Iraq —
WHEREAS:
We are stuck in Iraq with no realistic possibility of getting the Hell out or “winning” (in any, ordinary, English-language sense of the word).
WHEREAS:
As time goes on, and we adopt various strategies, the latest being The Surge, whatever happens in Iraq is claimed to demonstrate the success of the strategy du monde, to wit: “violence […]
What I Got Wrong About the Iraq War - By Andrew Sullivan
Slate asked me to reflect on my own failings of judgment on the fifth year of the war. Maybe the day we Christans are called to atonement is a good day for publishing it. It’s cross-posted here.
I think I committed four cardinal sins.
Not exactly […]
McCain misspeaks on Iraq
Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan — in a news conference and in a radio interview — that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but […]
As my regular readers know, I periodically blog ordinary, high-profile news, or then go off on obsessive tears on obscure subjects of little interest, and then have not much to say about anything for a while. That’s where I am now.
So in lieu of reading two dozen inconsequential blog posts of mine for the past […]
Check out Iraq Coalition Casualties.
The number of U.S. troops being killed keeps dropping. Here are a couple of summary tables:
The trend of the last few months is striking. Keep in mind that January is about half over.
The decline in Iraqi casualties is also encouraging.
McClatchy - U.S. convoys struggle to adjust to policy change
CAMP TAJI, Iraq — In the first month that they were in Iraq, someone threatened, shot at or tried to blow up the soldiers of the Kentucky National Guard’s B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery 12 times. Last month, there were only three such incidents.
But […]
Cheney bashes top Democrats - Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris - Politico.com
Vice President Cheney warned in an interview Wednesday that a premature withdrawal from Iraq would invite “further attacks” against the United States …
Interesting point that President Cheney makes. Let’s assume he is correct.
I wonder … could we have […]
One of the staples of wingnut blogging is that the evil MSM buries good news from Iraq way back “on page 14.”
Here is today’s NY Times (image readily available on the internets):
I can confirm, that the dead-tree edition being sold on the streets of New York right now, features the Baghdad story on the front […]
Bill Ardolino looks at Why the violence has declined in Iraq in The Long War Journal.
He summarizes the main factors (the Surge, de facto ethnic partition, the development of Iraqi security forces, the Mahdi Army’s truce, etc.) and concludes with :
A qualified success
Officials are cautiously optimistic about the trends of the last two months, […]
Michael Yon’s photo from Baghdad is all over the internet.
Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.
A Muslim man had invited the […]
One of the favored themes of wingnut blogs is that the dreaded MSM either ignores good news about Iraq or buries it deeply in the back pages. Here’s just one example from Ace o’ Spades HQ:
Surge: Troop Deaths Down Two Thirds Since Last Year, Down 50% Since Last Month
Taking a page from the Washington Post, […]
Front-paged at dKos today:
As U.S. casualties have continued to drop, many people on the anti-Bush side of the aisle have begun to quietly panic in recent days over this question: “Could George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan have possibly been right about the surge?”
Bah, why bother worrying about some marginal, unimportant leftwing bloggers think?
Update: A […]
Have you seen the Youtube video, supposedly showing Iraqi army recruits ludicrously doing jumping jacks? It’s made quite a splash, with 38 blogs covering it.
A sample of these unquestioning blog reactions:
Daily Kos: Those are Iraqi Army conscripts, not a hilarious Saturday Night Live skit. I weep for Iraq’s future…
Andrew Sullivan: Somehow, this seems to be […]
No blogger has pointed out more often than my friend John Cole, that a soldier running over a dog with an armored vehicle does not constitute a threat to truth, justice and the American way.
But now, I see, if a soldier sends Glenn Greenwald a rude email, then that is very, very serious:
re: Boylan’s […]
A recurring, and largely accurate, theme amongst progressive bloggers is that the “right wing noise machine blogs” pick up the party line of the day and flog it endlessly. Repeating it and linking to each other, and creating a sense of factualness out of nothing (or not much).
But you know what? My good friends on […]
