Redstate

Posted at 6:30pm on Apr. 22, 2008 House Democrats Admit Upcoming Iraq Vote All About Politics

This Dog Not Only Won’t Hunt, It’s Dead, Buried, and Decaying

By Mark I

Fresh on the heels of another wildly successful round of Congressional testimony by Iraq Commander Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, Democrats in Congress are going to attempt once again to bring a premature halt to the emerging victory in Iraq. Worse, this time they aren’t even going to pretend that the attempt has anything to do with the welfare troops. The chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) told The Hill newspaper that Democrats in the House are deciding whether to include withdrawal language in an upcoming supplemental funding bill.

Maybe they haven’t seen that movie.

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Posted in Anti-war liberals | Democrats | House of Representatives | troop surge | War | war supplemental — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:04pm on Feb. 11, 2008 Petraeus Wins Another One for the Counterinsurgency

This Battle Was Not in Baghdad

By Mark I

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates emerged from a meeting with Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus and announced that he is inclined to take the general’s view that a pause in the withdrawal of troops from Iraq this summer is warranted. Petraeus has been advocating for the troop drawdown to take a break for a strategic assessment after U.S. force levels in Iraq reach 15 brigades this July.

“I think that the notion of a brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense. I had been kind of headed in that direction, as well.”

The Secretary’s acceptance of General Petraeus’s recommendation all but ends a debate that had been brewing within the Administration over the troop reductions. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had come out against a pause earlier this month over concerns for the long term health of the Army and Marine Corps. Just like he did when the surge was proposed, however, Petraeus looks to have defeated the Chiefs in an internal battle for the president’s ear.

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Posted in Afghanistan | Gen. David Petraeus | Iraq | Robert Gates | The Joint Chiefs of Staff | troop surge | War — Comments (12)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:15pm on Nov. 8, 2007 Harry Reid Finds Success in Iraq

Senator Knows Why the Violence is Down; and It’s Not Because the Surge is Working

By Mark I

On the floor of the Senate Tuesday, during leadership time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Searchlight) made a statement on the occasion of the year 2007 becoming the deadliest year for US troops since the Iraq War began. One might find this an odd cause for recognition on the floor of the Senate, but not Sen. Reid. For him, the sacrifices of our brave troops provided an opportunity to both score political points against the war and, perhaps more importantly, denigrate the successes they are achieving every day as part of the troop surge.

From Reid’s official statement:

Yesterday we reached another tragic milestone in Iraq. With the death of five young Americans, 2007 has now been the deadliest year for our troops of the entire war. Our thoughts are with the families of these five latest American victims of the Iraqi civil war. Our hearts go out to the families of all 3,854 young men and women who have lost their lives and to the tens of thousands more who have been gravely wounded.

This war has caused so much suffering here in America where our losses continue to rise, where our treasury has been depleted for generations to come, and where our military is battered, scarred and stretched to the limit. And let us not forget the suffering in Iraq – where we learned today that 2.3 million civilians are now displaced, fleeing from their homes, their neighborhoods, their schools and places of worship.

Two-thirds of the displaced are young children, under the age of 12. This humanitarian crisis rages on with no end in sight. By any of the most critical benchmarks, President Bush’s flawed strategy on Iraq is not making America more secure. We are seeing no signs of meaningful progress on political reconciliation, which is the key to success in Iraq.

But the official statement does not include a key passage that the Senator saw fit to include in his remarks on the floor. In that passage, Sen. Reid expands on the argument of Rep. David Obey (D-WI) from Monday in which he said that violence is down in Iraq because US troops have “run out of people to kill.” Reid sees another reason, and it has nothing to do with the heroic sacrifices of the troops.

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Posted in al-Qaeda | Harry Reid | Iraq | Liberals | troop surge — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »