ConservativeINC

Here’s some progress.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq praisedPrime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday for cracking down onShi’ite militias and Sunni Arab militants and said al Qaeda inIraq had never been closer to defeat.

“You are not going to hear me say that al Qaeda isdefeated, but they’ve never been closer to defeat than they arenow,” Ryan Crocker told reporters during a visit to the Shi’iteholy cities of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq.

Maliki, a Shi’ite, has led a crackdown on Sunni Arabmilitants in the northern city of Mosul, where the governmentsays al Qaeda fighters took refuge after being driven fromother areas.

Maliki has also confronted Shi’ite militias in Baghdad’sSadr City slum and in the southern city of Basra.

Crocker said it was important that Iraqi forces wereleading operations in Basra and Mosul — where U.S.-ledcoalition forces played a supporting role — and acting alonein Sadr City.

“That’s a level of capability that simply wasn’t possibleeven six months ago,” he said.

“The government, the prime minister are showing a cleardetermination to take on extremist armed elements thatchallenge the authority of the government and they’ve made itclear that they will do that no matter who these elements are,”he said.

Iraqi security forces initially met strong resistance inBasra and Sadr City from the Mehdi Army militia ofanti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, but are now patrollingboth areas.

Crocker opened two new bases for U.S.-led reconstructionteams near Najaf and near Kerbala that will work with localofficials on developing infrastructure and the economy.

Source: news.yahoo.com

Should we cut and run from this? Phased withdrawals?

We are actually seeing the Iraqis fight for themselves on a large scale now. I don’t like McCain but based on who will do the best with the War on Terror I have to concede that he is the best option available.

Could everything crumble in an instant? Absolutely. Are the Iraqis making enough political progress? How much can we really expect from a new country?

During this election season voters should seriously take these questions into consideration. Unfortunately, I don’t think most voters even care about this. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Most are giving more consideration to the “recession” we’re in right now. Never mind the fact that this sort of thing happens occassionally. Never mind that no economy no matter how well regulated can delay inevitable disruptions to the market.

(Actually, greater regulations lead to longer recessions because it limits the things economic players like businesses and individuals can do. It’s like putting training wheels on a motorcycle. You think you’re getting some extra stability but all those extra wheels are going to do is slow you down and make you fall more frequently.)

But this is going to be the main focus of voters this year. Our economy. The War on Terror is now a distant memory and only comes to the forefront for fleeting seconds whenever something unique or terrible happens. Ask anyone what happened in Iraq during the last month and they will probably come up with the sniper shooting the Koran.

When you go to the ballot box this November you are going to probably be considering the economy, the environment, healthcare, and other things like that. You should really give some serious thought as to whether you want your country to remain the world’s hyperpower any longer. Losing Iraq, especially due to a lack of will, will result in our fall from grace.

BigT

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Oh… my… God!

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Watch a video of the editorial board meeting here.

Obama’s camp immediately fired back.

“Sen. Clinton’s statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign,” Obama campaign spokesman said in a statement.

Clinton made her comments at a meeting with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader’s editorial board while campaigning in South Dakota, where she complained that, “People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa.”

Obama, the first African-American to advance so far in the race for the White House, has faced threats, sources have said.

Source: nypost.com

BigT

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We’re not asking you to be patriotic but couldn’t you at least not run articles with this title: “US strike on al-Qaida kills children“?

We are in Iraq right now because al Qaeda is there. Our troops bombed that truck because

the military said its forces were targeting members of an al-Qaida suicide bombing network. The forces engaged the occupants of a vehicle after they refused to surrender and “exhibited hostile intent.”

How could anyone blame us for collateral damage of this kind? Our enemy wears civilian clothing, they attack us using IEDs in vehicles, and they use suicide bombers. And everyone in Iraq should be accustomed to the rules of engagement by now. If the military is telling you to stop your vehicle and you don’t you have to know that you are going to get shot at and you will probably die.

Shouldn’t the blame be leveled at those “heroic” insurgents? They are the ones, after all, who purposefully try to increase collateral damage. They purposefully blow up civilians. Basically, al Qaeda’s goal is to kill so many civilians that America is forced to leave the front line of the War on Terror.

And that brings us back to our fearless reporters. The first fifteen paragraphs are about “evil” American troops. Three of those paragraphs dedicated to one of our snipers using a Koran for target practice. This, of course, led to demonstrations and a couple deaths in Afghanistan. Yeah, that’s balanced. An American sniper makes a Koran into confetti and they riot. Nineteen “brothers” use OUR BUILDINGS as target practice and were there any demonstrations condemning that in Afghanistan? NO!

But we are big, bad America and we are in the Middle East to steal their oil, corrupt their youth, and destroy their culture. And our media eagerly writes about these incidents for weeks and will continuously cite it as American abuses for years to come. How are we suppose to win anybody’s hearts and minds if we have this virus eating away at our own hearts and minds? Our media systematically works to undermine our war efforts at every turn.

That “other stuff” that was in the AP story was about how the Iraqi’s were trying to take back their country:

Iraqi security forces have launched a series of campaigns to impose their control in areas dominated by armed groups, including Sadr City in Baghdad, the southern city of Basra and the northern city of Mosul.

On Tuesday, some 10,000 Iraqi soldiers and police deployed in Sadr City, which for years was the unquestioned bastion of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The deployment was enabled by a truce between al-Sadr and the government.

Progress is being made in Iraq. Oh, wait, here’s the next seven paragraphs:

Although the deployment has been peaceful, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, warned it was fragile.

“We’re hopeful that it will hold. But we recognize that, like anything, it is fragile and so there are a number of things that could happen, and we have to prepare ourselves for that eventuality,” he told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.

He said violence had dropped dramatically in Iraq, with only 288 attacks, or an average of 41 per day, reported last week, the lowest number since April 2004. In a more dramatic example, he said only 15 attacks targeted U.S. forces on Wednesday, but that the military expects “episodic spikes” in the violence as militants try to regroup.

Militia violence has increased in areas of eastern Baghdad near Sadr City.

Three people were killed in clashes late Wednesday in the Obeida district. Among them was Iraqi television cameraman Wissam Ali Auda, of Afaq TV, who was apparently caught in the crossfire on his way home, said Tariq Maher, an Afaq correspondent. The station is affiliated with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party.

In a second journalist killing, the bullet-riddled body of Hashim al-Hussein, a correspondent for the Sharq newspaper who was kidnapped Tuesday, was found dumped near the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, police and morgue officials said.

Excluding the two deaths reported Thursday, at least 127 journalists and 50 media workers have been killed in Iraq since the war started, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

No wonder so many people think everything is going to Hell in Iraq. The only things that get reported are 1.) troops gone wild, 2.) IEDs and other attacks and 3.) two paragraphs of progress buried deep within 25 paragraphs of numbers 1 & 2. BigT

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