The Surge
Posted at 9:59pm on Jul. 6, 2008 Deeply Encouraging News From Iraq . . . And Some Of The Reaction
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
First, let's go to the "deeply encouraging news part":
American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.
After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda's dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant "last stand" in the northern city of Mosul.
A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.
Operation Lion's Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans' 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.
The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.
[. . .]
Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: "I think we're at the irreversible point."
Read on . . .
Posted in Barack Obama | Iraq | John McCain | The Surge | War — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 6:45pm on Jul. 6, 2008 Okinawa Jack Murtha continues to act in an utterly unsurprising fashion.
I cannot, however, in good conscience endorse what Gateway Pundit called him. It was, in fact, uncalled for.
By Moe Lane
I am completely in favor of the female breast, you see; and so I feel that calling Murtha one utterly slanders what might be a perfectly innocent mammary.
Three comments (in all of which I do agree with Gateway Pundit):
1). Murtha really needs to learn to actually read his briefing materials. Or at least figure out what year it is: his talking points (5 versus 15 of 18).
2). Murtha really needs to apologize to the men that he's slandered in the past before he starts in with new slanders:
Murtha: I think the short term it [the Bush Surge] has reduced incidents. I'm not sure if it's because the Iraqis are just worn out but certainly the way they are doing it today it makes a big difference. It used to be we broke down doors. We went in and we killed people inadvertently. Now they're much more careful about it.
Charming fellow, no?
3). If you wonder why certain people wince at best, and laugh hysterically at worst, when the phrase "Democratic credibility in national security policy" comes up - it's because people like the person capable of 1). & 2). are given as examples of credible Democrats on that issue.
Moe
PS: By all means, Murtha: you just go ahead and support Senator Barack Obama. He almost deserves you.
PPS: I lied:
4). Lt. Colonel William Russell is running in this district.
Posted in 2008 | Iraq | Okinawa Jack Murtha | The Surge — Comments (2)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:47pm on Jun. 29, 2008 Shorter Andrew Sullivan
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
I don't know who will end up being President of the United States. I do know that a broad consensus can be achieved regarding the principle that Andrew Sullivan must never become Secretary of State or Defense.
Posted at 7:02pm on Jun. 21, 2008 Michael Barone On The Surge
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Read it all. As he points out, McCain has been consistently right on this issue and as of this writing, Obama has done nothing to acknowledge the facts on the ground in Iraq. Hardly deserving of the genuine meaning of the term "reality-based" but entirely in keeping with the Orwellian and ironic characteristics that have surrounded the term since its introduction into the public lexicon. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)
Posted at 10:38am on Jun. 5, 2008 I await with some interest Senator Obama's assurance that this will fail.
You know. Quagmires, and all that.
By Moe Lane
After all, he's happy enough to declare similar activities in Iraq failures, and never mind such piddling little details like objective reality (Via Instapundit):
Lanier plans to seal off rough ’hoods in latest effort to stop wave of violence
D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.
Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.
Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.’s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her “All Hands on Deck” weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.
Under today’s proposal, the no-go zones will last up to 10 days, according to internal police documents. Front-line officers are already being signed up for training on running the blue curtains.
Of course, if Obama does come out against this he'll have to explain to his super-delegate Harry Thomas Jr. why this plan of the Councilman's is doomed to failure, so I expect that the junior Senator from Illinois will handle the situation by ignoring it for as long as possible, and then fire a staffer.
Posted in Barack Obama | DC | Harry Thomas | Miscellanea | The Best Democratic Primary EVER | The Surge — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:10pm on Jun. 1, 2008 Dear News Media
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Please cover this news story with as much attention as you would if it actually reported bad news:
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq fell to their lowest level last month since the 2003 invasion and officials said on Sunday improved security also helped the country boost oil production in May to a post-war high.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Iraq's oil minister credited better security for the two milestones, which illustrated a dramatic turnabout in the fortunes of a country on the brink of all-out sectarian civil war just 12 months ago.
"We've still got a distance to go but I think lower casualty rates are a reflection of some real progress," Gates told reporters in Singapore. "The key will be to continue to sustain the progress we have seen."
Lest I have not been clear in my reaction to such stories in the past, I don't think that any of this means that we are out of the woods in Iraq. But significant progress has been made since the implementation of the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy and it is high time that the critics of the surge--both within the media and in the political class as well--were confronted with this news. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton especially should be made to comment on these matters. More here.
Posted in Iraq | The Counterinsurgency Strategy | The Surge | War — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:40pm on May 29, 2008 Nancy Pelosi praises the goodwill of the Iranians.
Because I suppose that it's a *wrench* for their regime to stop murdering Iraqis and Americans.
By Moe Lane
Note by Jeff: I just want to add to the portion of Moe's final paragraph that reads, "They promote to power people who do things like praise regimes actively trying to get our troops killed..."
Make no mistake about it -- Iran has long since passed the "actively trying to get our troops killed" stage. They are the sole provider of the weapon responsible for the literal majority of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq.
That's right, read that again: Iran is directly responsible for the majority of the deaths of the young service men and women who have perished in Iraq.
And Nancy Pelosi just called those men and women, and their battlefield commanders, absolute failures, while specifically praising the "goodwill" of the exact regime that is directly responsible for the majority of the deaths of our young men and women serving there.
Just chew on that for a few minutes. How does that make you feel? Hm?
-JE
-----------------------------------
In the course of condemning and explaining away a military policy that has inconveniently turned out to be successful, Speak...
God help us, she really is, isn't she?
...Speaker of the House Pelosi made this statement:
Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.
... [There's a bit more in here wrt Petraeus: I've listened to the recording, but I don't have a full transcript yet.]
And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians...
Coalition forces capture key Special Groups financier (Baghdad)
Keep reading.
Posted in Iraq | Liberals | Nancy Pelosi | The Surge — Comments (18)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:47pm on Apr. 25, 2008 The Basra Awakening
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
This article gives a lot of hope to those who want to see the reconstruction effort succeed in Iraq. It points out the degree to which life has become better in Basra since gangs of gunmen sought to throw Basra into a state of anarchy. It is ridiculous to excerpt--the article should simply be read in whole.
Posted at 1:09am on Apr. 14, 2008 Totten In Iraq
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Michael Totten's Iraq reporting continues to be outstanding and continues to deserve your attention and support. This post is jam-packed with valuable information and insights. Go over and read.
Posted at 10:34am on Apr. 9, 2008 The Petraeus-Crocker Hearings
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
I didn't see much of the hearings yesterday, but I imagine that this report does a good job of conveying the "Mommy, are we there yet?!?!" attitude of many of the Democratic Senators asking questions of/making statements towards General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. There was little acknowledgment on their part that anything had improved and little acknowledgment that a year ago, no one would have expected things to improve in Iraq as much as they have. All that they focused on was our leaving the country.
To be sure, it is understandable that people want the United States to leave Iraq. War isn't fun, to put matters mildly. But General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker can hardly be blamed for not being able to tell the Senators that "we can leave by Date X." If Iraq has taught us anything, it is that conditions there make anyone involved in the predictions business look foolish in the extreme. And the General and Ambassador are too smart to get involved in the predictions business and consequently tie themselves down to statements that may no longer be operative in an ever-changing environment.
If there was any intellectual honesty about the whole thing, there would have been widespread agreement that there has been tremendous progress in Iraq over the last year. I suppose that it should come as no surprise that intellectual honesty is a scarce commodity during an election year, but the problem is that it appears to be a scarce commodity all the time. Petraeus and Crocker have gotten to where they are, of course, because they have placed a special emphasis on the need to be as intellectually honest as possible. They may not be perfect but they are better than most at the task. And that made for quite a mismatch between them and a number of the Senators at yesterday's hearings.
Posted in Iraq | The Surge | War — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:26pm on Apr. 5, 2008 Shorter Democratic Line On Iraq
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
"NIE's discussing how god-awful the situation is in Iraq are to be accepted as gospel. By contrast, NIE's discussing improvements that have come about in Iraq are to be dismissed as useless."
Wasn't the "reality-based community" supposed to be better than that?
Posted at 11:38pm on Apr. 4, 2008 Shorter Nancy Pelosi & Co.
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Funny. I would have thought the "reality-based community" actually wanted to hear about the realities on the ground, instead of merely being told what it wanted to hear.
Posted in Arranging The Spin | Iraq | The Surge | War — Comments (0)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:54pm on Mar. 30, 2008 Fizzling Out
Let's Pile On
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
The reconstruction effort in Iraq continues to be a difficult task, one that entails a great many challenges. Part of the frustration in examining the reaction to those challenges in this country is seeing just how frightened commentators get by any adverse development whatsoever.
One recent adverse development was the decision by Muqtada al-Sadr to allow his followers to revolt in Basra. Instantly, this was proclaimed as proof that the surge and the implementation of the American counterinsurgency effort had failed.
Well, maybe not:
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Sunday that he was pulling his fighters off the streets nationwide and called on the government to stop raids against his followers and free them from prison.
The Iraqi government quickly welcomed al-Sadr's apparent move to resolve a widening conflict with his movement, sparked Tuesday by operations against his backers in the oil-rich southern city of Basra.
Al-Sadr's nine-point statement was issued by his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shiite mosques. It said the first point was: "taking gunmen off the streets in Basra and elsewhere."
He also demanded that the Iraqi government stop "haphazard raids" and release security detainees who haven't been charged, two issues cited by his movement as reasons for fighting the government.
Followers handed out sweets in Baghdad's main Mahdi Army militia stronghold of Sadr City.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh called the statement "positive and responsible." But he also warned in a telephone interview broadcast on Iraqi state TV. that security forces would continue to target those who don't follow the order.
"We expect a wide response to this call," he said. "After this announcement, anybody who targets the government and its institutions will be regarded ... as outlaws."
Now that this development has taken place, are we allowed to go back to thinking that the surge is a success? It would only make sense; after all, if the surge was pronounced a failure because of the temporary Sadrist revolt, shouldn't it now be deemed a success since we see that the revolt appears to have come to an end?
It is probably more accurate to state that there will continue to be tough slogging ahead in Iraq. But thanks to the surge and the counterinsurgency effort, the reconstruction effort is proceeding more successfully than it was in the past. And just as commentators gnashed their teeth in despair over the brief Sadrist uprising, one would now expect them to rejoice over the fact that the uprising seems to have come to an end, and to make as big a deal about that end as they did of the beginning.
Posted in Iraq | Moqtada al-Sadr | The Surge | War — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:51am on Mar. 24, 2008 The Iraqis: Fans Of The Surge
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Or at least, it's getting to that point. If there is no precipitous withdrawal, the trendlines may very well continue--a shocking development in the eyes of some, no doubt.
Posted at 12:25am on Mar. 18, 2008 "Hard Won Progress In Baghdad"
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Anthony Diaz, writes on the efficacy of the surge. His credentials--as discussed on his byline--are quite impressive. As is his experience in Iraq. I won't excerpt the editorial--rather, just make sure that you read the whole thing.
