Iraq's Remarkable Election Ignored By Left.... hmmm Why is That?

The left is obviously so invested in America's defeat in Iraq that even in the face of huge successes, free elections and peace in the region, they ignore and pretend Iraq is still in a civil war... a quagmire that can't be won, Vietnam.
Such a shame, the liberal left is missing out on one of America's greatest achievements, an achievement that under normal conditions the left would rally behind and cheer.. the liberation of over 30 million oppressed people. But no, partisan politics and hatred trump common sense and patriotism on the left. For those who live in the real world, the story below is no big surprise. -red stater

The Wall Street Journal

By KIMBERLY KAGAN and FREDERICK W. KAGAN

When the surge in Iraq began in January 2007, no one imagined that two years later Iraq would plan and conduct provincial elections with limited Coalition assistance and presence, that those elections would proceed smoothly and peacefully, and that the United Nations special envoy would be able to certify its legitimacy immediately.

Nor could anyone have dreamt that the news story would be not the smoothness and peacefulness of the polling, but its results and the prospects they offer for political progress in Iraq.

The security was an impressive demonstration of the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and its legitimacy with Iraqis. Iraqi National Police, local police, and Iraqi Army troops were entirely responsible for the physical security of all polling places on election day. They rehearsed procedures for requesting and receiving quick-reaction forces drawn from Coalition and other Iraqi troops, but did not need to implement these emergency plans.

There had been reason to fear suicide bombers at polling sites, but none struck. But Iraqis were confident enough to bring their children to polling places. This was the first time that U.S. forces were not increased prior to an Iraqi election.

The Iraqi High Electoral Commission played a role in conducting legitimate elections. It standardized procedures for ISF securing the polls. Working in conjunction with the U.N. Assistance Mission Iraq, the commission guided the registration of voters and candidates, and oversaw polling procedures, absentee balloting, and the counting of ballots.

Iraqi voters chose nationalist, secularist parties over religious parties by a wide margin. In the mostly Shiite south, candidates associated with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party appear to have gained significantly. This outcome is noteworthy because Dawa came to power in the 2005 elections with virtually no grass-roots support or organization. Few would have predicted Mr. Maliki's electoral success even a year ago.

Moqtada al-Sadr, by contrast, relied on grass-roots support for his movement and seemed poised to dominate elections in the south a year ago. But he lost much of his popular support when Iraqi Security Forces defeated his militias in Basra, Baghdad and Maysan in June 2008. The door was open for the well-organized Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council (ISCI), the clerically dominated party that had controlled many important provincial governorships and councils in the south. Yet Iraqis voted instead for Mr. Maliki's coalition or for the secular Shiite coalition of former prime minister Iyad Allawi.

Mr. Maliki certainly used his position as prime minister and his control of Iraq's wealth to enhance his political position among the Shiites. But he delivered more than money. He cleared southern Iraq's urban areas of Shiite militias, including those directly and actively supported by Iran, and re-established civil order in wartorn Basra, Diwaniyah, Karbala, Maysan, Wasit and Dhi Qar provinces. He thereby gave a degree of security to these communities for which he is now being rewarded electorally.

Early results in the Sunni-Arab core provinces of Anbar, Salah-ad-Din and Diyala are equally heartening. Large numbers of Sunni Arabs boycotted the 2005 provincial and parliamentary elections, leading to feelings of political disenfranchisement that helped fuel the insurgency. Furthermore, those Sunni Arabs who did vote in the 2005 parliamentary elections elected a very narrow and extremist slate that claimed to speak for the entire Sunni-Arab community and refused to make compromises with the Shiite government.

The Sunni political spectrum in 2009 encompasses a much wider range of views, which have each achieved a share of the votes. This development offers the possibility of real cross-sectarian coalitions, as Mr. Maliki is no longer dependent on ISCI for influence in the Shiite areas, and can choose among possible Sunni partners in mixed areas.

The most surprising results were from Ninewah province in the north, where a new political entity formed in 2008 called al Habda seems to have won a majority of the council seats. The Sunni boycott of the 2005 provincial elections had left this province largely under the influence of Kurdish council-members. Kurdish leaders took advantage of that fact to try to create conditions on the ground that would support the annexation of large parts of Ninewah, including parts of its capital, Mosul, to the Kurdish Regional Government.

This effort was highly destabilizing. Ninewah is one of the most diverse provinces, and many of its Arabs and ethnic minorities resented what they perceived as Kurdish expansion. Resentment against this expansion, and also against the failure of the provincial government to provide services, perpetuated a low-level insurgency in this area, permitting al Qaeda to retain its last foothold in Iraq.

Al Habda is a provincial coalition that stands against Kurdish domination of the province and for the provision of security and services to the people of Ninewah. Its rise offers an opportunity to deprive al Qaeda of tacit support within Mosul. It will also force Kurdish leaders to re-evaluate their insistence on "maximalist" demands that threatened to unravel Iraq.

The big loser in this election was Iran. Iranian agents spent a lot of money trying to influence the outcome of the elections in the south, and they largely failed. Iran's favored parties did poorly. The Iranians had hoped to persuade Iraqi voters to punish Mr. Maliki for signing the security agreement with the United States. Instead, these elections proved to be a powerful vote of confidence for the prime minister and his policies, including that agreement.

The big winner in this election was the concept of a unitary Iraq. An attempt to hold a referendum on establishing an autonomous Basra failed before the election. ISCI, the only Arab party that had favored the creation of an autonomous Shiite region, lost ground throughout that region, including in its own stronghold of Najaf. Iraqis have sent a clear message that they want to live in a single state with a strong central government connected to strong provincial governments, rather than in some sort of artificially federated state.

Despite these achievements, American forces will continue to play a vital role as honest brokers and impartial arbiters standing behind efforts to resolve conflicts peacefully. National elections will not occur until December, which may cause considerable tension in a parliament whose majority rests on the disfavored parties. The parliamentary conflict between the prime minister and the disfavored parties may be dramatic.

Results in Ninewah and the south offer the prospect of political resolutions to thorny problems that had been generating violence. In the short term, however, those who stand to lose by those political resolutions may well increase violence and brinksmanship.

Al Qaeda will respond violently, if desperately, to the new Sunni political order. Iran has trained and armed Shiite extremists who fled from Baghdad, Basra and Maysan, and who will seek to reinfiltrate and destabilize those areas.

Also, Iraqi and Kurdish security forces narrowly avoided armed conflict in August 2008 in the ethnically-mixed city of Khanaqin. The status of Kirkuk is still unresolved, much more delicate, and has the potential to generate conflict between the central and regional governments in 2009. The seating of the new councils between now and March, and the election of new governors by those councils, will certainly generate friction, if not armed conflict or assassinations. There are still district (local) and parliamentary (national) elections ahead in 2009.

Now that Iraqis have elected provincial governments of their liking, it is essential that those governments succeed. They will have large budgets to execute with new statutory powers. And the expectations of their electorates are very high.

U.S.-run Provincial Reconstruction Teams, civilian-military units working to rebuild government functions, have a growing role to play in Iraq's provinces and depend on the presence and dispersion of U.S. forces to function. U.S. forces and headquarters still help connect the provinces and the central government, aiding the Iraqi government.

Iraq has gone from being an impending disaster to a golden opportunity. Helping Iraqi internal politics develop peacefully and across sectarian lines is a critical part of reintegrating Iraq into the Arab world, making the world's only Shiite-controlled Arab state acceptable to the Sunni regimes that surround it. That reintegration, in turn, offers tantalizing prospects for balancing Iran and stabilizing the heart of the Muslim world. The stakes in Iraq remain very high, but we are finally starting to see the return on our investment.

Liberals In Denial... But Deny It

Liberals deny that there is a media bias to the left... in fact a local blogger posted that MSNBC's Chris Matthews is "not a liberal".

Perhaps not, but he IS in LOVE with the Democrat party... whether or not that makes him a card carrying commu.. err I mean liberal or not is irrelevant.

Tom Brokaw seemed to think Chris Matthews has a bias and in fact "went too far".

Liberals deny success in Iraq choosing to ignore the tremendous gains and achievements, deny the fact that having a democracy between Iran and Afghanistan is a good thing for our well being, deny that the murdering terrorists being kept at Gitmo are dangerous, deny that they were WRONG about Iraq being in a "civil war" that we could not stop or win.

The anti-war liberals ignore the fact that Obama and Democrats did not stop any war anywhere and in fact plan to increase troops in Afghanistan for an indefinite period of time... (maybe 100 years) without ANY exit strategy or TIMETABLE for surrender... errr withdrawal errr re-deployment. Denial.

Liberals are ignoring the fact that half the country did NOT vote for Obama or Democrats after claiming for 8 years that if THEY were in power they would be partisan... denying that there is no such thing as bi-partisanship. In fact the words literally mean 2x partisan or that both sides are partisan i.e bi-partisan. The correct term would be non-partisan.

Unless it's a 50%-50% or even 60-40 bi-partisan type deal which is what Rush Limbaugh proposed to President Obama, which is in fact a true bi-partisan offer where both sides get something according to the percentage of voters Obama received and the percentage McCain got.
(Rush proposed the 1 Trillion $ stimulus plan be split in a bi-partisan fashion... Democrats would get $600Billion to spend on infrastructure as Obama is demanding and Republicans would get $400 Billion for tax cuts (which Obama could take credit for if he were smart).
Then we could track and see just who's plan would stimulate the economy faster and more... side by side in a comparison.

Liberals will ignore any such plan of course and deny it ever existed... in a bi-partisan fashion of course.

Liberal Democrats deny that tax cuts have worked throughout our history over and over again (even by Democrats like JFK and Bill Clinton) to stimulate a sluggish economy or get us out of a recession. Tax cuts work by putting money into the system via the average person and small businesses.

Somebody please explain to how my driving to the unemployment office on a new shiny road with new shiny bridges stimulates the economy?
IT DOESN'T.

Recent evidence is showing that the planet isn't warming as everyone on the left has bought into and sold us... but instead of embracing new data and the science that says there is no such thing as "global warming" certainly not manmade anyway... what does the left do?

Deny deny deny.

Obama Not Popular With Military and Veterans... gee I wonder why?

Thanks to Carl Kilo at Sparks It Up Blog...

300 Retired Generals & Admirals Endorse McCain For President

300 retired generals and admirals from around the country are endorsing John McCain for president. The retired generals and admirals announced their support with the following letter: "We have had the honor and privilege of serving as career officers in the United States Armed Forces, and of serving shoulder to shoulder with so many of the fine young men and women who are the backbone of America's Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. It is that experience that informs our judgment that John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to serve as America's Commander-in Chief from the day of his inauguration.

Click here to see the full list of Retired Generals and Admirals

Huge endorsement for McCain.

Which Has More Violent Deaths, DC, Baghdad or New Orleans?

One of the major benchmarks for US success or failure in Iraq is the rate of violent deaths in that country particularly in Baghdad.
Engram at BackTalk lays it out in straight, no-nonsense numbers and facts, no spin required or given.
Baghdad is now safer than Washington DC when comparing the murder rate in DC to the violent death rate in Baghdad.

That's not to say that if the US immediately pulled out of Iraq that Al Qaeda would not ramp up the killing in a big way, because they would. What it does speak to is the fact that we are winning in a big way and the democrats dream of lowering troop numbers is now becoming a reality just as George W Bush predicted, when conditions on the ground warrant it and not a minute before.

Like it or not, Bush was right in the end.

Democrats Lose Ball; Playing On Wrong Field

While claiming Republicans took their eye off the ball by going to war in Iraq which eventually led to the crippling of Al Qaeda, Democrats don't even know where the ball is.

Obama and Democrats continue to claim we need to be in Afghanistan fighting Al Qaeda in spite of the following facts which are conveniently ignored by the democrat controlled main stream media...
The one exception, and it is an important one, is the editorial board of the Washington Post. In an editorial two months ago, they said about Obama:

He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

Obama and Democrats have no clue.
We are supposed to trust the safety of our grandchildren to these morons?
I think not.
-red

Obama... Naive or Deliberately Deceptive?

September 27, 2008

Obama is Dangerously Naive

(Thanks TO Engram at BackTalk Blog...)

Either that, or he is deliberately deceptive. I hope it is the latter.

This does not mean that his performance in last night's debate was politically ineffective. Never forget that in presidential debates, as amazing as it might seem, style is what mostly matters to the American people. Stylistically, Obama did a fine job of creating the impression that he is someone other than his long history suggests he is. And that's good for him. Substantively, however, McCain simply cleaned Obama's clock and showed that the junior senator from Illinois is dangerously unprepared to be our next commander in chief. I wish that mattered to the viewing audience, but history suggests that it will not. To most Americans, it's all about style. Thus, we probably won't see any major shift in the polls as a result of last night's debate, and I cannot even predict the direction of any minor shift that might occur.

Overall, it was a fine debate, and both did well in terms of achieving their political objectives. And the moderator (Jim Lehrer) was simply outstanding.

Although it does not matter all that much to the voting public, substance does matter to me, so that's what I'll focus on. On the Iraq war, Obama was at his best when he said:

And so John likes -- John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.

This made me wonder if Obama believed that the Iraqis did not have WMDs or if he instead believed that we should not invade even though he thought they did. Based on the one anti-war speech that might catapult him all the way to the presidency, I conclude that Obama thought that Iraq had WMDs:

Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

And Saddam Hussein is the man who would be in charge today had we not invaded. Under that scenario, he would not be sitting on his hands watching his mortal enemy -- Iran -- develop a nuclear bomb. Obviously, after our troops were gone, Saddam would get on with developing the WMDs that he wanted the world to believe that he already possessed. Perhaps ensuring that this scenario became a reality reflects profoundly excellent judgment on Obama's part, but that's not obvious to me. Still, it is clearly debatable, and the fact that Obama opposed the invasion is certainly not what makes him dangerously naive.

The whole problem with Obama's judgment is that he thought made great sense, once Osama bin Laden decided to make Iraq the central front in the war on terror, to accept defeat in Iraq. That is, after opposing the invasion, Obama's next big idea was to withdraw our troops and hand al Qaeda the glorious victory it sought in Iraq. Fortunately, and no thanks to Obama, al Qaeda has been crushed in Iraq, and their reputation throughout the Muslim world has been greatly diminished, not enhanced. Thus, I was surprised to hear Obama say this:

And I wish I had been wrong for the sake of the country and they had been right, but that's not the case. We've spent over $600 billion so far, soon to be $1 trillion. We have lost over 4,000 lives. We have seen 30,000 wounded, and most importantly, from a strategic national security perspective, al Qaeda is resurgent, stronger now than at any time since 2001.

He was apparently referring to this article:

Government report: Al Qaeda strongest since September 11, 2001

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new U.S. government analysis concludes, according to a senior government official who has seen it.

Some unnamed senior government official who says he has seen the report makes this claim, and that's good enough for Obama. It gives him cover to make a misleading claim, but it is a seriously flawed assessment because it glosses over a critical detail: what would al Qaeda's position be today had we abandoned Iraq at the height of al-Qaeda-induced sectarian violence there (as Obama proposed that we do)? Obviously, they would be very much stronger than they are today. Also, al Qaeda's strength, whatever it might be, derives from its safe havens in Pakistan, which was also noted in the article:

"We actually see the al Qaeda central being resurgent in their role in planning operations," John Kringen, head of the CIA's intelligence directorate, testified at the hearing Wednesday. "They seem to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan there. We see more training. We see more money. We see more communications."

Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence, told lawmakers that al Qaeda leaders hiding in Pakistan are able to maintain relationships "with affiliates throughout the Middle East, North and East Africa and Europe."

And this fact brings up the complete non sequitur that an enthralled media allows Obama to get away with every time (and will do so again now): Because al Qaeda's safe havens are inside Pakistan, how will withdrawing our troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban serve to defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan? There is no reasonable answer to this question, which is why Obama constantly blurs the critical distinction between Afghanistan (where the Taliban are fighting with the help of some al Qaeda field commanders) and Pakistan (where al Qaeda's leaders are and where al Qaeda has established those safe havens). Only by blurring that distinction can one create the false impression that pulling troops from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan is a way to directly confront a resurgent al Qaeda. From the debate last night, watch Obama make this misleading move:

OBAMA: Well, this is an area where Senator McCain and I have a fundamental difference because I think the first question is whether we should have gone into the war in the first place.

Now six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so because I said that not only did we not know how much it was going to cost, what our exit strategy might be, how it would affect our relationships around the world, and whether our intelligence was sound, but also because we hadn't finished the job in Afghanistan.

We hadn't caught bin Laden. We hadn't put al Qaeda to rest, and as a consequence, I thought that it was going to be a distraction. Now Senator McCain and President Bush had a very different judgment.
...
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates himself acknowledges the war on terrorism started in Afghanistan and it needs to end there.

But we can't do it if we are not willing to give Iraq back its country. Now, what I've said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put -- provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda.

That's the misleading move. Completely, 100% misleading. Let me emphasize the key point, one that is not debatable: because there are no al Qaeda safe havens in Afghanistan, sending more troops to Afghanistan will not help us to capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda (because bin Laden and al Qaeda's safe havens are inside Pakistan). There is nothing complicated about this.

Let me further illustrate how cleverly deceiving Obama can be:

And right now, the commanders in Afghanistan, as well as Admiral Mullen, have acknowledged that we don't have enough troops to deal with Afghanistan because we still have more troops in Iraq than we did before the surge.

All true. The Taliban are fighting more effectively these days, and I assume that's because they now have some al Qaeda field commanders helping them out. Defeating them is a priority, and we need more troops to do that, but this has nothing to do with capturing and killing bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda in Pakistan. That's the point that no one appreciates (not Barack Obama or those who are enthralled by the man).

Here's more:

So I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan. Now, keep in mind that we have four times the number of troops in Iraq, where nobody had anything to do with 9/11 before we went in, where, in fact, there was no al Qaeda before we went in, but we have four times more troops there than we do in Afghanistan.

But how is that going to help you to kill Osama bin Laden (in Pakistan) and crush their safe havens (in Pakistan)? He does not say because he wants Americans to believe that Afghanistan is where al Qaeda is resurgent.

Obama does mention Pakistan as well, and does say that al Qaeda is there, but it is his attempt to create the false impression that al Qaeda is resurgent in Afghanistan that I object to. He needs to create that false impression so that it will seem to make sense to say that sending more troops to Afghanistan will help to kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda.

I have never seen any mainstream media reporter address this glaringly obvious problem with Obama's reasoning, so I assume that reporters are as ignorant of the relevant facts as Barack Obama appears to be. The one exception, and it is an important one, is the editorial board of the Washington Post. In an editorial two months ago, they said about Obama:

He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

As they point out, "...there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered." Glaringly obvious, but top secret (except for on this blog and in that one single editorial). Creepy.

Obama: Gaffemaster or Blabbermouth?

With Thanks to Fried Green Onions Blog...

Jr. Senator Barack H Obama recently said he plans to... "campaign in all 57 states".

B Hussein O also said that Sr. Senator McCain hasn't talked about Obama's "Muslim Faith".

It turns out that there are 57 Islamic Muslim states.
"Every year from 1999 to 2005 the organization of the Islamic conference representing the 57 Islamic states presented a resolution to the United Nations Commission..."

Gaffes or unconcious truths?

Add to this Obama's Jihadi position on the war in Iraq, refusal to admit America's success against AQI and America's success against Shiite radicals and one could argue...

-red