Blatant Reality

As you might have already noticed, I am going in a somewhat new direction with the website by mainly focusing on Environmental, Energy, and Global Warming issues because I feel these topics will have great significance in the coming years. However, there will be times like this were I just can’t help but post an article about another topic.

This really just makes my blood boil to even think that some of these liberals who have been hooting and hollering for the past year that the surge isn’t working to finally admit that it has worked and that it was there idea the whole time. I refuse to even publish the outright lies that these liberals are saying on my blog but you can read all about it with commentary here.

I will republish this part of the commentary that highlights Obama’s foresight into the whole Surge situation.

And yet the Democrats whined, “We need more troops” in mantra like fashion, meaning not that the surge would be a success but that the additional “surge” troops in Iraq would be insignificant. Barack Obama’s comment at the time captured the prevailing lefty sentiment rather well: “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

 

Wow! What judgment!

It seems that Obama really doesn’t know what he wants to do about the whole Iraq situation. To the American public, he is sending the signal that he will get us out of Iraq. However, while he is telling us that, he is telling the Iraqi’s that he will stay there until the mission is completed. Mixed signals? I think so.

You can read more here:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/12141

Michael Weiss wrote an excellent article that points out some of Obama’s contradictions and his ignorance on many issues concerning the Iraq War. Take a look.

This is a pretty cool story that will make you smile.

Nurses, doctors and host parents surrounded Haider Emad Al-Darausha’s bed just before surgery to hold his hand and show him pictures of how his scars have healed since coming to the United States.

 

The 7-year-old Iraqi boy suffered burns in a mortar attack in Karbala when he was 2. He came to Hilton Head Island in January through the Gift of Life program, which provides surgery for children who can’t get adequate treatment in their home countries.

Haider received surgery to removed some of the scars left on his face from the attack. Fifteen other patients much like Haider have been helped by the same doctor, Dr. Robert Laughlin, through this program.

The news agencies are finally noticing the lack of their own coverage of the Iraq War. However, they still don’t seem to understand the gravity of it.

In this AFP news article, the author blames the economy and the current presidential campaign as being the reason that the number of news stories about the Iraq War have dropped. I personally find this hard to believe. If the war was going poorly, there would be hundreds of news articles written (especially about the death toll reaching 4,000) which the Democrats would latch on to and parade around. This isn’t the case because, on a whole, the war is proceeding much better than it has.

The current economy and presidential election situations haven’t overshadowed the Iraq War in the news; the Iraq War has instead shrunk to an unimportant size. It is along these same lines that the articles states the following that I tend to agree with:

Ron Nessen, a former NBC television correspondent and White House press secretary at the end of the Vietnam War, attributed the falloff in interest to US successes in quelling violence in Iraq, which has brought the death toll of Americans and Iraqis down from the highs of late 2006 — though only to 2005 levels.

 

“Maybe I’m cynical … but good news is no news. I think you are seeing a little bit of that effect in Iraq,” Nessen, now a media expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told AFP.

That not need be the case. I am personally interested in hearing positive news from Iraq it’s just they (the news) won’t oblige.

In some resent polls, Iraqis are viewing things happening in their country in a much more positive light. Here is what Ed Morrissey had to say about it at Hot Air:

Problems still remain. The Shi’ites and the Kurds have the most optimism, as the BBC points out in its reporting on the survey. By 62% and 73%, respectively, they are happy with their lives. In contrast, only 33% of Sunnis say that. They have still not been engaged enough by the Baghdad government, although improvements have been made. While that remains the case, the potential for violence and dissension will be significant.

 

However, as ABC notes, Baghdad and Anbar have driven most of the improvement in polling since August. That shows some significant movement among the Sunnis, even if the numbers remain troubling low. For instance, 71% of the Anbar respondents rated security as good, an amazing number considering the common wisdom in 2006 of Anbar as “lost”. In Baghdad, where violence remains a problem, the number has risen to 43% — still an improvement, but a reflection of more work needing to be done in the capital.

 

Economics have also improved rapidly. In Baghdad and Anbar especially, Iraqis feel much more confident. A twenty-point jump since last August has a majority rating their household finances positively. Interestingly, the greatest jump came from one of the poorest sectors in Iraq, Sadr City in Baghdad. As personal economics continue to improve, one can expect less support for destabilizing violence. Vast majorities still complain — legitimately — about the delivery of utility services, but with violence declining, the US and Iraq can now focus on these larger-scale projects.

I’d call that some good news.

UPDATE (4:00pm ET):

Michael J. Totten has some graphs that illustrate this poll. Check ‘em out.

Today, there will be an anti-war rally at Winthrop University if any of you want to join in the madness or just watch the spectacle. If you cannot make it to today’s events, Michelle Malkin has a list of some of other anti-war events that you can mark on your calendar. However, I must say that some of the things border on “terrorist” activities.

Then again, you could just find a local protest to participate in like those guys at Protest Warrior.

This is why we need to continue the fight in Iraq, so that these ruthless barbarians never gain control of that country.

Remote-controlled explosives strapped to two mentally retarded women detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars Friday, police and Iraqi officials said, killing at least 73 people in the deadliest day since the U.S. sent 30,000 extra troops to the capital this spring.

 

The chief Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, claimed the female bombers had Down syndrome and that the explosives were detonated by remote control, indicating they may not having been willing attackers in what could be a new method by suspected Sunni insurgents to subvert stepped up security measures.

Ed Morrissey sums up what I feel about this situation (emphasis added):

If nothing else has shown the remarkable bloodthirstiness and heartlessness of the AQI terrorists, this should do it. People who would exploit the mentally handicapped as walking bombs have no sense of humanity, justice, or peace. They are, simply put, evil people who have no capacity for negotiation or co-existence.

 

In a way, this shows how desperate AQ has become. They obviously cannot fill their ranks with willing participants, and even hostages won’t suffice. Instead, they exploit the weakest and most innocent and use them as commodities to kill as many people as possible.

 

The Iraqis have seen this evil up close and have rejected it. They understand now that there is no accommodation with evil. It has to be defeated, and defeated utterly.

Once again, Gateway Pundit has another article highlighting the positive aspects of Iraq. This article focuses on the number of casualties and how over the past year, there has been a distinct decline in US Troops, Iraqi Security Forces, and Civilian deaths. In fact, if you look at the website where this information was gathered (iCasualties: OIF Iraqi Deaths), the number of Iraqi Security Forces casualties has dropped to its lowest point point January 2005. This might not seem like that big of news but when you consider that the number of Iraqi Security Forces has almost tripled in the same time period, it shows that security has definitely increased.

With recent articles stating that there has been a 20% increase of military suicides since last year, one must always wonder wonder how this fact might have been taken out of context. Well, I’m not going to make you wonder too long because Gateway Pundit has done some research and found that military suicides were in fact more prevalent during the Clinton years.