According to congressional Democrats, a few re-election-sensitive and RINO Republicans, and the most radical leftist fringes of the political spectrum, “nothing good” is coming out of Iraq, we can’t win, we gotta get out, and in fact, we’ve “already lost”.
So why do Democrats in Congress continue to stubbornly insist that “we’re losing”, and yet are unwilling to consider or advance any positive alternative strategum for success – continuing instead to myopically insist that all difficulties are “all Bush’s fault”, and that “surrender and withdrawal” is the only acceptable path?
They don’t say “surrender and withdrawal”, of course. They use terms like “change of course”, “change of strategy”, or “redeployment”, strategic or otherwise.
Democrats of today like to emphatically say that they “support the troops”, and that they somehow “hope the surge works” – but their veracity is seriously in doubt.
Senator Levin of Michigan recently rejected the analogy that the Democrat’s view of the recent interim report on Iraq was a “glass half empty” interpretation, saying “As a matter of fact, this is a cup or a glass with a big hole in the bottom.”
That’s quite the optimistic view, coming from a man who perpetually wears an expression suggestive of a permanent and untreated case of hemorrhoids.
In the words of one blogger, for “Dims” like Levin, “the glass is half empty, till he smashes it, grinds up the shards, denies the usefulness of the glass, then denies the existance of the glass, blames the stories of a glass on Dick Cheney and the glass manufacturers, and then calls anyone who presents evidence about the glass a fascist. Dims and Levin do not care about the surge. They just want to lose and blame Bush.” http://demediacraticnation.blogspot.com/2007/07/glass-half-empty-or-half-full-levin.html
Just a few months ago, in January, CNN’s “man in Iraq” Michael Ware said in a broadcast that Ramadi (capital of Iraq’s Anbar province) “is the true al-Qaeda national headquarters [in Iraq].”
If that’s true, writes Jack Kelly, National Security Writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and a nationally syndicated columnist, then “al-Qaeda is in bigger trouble in Iraq than most of us realize”, or apparently, than “Dims” like Levin are willing to admit.
According to Kelly, a recent caller to a radio talk show hosted by Hugh Hewitt on July 11, related: “I will speak for my son who right now is bored out of his mind in Ramadi, because he hasn’t heard a shot fired in combat now in about six or seven weeks.”
Kelly reports that according to Marine Major Jeff Pool, there were about 22 enemy incidents per week in Ramadi as recently as April. An “enemy incident” is defined as any type of direct or indirect fire, such a sniper, mortar, or an IED attack.
Now, according to Major Pool, the number has declined to about “two a week” in Ramadi – the “true al-Qaeda headquarters”.
Throughout Anbar province, Kelly reports figures provided by Major Pool that indicate that the number of “incidents” has dropped from a high of about 400 per week, to less than 155.
Even these recent numbers may be “artificially high”, says Major Pool, as they likely reflect the increased operational activity being undertaken against remaining insurgent and extremist networks, as part of the current agressive “troop surge” strategy now underway.
To Major Poole and Jack Kelly, reports of soldiers in Ramadi being “bored”, are a true measure of progress.
As recently as October 2006, points out Kelly, al-Qaeda declared Baquba, the capital city of Diyala province, to be the new capital of the “Islamic State in Iraq”, and claimed to control both Anbar and Diyala provinces.
The difference a few months, and several thousand new American troops, can bring.
According to Michael Yon, a former Green Beret turned freelance journalist and now embedded with US forces in Iraq, things have “really slowed down” in Baquba.
In a telephone interview with Hugh Hewitt on July 12, Yon reported, “I was just in the TOC [Tactical Operations Center] about 15 minutes before I came on the show, and they were like the Maytag repairmen here.”
Prior to the launching of the recent Operation Arrowhead Ripper in June as part of the new troop surge strategy, intelligence sources estimated that there were about “1,000 al-Qaeda in Baquba”.
Now, say sources, those who haven’t fled have been either killed or captured. Those who have not fled and who have not yet been captured appear poorly situated to launch attacks.
Kelly acknowledges that the “smaller part of the reason for the dramatic improvement in Ramadi and Baquba is the change in strategy embodied by the surge. The larger part is the change of heart of most of al-Qaeda’s former allies in those areas.”
While experts like the American Enterprise Institute’s Frederick Kagan do not believe that grass-root efforts like the “Anbar Awakening” actually began with or have their origins in the troop surge, they assert that the surge itself as well as the aggresive military and political strategy recently adopted by the Bush administration and commanders in the field has played a significant positive role in supporting and encouraging the trend.
Kelly reports that journalist Michael Yon was serving with US troops in the spring of 2005, when they battled insurgents in the Baquba suburb of Buhritz.
Among “the most proficient at killing our people”, Kelly quotes Yon as saying, were the “1920’s Revolution Brigades”.
In April of 2007, in a surprize change of fortunes, militiamen from the 1920’s Revolution Brigades turned on their former Islamist allies, and attacked al-Qaeda, asking US forces for help.
According to Kelly, in July Yon returned to Buhritz and spoke with a leader of the 1920’s Revolution Brigade, asking why his group switched sides.
“Al Qaeda is an abomination of Islam,” replied his contact, Abu Ali. “Cutting off heads, stealing people’s money, kidnapping … every type of torture they have done.”
Yon reports that Sheikh Abdul Sattar of Rishawi, founder of the Anbar Salvation Council, gave similar reasons for his change of allegience.
According to Yon, “when al-Qaeda ran Baquba, it would amputate the two fingers used to hold a cigareet of any Iraqi caught smoking. Men who refused to grow beards were beaten, as were women for the ’sexually suggestive’ behavior of carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag.”
Yon also recounted finding the bodies of beheaded children, victims of al-Qaeda terror domination.
Recent information obtained from captured “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” high-level operatives has revealed that the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq”, as well as “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” are nothing more than front groups for Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, and are dominated by outside foreign al-Qaeda operatives and fighters.
As recently pointed out by AEI’s Frederick Kagan and retired general Jack Keane, al-Qaeda’s brutality has increasingly alienated the overwhelming majority of Iraqi Sunni’s, as well as the Iraqi Shias who are the primary targets of its attacks.
When US (and Iraqi) forces provide them with protection and assistance, ordinary Iraqi’s, Shia and Sunni, are increasingly turning on al-Qaeda with a vengence, says Kelly.
A key component of the current “surge” strategy and operation underway this summer in Iraq, are simultaneous offensives against multiple insurgent, extremist, and al-Qaeda strongholds, effectively denying them new safe sanctuary as operations continue long-term.
Kelly points out that “most of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi leadership and many of its foot soldiers escaped from Baquba, and probably will try to establish another ‘capital’ elsewhere – but they’re running out of places to go.”
“They can’t go south to (overwhelmingly Shia) Basra,” says Michael Yon. “There are only a few places they can go to in Anbar, and those are drying up. There’s even fewer places in Diyala, and what’s left is [also] drying up. They certainly can’t go to the Kurdish regions, because they will be killed.”
Yon says he expects al-Qaeda in Iraq to now focus on Mosul, capital of Ninevah province in Iraq’s northwest.
However, Yon says, “the Iraqi security forces up there are pretty well advanced, and they can hold their own now.”
In other news, Reuters writer Mariam Karouny reported on July 17th that the political 30-seat block controlled by anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has ended it’s most recent month-long boycott of parliamentary participation, a sign, she says, that Iraq’s divided politicians might actually be making progress toward bridging some of their differences.
Al-Sadr’s block staged a walk-out of parliament on June 13, after a second bombing attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra by suspected al-Qaeda militants successfully destroyed the surviving twin minarets. A spokesman said that they had received assurances that the government would take additional steps to protect shrines, according to Karouny’s report.
So, let’s see. Al-Qaeda and insurgents in Iraq are increasingly on the run. Former Iraqi insurgents are turning on al-Qaeda and are forming cooperative alliances with both US forces and the Iraqi national government. Al-Sadr has not only urged his people to refrain from violence in the wake of the second Samarra bombing, but has now returned his parlimentary block to the political process.
Violence and attacks are down, and of those that continue, al-Qaeda and Iranian operatives are increasingly being seen as the problem, and not the solution. Local efforts toward reconciliation and rebuilding are on the rise, often with the help of both Iraqi and US military forces.
Finally, wonder of wonders, it increasingly appears that what we are constantly being told is “nothing more than an Iraqi civil war”, is indeed in fact a “proxy war” fomented by foreign-dominated al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed extremists, attempting to undermine and prevent the establishment of a stable, secure, pro-western democratic government in Iraq, one of the goals and final end-game measures of success in Iraq.
Clearly, it’s time to “quit”.
Apparently, success is failure in Iraq – if you’re a Democrat.
