28 Comments

• 1. Rana Quijotesca  |  December 29th, 2007 at 11:03 am

  As much as I am happy to see reduced violence and weakened Al Qaeda in Iraq, it is ultimately useless without accompanying good news on the Political Front. We will not have won Iraq until the Iraqi people and their government can fend for themselves.

• 2. liberalT  |  December 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am

  if true - this is of course great news. However, the fact of the matter is that we now know that AQ was not in Iraq until we invaded. So at best - you have just gotten back to the pre-invasion status. Further - AQ is a very small part of the overall problems facing Iraq. Yes - violence is down from last year - but stop trying to pretend that this means everything is a bed of roses. Still up to a thousand people die each month in horrible sectarian violence, still 1/3 of the population lacks basic services, still the Iraqi government is in shambles, still there were no WMDS, still there was no connection between 9/11 and Saddam, and still the majority of Iraqis and Americans want the US out in the next year,

• 3. navydad  |  December 29th, 2007 at 11:51 am

  Is that a parrot I hear…thanks RQ and LT! You’ve both given us the first laugh of the day…LOL!!!

• 4. liberalT  |  December 29th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

  right navy. We are parrots because we just don’t take everything the president tells us is true as an absolute fact without checking. Please do tell us what YOU think - not just random insults. Doesn’t that make you feel pretty weak - to never say anything but to only insult others. I have a hard time understanding your pathology…

• 5. Rana Quijotesca  |  December 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

  Navydad-

  If I’m not mistaken, that definition for victory is the same that B4B and the US government use… Sorry that I’m “parroting” people you agree with…

• 6. Diana Powe  |  December 29th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

  Victory is simply too simplistic a term. From General Petraeus:
  

  A year ago, Iraq was racked by horrific violence and on the brink of civil war. Now, levels of violence and civilian and military casualties are significantly reduced and hope has been rekindled in Iraqi communities. To be sure, the progress is reversible and there is much more to be done.
  Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2973170020071229?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

  And…
  

  But figures supplied at Petraeus’s briefing also showed a slight rise in suicide car and vest bombs since October. At least 33 people were killed by two suicide bombs on Christmas Day, and 10 people died in a Baghdad car bomb on Friday.
  Source: ibid

  And…
  

  Although the security situation has improved this year, U.S. commanders have been careful not to declare victory after years in which their statements were often seen as overly optimistic.
  Source: ibid

  Will what truly matters happen? That which truly matters which is that ordinary Iraqis can have economic opportunity, freedom from want, freedom from fear and the ability to participate and have confidence in the representative nature of their government? No one really knows yet. Let’s hope that’s what happens, but it is simply ludicrous and an insult to ordinary Iraqi citizens to declare victory in December, 2007.

• 7. Eric T  |  December 29th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

  Diane-

  I think Al Qaida has been delt a severe wound by our troops in Iraq, I don’t think it is an insult to the Iraqi’s to declare a victory, because they helped run AL Qaida out, The Sunni militia helped run them out. They do need jobs and good economy to keep that ideaology out, that Al Qaida spreads in areas where their is high unemployment and poverty.

  I think OUR hero’s can declare victory and the Militia’s in Iraq should also be proud and maybe even have a military parade with their flags, and equiptment out for everyone to see.

  It sends a clear message to the whole region.
  “Terrorism will be defeated by the United States Military and its Allies”.

• 8. Diana Powe  |  December 29th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

  Eric T,

  I respectfully disagree in that I absolutely do believe that for any Americans to announce that victory has happened in Iraq spits in the face of the real life that ordinary Iraqis are still living right now. There are fewer bombings, kidnappings, shootings and beheadings and that is a wonderful thing. However, they are still happening and no amount of flag-waving, cheering and happy-talk by people safely far-removed from their world is going to change that.

• 9. Eric T  |  December 29th, 2007 at 2:12 pm

  Diane

  The General’s want us to stay the course and fund the troops.

  From what they say in Iraq some areas, are in real good shape. I’m not saying the job is done wrap it up and come home. I just think if a small town with 3500 people notice some foreign troops coming into their town, and they run them out. Why not put a happy story like that on the T.V instead of seeing car bombs, IED’s

• 10. Rana Quijotesca  |  December 29th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

  EricT-

  Happy stories aren’t really happy if they’re misleading. You can say that violence is down, but that still leaves the issue of political reform and government cohesion on the table. To say that we’ve “won” is misleading.

• 11. Diana Powe  |  December 29th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

  Eric T,

  Your reference to what is on television sounds rather like the specious complaint voiced by Almiranta about the “Agenda Media”. In case you missed it, here is some reality about the so-called Agenda Media you might want to contemplate (caution - graphic images):

  http://wonkette.com/338482/what-they-sort-of-showed-you

  As I said in the other post where I cited it, I await Almiranta’s explanation of the agenda behind hiding the realities of mass murder especially when the same medium of television routinely exposes us to graphic simulated violence.

• 12. Eric T  |  December 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm

  Diane-

  The country has to make a choice, do we want ” cut and run” or do we want to protect allies and fight terror. When the first Bush failed to remove Saddam. Shiites were massacred when we left, Saddam’s Brutality raged on thru the Clinton years and provided fertile grounds to train terrorists. I remember seeing the video’s of terrorists training in the fusilage of airplanes and all the other videos on T.V after the terror attacks. Let me tell you what the dems have planned for America.

  1. Waging war on American gun owners, Christians, taxpayers.
  2. The other post neoclown is ranting about how they are going to imprision our President.
  3. Energy Dependance on OPEC, they are against drilling oil here.
  4. Flooding the country with illegal immigrants to drive wages down.
  5. Surrender to Al Qaida, this exposes their treason, a good reason not to vote for the dims.
  6. forcing political correctness and secularism on the country is another disgusting act, that doesnt deserve a majority, house, SenaTE AND President.
  7. I can’t think of more than a handful of ideas that the dims had that were worth anything.

  Diane- to most of us Real Americans the Dims are not a choice, they want to use eminent domain and take our land and freedom. Rudy or Hillary are corporate candiates that are more concerned with outsourcing jobs and growing the Chinese and Mexican Economy than providing decent jobs to our own people.

• 13. Almiranta  |  December 29th, 2007 at 6:43 pm

  libT, you are, as usual, completely wrong when you blandly state “the fact of the matter is that we now know that AQ was not in Iraq until we invaded..” The FACT OF THE MATTER is that A-Q had been in Iraq for quite some time, had even trained in some terrorist training camps in Iraq.

  You might sound less goofy if you would pull your head out of uber-lib talk radio and web sites and start looking for real information instead of just seeking out crap that will support your BDS inclinations.

• 14. Rana Quijotesca  |  December 29th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

  Al

  You have any evidence for that claim, that AQ was in Iraq before the invasion?

• 15. Almiranta  |  December 29th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

  Diana, I am not avoiding you or trying to dodge one of your challenges. It’s just that I have a job, which is NOT blogging for the radical Left, and I simply don’t have time to go back to look at every post on every thread once I have been there and said what I have to say.

  I did go to the wonkette’s blog, which I usually avoid, being quite tired of radical Left BS—we have enough of them coming here to satisfy any desire I might have to find out what they are “thinking”.

  And I don’t see anything to get exercised about. What’s your point? And how does it apply to Iraq and the position that things are gettting a lot better there?

  Personally, I think real violence should be shown when it is appropriate—not for titillation, but for edification. I was in Peru the day the US and Peruvian armies, working together, took out the terrorists holding the hostages at the Japanese Embassy in Lima. I saw Fujimori walking up the stairs of the embassy, stepping over the body of a young female terrorist as she lay, head down, with her blood running down the stairs. And I thought it right and appropriate to show that—-to show that death is not glamorous or exciting, that even young girls can—and should—be blown away when they try to murder innocent people.

  And I am deeply offended by violent video games, believing that they contribute to the culture of violence that infects this country and influences people like Harris and Kleibold, desensitizing them to the reality of death and violence.

  I also have noted that the Agenda Media is gleeful about showing violence when it suits their agenda, yet is oddly coy about it when and if it might influence opinion in the other direction. Case in point: hesitation about showing clips of the planes flying into the trade towers. God forbid we should be reminded of THAT. But showing carnage in Iraq, well, that’s different—THAT can make people squeamish about our presence there, especially if put into the “right” context—which, ironically enough, is really the ‘left’ context. Hey, let’s pose a guy with a lot of different bodies in a lot of different poses, just to get THAT point across. Let’s add to the smoke to make it look a lot worse than it is.

  That’s what I mean by Agenda Media…..

  So????????????

  I still don’t get what you are trying to get at. But as every thing I have seen from you has established you, in my eyes, as Diana the Red, professional blogger, cut-and-paster extraordinaire, I probably don’t care much either, and am disinclined to get sucked into a pointless and fruitless “discussion”.

• 16. Almiranta  |  December 29th, 2007 at 7:00 pm

  Frogger, the evidence has been here in thread after thread, been quoted and documented out the wazoo, and the very fact that you can still pretend ignorance of it is astounding.

  If you truly ARE ignorant of it, that is even worse.

  But I’m not Diana, with nothing to do but cut and paste from colllected archives. Maybe if you do a little research on your own, outside your established comfort zone of radical Left rhetoric, you will actually learn something.

• 17. Casper  |  December 29th, 2007 at 7:22 pm

  “Al
  You have any evidence for that claim, that AQ was in Iraq before the invasion?”

  “Frogger, the evidence has been here in thread after thread, been quoted and documented out the wazoo, and the very fact that you can still pretend ignorance of it is astounding.”

  In other words, no.
  Most sources I’ve run across agree that AQI didn’t exist until after the US invasion. It also hasn’t been that big.

  “Estimates for AQI numbers range from 850 – about 3 to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency – to several thousand.[1][14] In 2006 the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research estimated that AQI’s membership was in a range of “more than 1,000,” putting AQI’s forces at less than 1 percent of the insurgency. In 2007 the State Department dropped its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, “the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number”.

  According to both the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate and the Defense Intelligence Agency reports AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. However, the Congressional Research Service noted in its September 2007 report that attacks from al-Qaeda are less than two percent of the violence in Iraq and criticized the administration’s statistics, noting that its false reporting of insurgency attacks as AQI attacks has increased since the “surge” operations began.”

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda_in_Iraq

• 18. Almiranta  |  December 29th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

  Casper, you do realize that your beloved wikipedia is hardly a reliable source of information, don’t you? Anyone can post whatever they choose to be taken as “fact” on that site, and it has repeatedly been shown to be grossly inaccurate.

  But, to use some of your statistics—-15% of how many attacks? And do these statistics indicate that an attack was formally planned and executed by Al-Queda, or do they include attacks which were fomented by A-Q operatives, supplied by A-Q armorers, etc?

  If attacks are not A-Q, who is attacking whom, and why?

  I love the naive Lefty mentality which, in typically simple-minded fashion, envisions these tidy little clubs, discrete (NOT ‘discreet’—look it up) and clearly defined, so that if one BELONGS to Al-Queda he simply cannot BELONG to any other group, or work with any other group, or have an affiliation with any other group. I guess the membership cards and secret handshakes don’t transfer….

  If Al-Queda is not the driving force behind the planning and supplying of these concentrated and coordinated attacks, who is?

  Your “sources” have always supported radical Liberal positions, Casper, so there is no reason to expect anything else from these.

  I am moving to Wyoming and I cringe at the thought of Wyoming students being “taught” by someone who is so incapable of independent thought.

  And no, my lack of interest in going back and digging up links and references to give to someone who won’t even check them out is in no way proof that they don’t exist. It is just proof that I have learned that you radicals have no interest in fact, and will simply ignore or dismiss whatever doesn’t fit into your rigid little world view. I’ve already wasted too much of my time on you people, presenting fact after fact, link after link, quote after quote, only to see you coming back in a week or a month spouting the same nonsense we have already repeatedly disproved.

  Your minds are made up, and I have no intention of wasting too much time confusing them with facts.

• 19. Casper  |  December 29th, 2007 at 8:52 pm

  Almiranta,
  It’s somewhat hypocritical to criticize someone else’s sources when you are unwilling or unable to come up with your own. Oh and I do read other people’s sources. I prefer to read the source material rather than the quotes people post so as not to take something out of context. So if you have some information that doesn’t support what I provided please let me know, otherwise I’m assuming that what I came up with is correct.

  As for you moving to Wyoming. Welcome. It’s a great state. We moved up here 23 years ago and we love it. The people are friendly and accepting.

  If you are really worried about how I’m teaching my students, you are more than welcome to come visit my class after you get moved up here. Heck, you can even be a guest speaker. You could explain the difference between capitalism and communism to my seventh graders.

• 20. Diana Powe  |  December 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm

  Almiranta,

  I suppose that there is a “point” to your new trick of accusing me of being a Communist. Oh, I know. That’s what a conservative does when they want to discredit someone who disagrees with them rather than engaging on substance. I suppose I could call you Almiranta the Red-baiter, but I prefer to operate on the adult level. In any case, I digress.

  I’m intrigued that I am now a “professional blogger”. Not only have I been given a blog somewhere (I only wish I knew the URL - perhaps you could help me out…), but, I’m getting paid for it. I really wish you would tell my bank about that.

  The point I was making is that a significant part of the conservative mythos is that the corporate media (broadcast and cable television, newspapers and their affiliated websites) are, in general, constant purveyors of a supposedly liberal world view and specifically work to undermine our invasion of Iraq by trying to turn public opinion against our presence there. The first view, even leaving out the existence of the Fox News Channel, which is all but a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican National Committee, is based on a willful blindness to what is actually presented in these media.

  The entity that Ann Coulter considers so traitorous that she wished it would have been the target of the murderous Timothy McVeigh, the New York Times, publishes David Brooks every Tuesday and Friday when he’s not on National Public Radio or the various pundit programs opining his admiration for President Bush. The loathed Washington Post has Charles Krauthammer, George Will and Robert Novak as regular columnists, Ramesh Ponnuru as a regular online contributor and their op-ed page is edited by Fred Hiatt. The Los Angeles Times publishes columns by Jonah Goldberg. MSNBC has Chris Matthews, sometimes an Administration critic, but also someone who gushed in the most embarrassing way with his guest, G. Gordon Liddy (!), about President Bush’s physical appearance on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in a flight suit and parachute harness and mused out loud about Fred Thompson’s manly aura of Aqua Velva and cigar smoke.

  A straightforward count of conservative pundits, political figures or political operatives on corporate television would show that they comprise far more than 50% of guests even when the subject at hand might be considered one where it would logically call for a progressive viewpoint to be expressed. The weekend news hosts like Tim Russert and even former Clinton communications director, George Stephanopoulos, routinely offer up embarrassingly softball questions to Republican figures and demonstrate the greatest deference to Administration sources. While there are newspapers that have a more liberal point of view, since smaller newspapers are often more associated with a single publisher, there are unabashedly conservative papers such as the Washington Times (often cited here) and the New York Post and New York Sun.

  The idea of “the liberal media” is a pillar of conservative belief but the fact is that it is simply an unexamined myth. The fact that the broadcast media is so welcoming of the conservative viewpoint is because it is so corporate, rather than reflecting the views of an individual publisher. Is it a right-wing conspiracy? No. American corporations for many years have seen conservative politicians as being willing to serve their interests and so their broadcast policies have generally reflected their simple financial self-interest.

  The significance of the photographs highlighted by Wonkette is that this is typical corporate media behavior. Conservatives love to bitterly complain about how the “liberal media” only wants to show the results of violence in Iraq, when, in fact, they routinely sanitize the results of political violence everywhere. The public long ago turned overwhelmingly against the Iraq invasion which, as we know, has all but zero effect on the deference that Congress has continually shown to President Bush’s demands.

  Finally, I find your “cut-and-paster extraordinaire” characterization rather peculiar. So, your view is that I, or anyone else, should just issue pronouncements without providing any supporting evidence? Interesting notion, that. However, if you’ve ever followed the links I provide whenever I do cut and paste, you’ll notice that I try to always link to primary sources (original documents, government websites) rather than cut and pasting from obvious partisan sources like World Net Daily (a routine source cited here) or the Washington Times. If you think avoiding evidence in discussing issues is the preferred way, then I don’t know what to say except to suggest you not consider ever attempting a real debate.

• 21. Diana Powe  |  December 30th, 2007 at 12:01 am

  In the litany of conservative voices in the supposed “liberal media” I forgot to point out that the New York Times has hired William Kristol, Fox News star and editor of The Weekly Standard, who just last year was pushing the notion that the Times be prosecuted for its stories on the government’s warrantless wiretapping program, as a columnist to go along with the aforementioned David Brooks. “Liberal media bias” just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be in the real world.

• 22. plainjane  |  December 30th, 2007 at 8:25 am

  Al Qaeda’s Iraq Network Nearly Destroyed in 2007 December 29th, 2007 at 10:48am Matt Margolis

  Loss of 4000 young American lives and 2 Trillion taxpayer dollars to “nearly” destroy Al Qaeda in Iraq that wasn’t even there five years ago. Good spend. Bin Laden laughs.

• 23. eric  |  December 30th, 2007 at 2:07 pm

  plainjane,
  You need to get your facts straight. The U.S. has not spent 2 trillion dollars on this war. The current cost is just under 500 billion dollars. That 2 trillion dollars number that you lefties like to bandy about factors in loss of life, lost jobs, etc.

  Sources,
  http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

  http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/66/23627

  Also, if you are implying that Iraq has/had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and terrorism, why then did the most recent defense bill that President Bush pocket vetoed this weekend include a provision that would allow American citizens to sue the Iraqi government for acts of terror committed during Saddam Hussein’s rule?

  Here is the article:
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071228/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

  Here is a quote from the article:
  “The sponsor of the contested provision, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said the provision would allow ‘American victims of terror to hold perpetrators accountable — plain and simple.’”

  If Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with terror as you lefties like to inaccurately state, why does the bill include that particular provision - a provision sponsored by a democrat?

• 24. Diana Powe  |  December 30th, 2007 at 5:11 pm

  eric,

  The problem is that you’re using the words terror and terrorism in the way that has become de rigeur and caused them to be all but meaningless in these contexts. I’m not familiar with Sen. Lautenberg’s part of the bill in question, but if it were to be meaningful at all it would have to contain a specific legal definition of what constituted an “act of terrorism” and, I suspect, that definition would not cover what you’re alluding to relative to acts directed by Saddam Hussein.

• 25. Christian Wright  |  December 31st, 2007 at 7:08 am

  The US just surrendered to The Taliban in Afghanistan.

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071227/ap_on_re_as/afghan_us

  How long before Bush tries to negociate a truce with Al Qaeda?

• 26. eric  |  December 31st, 2007 at 1:05 pm

  Diana,
  Here is a not-so-short recitation of the bill and law in question. As always, I have provided cites. First, we will start with the current law regarding immunity of foreign states.

  28 U.S.C § 1604. Immunity of a foreign state from jurisdiction.
  Subject to existing international agreements to which the United States is a party at the time of enactment of this Act a foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States except as provided in sections 1605 to 1607 of this chapter.

  Source,
  http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode28/usc_sec_28_00001604—-000-.html

  Senator Lautenberg’s proposal can be found in Bill H.R. 1585 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. Section 1087 of this bill seeks to amend Title 28 of the United States Code by listing an additional exception to section 1604, recited above. For brevity, I have only included the first paragraph of the proposed exception.

  Sec. 1605A. Terrorism exception to the jurisdictional immunity of a foreign state.
  (a) In General-
  (1) NO IMMUNITY- A foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of the States in any case not otherwise covered by this chapter in which money damages are sought against a foreign state for personal injury or death that was caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage taking, or the provision of material support or resources (as defined in section 2339A of title 18) for such an act if such act or provision of material support is engaged in by an official, employee, or agent of such foreign state while acting within the scope of his or her office, employment, or agency.

  The entire proposed exception can be found here:
  http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:1:./temp/~c110dQnowK:e859109:

  Note the above proposed exception includes “aircraft sabotage” as one of the causes of death for which damages are sought against a foreign state. Proposed section 1605A states that, “the term `aircraft sabotage’ has the meaning given that term in Article 1 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation.”

  Article 1 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation.
  1. Any person commits an offence if he unlawfully and intentionally:
  (a) performs an act of violence against a person on board an aircraft in flight if that act is likely to endanger the safety of that aircraft; or
  (b) destroys an aircraft in service or causes damage to such an aircraft which renders it incapable of flight or which is likely to endanger its safety in flight; or
  (c) places or causes to be placed on an aircraft in service, by any means whatsoever, a device or substance which is likely to destroy that aircraft, or to cause damage to it which renders it incapable of flight, or to cause damage to it which is likely to endanger its safety in flight; or
  (d) destroys or damages air navigation facilities or interferes with their operation, if any such act is likely to endanger the safety of aircraft in flight; or
  (e) communicates information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight.

  Source,
  http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/civilaviation.html

  It is very curious that this proposed exception would include “aircraft sabotage,” since the only “aircraft sabotage” in recent memory involving Americans is the “aircraft sabotage” that occurred on September 11, 2001. It seems apparent that the good Senator from New Jersey believes that there exists some nexus between Iraq and the actions that occurred on that terrible day and he wants to preserve the right for the victims and families of victims to sue the Iraqi government in U.S. courts. This bill was passed by the House and the Senate and will be vetoed by a pocket veto by President Bush.

• 27. js  |  January 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am

  liberalT | December 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am
  However, the fact of the matter is that we now know that AQ was not in Iraq until we invaded

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

  You must be one of those people who just take whatever liberals claim to be true as fact and are just too lazy to actually look into it for your self.

  I calll that pitiful.

  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/033jgqyi.asp

• 28. js  |  January 1st, 2008 at 11:50 am

  just surrendered to The Taliban ??

  Maybe you should read that again.

  “US backs Afghan reconciliation talks ”

  The United States supports reconciliation talks with Taliban fighters who have no ties to al-Qaida and accept Afghanistan’s constitution”

  Doesnt sound like surrender to me, sounds like they are offering amnesty to Taliban fighters that want to live under Afghans constitution, as long as they are not affiliated with AQ.