CB
Guest
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 Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 6:16 pm Post subject: Al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress |
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Bravo Bush!
London Times Article, Winning Isn't News
Iraq: What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell
the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper
for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq .
London's Sunday Times called it "the culmination of one of the most
spectacular victories of the war on terror." A terrorist force that once
numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central
regions of Iraq , has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters,
backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul .
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and
unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank
President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and
Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces there instead
of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge
there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on
counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our
military in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them
America was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar
Province, which had been written off as a basket case, and spread
out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored
Cavalry
Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More than
1,000 AQI
operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in
Mosul , found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas
that
were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have
lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization
having
fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki's government has achieved "satisfactory" progress on
15 of the 18 political benchmarks "a big change for the better from a
year ago."
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated
the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so
while visiting the United Arab Emirates , which over the weekend announced
that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad , an
impressive vote of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a
free Iraq .
But where are the headlines and the front-page stories about all this
good news? As the Media Research Center pointed out last week, "the CBS
Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 were silent
Tuesday night about the benchmarks "that signaled political progress."
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and
politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD,
Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the media don't seem to
consider this historic event a big story.
--
CB
War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.
Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929)
The illusion of America's loss in Iraq is nothing but the hopeful fantasies
of useful idiots on the Left |
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