued for more than 50 minutes, the media hyped his belief that "the current surge strategy is not an effective means of protecting" America's vital interests in Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Lugar's remarks a "turning point" in the war.

Nobody mentioned that the "surge strategy" has actually been in effect for one week. Instead, breathless headline writers and broadcast newsreaders who failed to read the entire text of Lugar's remarks cited "GOP leaders defecting" and "Tide shifting on GOP support for war," as though Lugar was a longstanding advocate for the appropriate use of force who had suddenly seen the light.

In reality, Lugar's long tenure in Congress reveals a pattern of uncertainty when it comes to the forceful prosecution of American foreign policy. In 1986 he led the fight to overturn Ronald Reagan's veto of congressionally imposed economic sanctions on South Africa. He voted against aid to the Nicaraguan anti-communist resistance in the FY '89 defense budget; voted repeatedly against funding for the B-2 Bomber, "yes" for nuclear disarmament in 1991 and against funding SDI in 1992.

Those are inconvenient facts for those who want to depict Lugar's recent statement on the war as some kind of tectonic shift. But for America's media elites, it's enough. They have determined that the outcome of the war against radical Islam will be decided not on the battlefields of Iraq but in the corridors of power in Washington. And about that, they may very well be right.

[Murffieus]

Chico---very good-----one really has to dig in the mainstream media for info on Iraq the last week or so=-----this as the article suggests can only be positive for progress in Iraq.

A turnaround in Iraq will completely neutralize Hillary as she got sucked in by the left wing of her party on votes and comments she has made on Iraq of late.

Going from hawk (pre war)----to semi hawk prior to this year----to dove in 2007-----and then to have to go back to hawk again if Iraq can be stablized would be a flip-flop that will be very difficult to defend (John Kerry anyone?).