The Stout Republican

Great Vid on Iraq war.

Iraq

The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”

“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Whaaaa? Wait…ummmm……..

Iraq, Obamania

Yeah…causation. Click through the image to Ace’s commentary on the Newsbuster story.

After heavy coverage of the shift to a new Iraq policy in January and February 2007, the TV coverage began to closely track the rising and falling death rates for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. When the number of U.S. fatalities jumped in May, TV coverage jumped, too. When U.S. casualties began to steadily decline, TV coverage of Iraq dramatically decreased.
While the amount of coverage has shriveled, the tone remains more negative than positive…..

Back in December, NBC’s Tim Russert conceded that the media were less interested in covering a successful U.S. mission in Iraq, telling anchor Brian Williams that “with the surge in Iraq and the level of American deaths declining, it is off the front pages.”

This is not neutral news judgment, but a great favor to anti-surge Democrats, since TV’s lack of interest in Iraq spares them the chore of defending their now-discredited opposition to the surge. Does anyone think the media would have let John McCain off the hook had the surge failed as spectacularly as it has succeeded.

So that’s the reason I can’t have a conversation with someone about the Iraq war and get them to recognize the improvements…is because they’re not told about them. As far as they’re concerned, their information stops when MSM stops spoon feeding them their News (read “editorial opinion”). It’s hard to be a member of the left, because your success as a party is directly tied to how badly we do, at war, in the economy, etc.:

“Obviously, the economy is the No. 1 issue in the country, and it’s unbelievably important here in Ohio,” said Clinton. “I think, absent any intervening circumstances, the economy will be the domestic driver with all the related issues like health care and energy costs and home foreclosures.”

Absent any intervening circumstances? Like what — prosperity, employment, and security? It sounds like Hillary has her own version of hope and change in the presidential race. Specifically, her only hope is that the economy changes for the worse.

Iraq

Fat chance though:

Two mentally retarded women strapped with remote-control explosives—and possibly used as unwitting suicide bombers—brought carnage Friday to two pet bazaars, killing at 73 people in the deadliest day since Washington flooded the capital with extra troops last spring.

But wait…they’re not the Chimpler.

Iraq, Terrorism

According to the AFP (Khaleej Times) Al Qaeda was chased from it’s last stronghold in Baghdad.

“The Al Qaeda fighters fled when they saw us and took refuge in the bazaar, and then in Kam (in the northern part of Adhamiyah). Thank God we overcame them and we now control the entire zone.”

Three Al Qaeda combatants were killed while 15 were taken prisoner and handed over to the Iraqi security forces, according to Abu Abed, who said only one of his group had died “as a martyr.”

“Our men seized 11 car bombs and discovered several clandestine bomb-making workshops,” said the chief of the “revolutionaries of Adhamiyah”, surrounded by armed bodyguards.

Two things that have to sound like a cat dying to the current legion of liberals in congress…

1) The fight against Al Qaeda has succeeded for now in Baghdad.
2) The people of Iraq are doing it themselves.

Oh man, if things keep going this badly, Iraq might be stable, and we might have to withdrawl our troops from the area under the flag of (*gulp*) victory?! I’m saying it again…Liberal leadership does not support the troops. To the fringe left, American patriotism is at it’s plateau when a dissident burns the flag under the guise of free speech, not when a countryman waves it with pride and honor.

Read Yon’s latest dispatch to see how well things are really going…

Al Qaeda, Iraq

So…De Palma and Robbins (go figure) are slandering the troops. There have been atrocities in war…people are fallible, but to apply that to an entire military action is just reckless. But, De Palma does it anyways in his new movie…

The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people,” he told reporters after a press screening.

“The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war,” he said.

It’s frustrating…exposure to stupid people. I wonder how Hollywood would feel if because of the actions a few people, I was to say, “All Hollywood actors are drug addicted wife beaters.“

Hollywood, Iraq

Man…I miss the good old days when the media told the truth and was entirely against the war. Now that they have positives, obviously they’re cronies of Mr. Bush and his cronies. There’s no such things as positives in Iraq, and people dying shows that!!!

Sigh…

I love to hear good news about Iraq…and I’d love to think that the left likes to hear good news on Iraq too, but as far as I can tell, they’re more interested in wagging their fingers in front of the nose and saying the other side is wrong politically. Granted, things aren’t perfect in Iraq (I have yet to see a perfect war take place), but I don’t know when winning became a 100% to 0% ratio. It’s all about incrimental advances, and a long term end game.

H/T: HotAir

Favorite quote: “(the politicians) haven’t liked what we’ve said.” Good news is bad news.

As an aside, when are we going to stop our military occupation of Japan…I mean we’ve been there over 50 years…do you think that’s long enough (/sarcasm)

Iraq

There’s a lack of morality on the left…

I’m not talking “God” and religious derived laws and codes to live by. I’m talking the idea that people today, especially the younger generation, have been raised to believe that there is no right and wrong. That everything is relative. That is we could only see life through the prism of the person living it, then we could see why bombing children is okay if you’re a Palestinian. I was just thinking randomly on these things today as we drove down PCH to go to the movies, and I was reminded of an article Dennis Prager wrote a couple of years back. I think this is a good litmus test for future debates I might have in public. I’ve been apprehensive enough about bringing up politics, and only do so hesitantly…it’s nice to come across fellow conservatives in conversation, and usually we have to be subtle about it, feel each other out politically, and work around to admitting, “Hey, I’m a registered Republican.” At which point there’s a sigh of relief, and a handshake. If you drop the “R-word” word in the wrong crowd, you’re instantly reviled…simply for your beliefs. It’s happened more times than I care to admit. Drives intellectual conversation underground, and usually results with you sitting in silence while some at some party sits across from you, deriding George Bush (never the logic behind the beliefs, or the laws, or the ethics…just the man), biting your tonuge, because no one can hate more than someone who hates George Bush…it’s like a disease. Yet, for such a dumb monkey, he’s outwitted their entire party consistently…just weird.

Anywho…on to Prager:

All those who support the American war in Iraq should make a deal with anyone opposed to the war. Offer to answer any 20 questions the opponents wish to ask if they will answer just one:

Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?

That is how supporters of the war regard the Baathists and the Islamic suicide terrorists, the people we are fighting in Iraq.

Because if you cannot answer it, or avoid answering it, or answer “no,” we know enough about your moral compass to know that further dialogue is unnecessary. In fact, dialogue is impossible. Our understanding of good and evil is so different from yours, there is simply nothing to discuss. Someone who was asked a hundred years ago “Do you believe that whites who lynch blacks are evil?” and refused to answer in the affirmative was not someone one could dialogue with.

Here are the responses you are likely to receive:

1. The Bush administration is just as evil: for illegally invading a country that did not threaten us; for “lying” to get us into Iraq; and because it is a war for corporate profits.
2. Some of those we are fighting may be evil, but not all; some are simply fighting against foreign occupation of their country.
3. We cannot call anyone evil; only G-d can make such judgments.

I will respond to these “responses,” but what is most important is to acknowledge that none of them actually responds to the question. Anyone posing this question to opponents of the war must not let them off the hook. They must answer the question: Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?

Regarding the issue of judging anyone evil, the best response is a question: Can we judge anyone to be good (not perfect, just good)? Of course we can. But if we can’t call anyone evil, we can’t call anyone good, and we certainly know that there are good people. If there are good people, there have to be not good, evil people.

Anyone who remains unable to morally judge people who slit the throats of innocent people, who place bombs in the middle of markets, and who murder anyone attempting to help women achieve basic human rights is a moral imbecile.

As for the Bush administration being equally evil, this, too, reveals the responder’s values. It is one thing to believe the war was a mistake; it is quite another to regard it as a function of the administration’s desire to enrich Halliburton or expand the “American empire,” or because Jewish neo-conservatives pushed docile Gentiles — Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld — into waging it “for Israel.” Such views are held by people who are so angry and so brainwashed about conservatives that they have lost the elementary ability to identify real evil, which is what Islamic and Baathist terrorists and “insurgents” are.

Finally, the people fighting us in Iraq hate freedom, hate women’s rights, hate non-Muslims, and do all they can to murder innocent Iraqis and others in order to undermine the march toward freedom in Iraq. They are not fighting foreign invaders; they are fighting foreign liberators and domestic democrats.

It is worth again noting that none of those responses directly answers the question: Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?

It is one thing to oppose the war in Iraq; it is quite another to deny the evil of those we fight there. That is what the Left in America routinely does. And that is why the culture war in America is as important as the military war in Iraq.

Again, my favorite quote, “The difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans believe that Democrats are wrong and Democrats believe that Republicans are evil.” I’ve been hammering on it lately in my articles, and it’s just because of the frustration I’ve had recently…you can’t get liberals to answer questions directly. They jump on tangents, quantify actions of one based on another, misdirect, and say “what about…”, but they don’t answer questions directly…and you end up being evil, not wrong.

If I don’t get a direct answer to this question, before an argument regarding the war, then I won’t discuss, because the basic moral common ground isn’t there.

Blogs and Alternative Media, Iraq

One of the best Yon dispatches that I’ve read to date. A real journalist. It’s a long read, but it’s a good one.

Iraqi Army and Police officers see many Americans as too soft, especially when it comes to dealing with terrorists. The Iraqis who seethe over the shooting of Kurilla know that the cunning fury of Jihadists is congenite. Three months of air-conditioned reflection will not transform terrorists into citizens.

Over lunch with Chaplain Wilson and our two battalion surgeons, Major Brown and Captain Warr, there was much discussion about the “ethics” of war, and contention about why we afford top-notch medical treatment to terrorists. The treatment terrorists get here is better and more expensive than what many Americans or Europeans can get.

“That’s the difference between the terrorists and us,” Chaplain Wilson kept saying. “Don’t you understand? That’s the difference.”

Iraq

Smoking gun has released recently declassified information found in a safe house in Iraq.  This information is startling, to say the least, and simply reveals the cold and inhumane way Al Qaeda deals with its captives: ruthlessly.  In this article, there are specific instructions (including pictures for those of you who don’t read) on ways to torture, including the proper way to gouge out eyes, drill hands and sever limbs.  If you can stomach it, I would encourage you to read the article.  Perhaps it is mere coincidence that such a wonderful place exists in Iraq (since we aren’t fighting our enemies in Iraq, but attacking innocent victims).  Perhaps this “Happiest Place in Iraq” is simply Al Qaeda’s response to Abu Ghraib (after all I think it is a fair trade – underwear on head = being suspended from ceiling and electrocuted).  I just thought this newly released info deserved a bit more attention than Rosie and Elizabeth from The View.

Iraq, Terrorism