ConservativeINC

In a joint effort between the Iraqis and the Americans al Qaeda in Iraq has lost its last stronghold in the city of Mosul. Here, from the July 6th Edition of the (London) Times:

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.

A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.

The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.

And in the Baghdad region the Iraqis have cracked down on the Shi’ites:

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism.

“They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.”

The Iraq victory deniers in the comment section for this story predictably went to one of their favorite talking points: “al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq before the war.”

Alright, let’s just accept this premise (even though it woefully misrepresents the facts). So what?

Al Qaeda is, I mean, was in Iraq. They were there because they knew that a failed Iraq meant a victory for them. In fact, I think it is safe to say that al Qaeda put most of their marbles into working towards a failed Iraq.

Now they’re almost completely wiped out. Gone.

And this brings me to an extremely important point. Those who have lead the vanguard against the War in Iraq hate America and wants Iraq to fail. They will never acquiesce the fact that things are improving there by always fighting old and tired battles. These men and women would rather have an Iraq ruled by a man who has tried to kill a president, taken over a neighboring country, fought a war with another, supported terrorists with money, and many, many more heinous things. They would rather have Saddam Hussein in power than a democracy that is trying its hardest to make things work.

The defeat of al Qaeda and other extremist elements in Iraq is undeniably a good thing for Iraq and its supporters. It just makes you wonder who’s side these people who continuously undermine the war effort in Iraq are really on. I’ve made up my mind, have you? BigT

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Here’s what one commenter had to say almost a year ago about the first benchmark report:

Expecting the Iraqi government to live up to the invaders “benchmarks” is totally absurd and won’t ever happen. The lack of any knowledge of the country or culture by the USA when it was setting up it’s “puppet” government guaranteed failure. Thus, what Bush is saying is the USA will be in Iraq with strength for the forseeable future, which is what was planned anyway.

Oops!

Besides the requisite “evil invader” shtick we see the normal leftist doom and gloom. “Nothing will ever work! We don’t know the culture (which means Arabs are dumb baboons that are genetically against democracy, you know, eugenics)!” Well, that’s what they say.

But now Iraq has satisfactorily met 15 of the 18 benchmarks and has had mixed results on another. Here’s part of the story from Breitbart:

The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq’s efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are “satisfactory”—almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. The May 2008 report card, obtained by the Associated Press, determines that only two of the benchmarks—enacting and implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenues—are unsatisfactory.

It’s going to take a long time still before anyone can really say that Iraq is a “success.” But there is no way anyone can say they aren’t making progress.

And yet that’s what libs are going to do. This is their M.O. They call for some benchmarks - “because without benchmarks we can’t measure progress!” OK, they got benchmarks. When the first grading session doesn’t go all that well you get libs saying “See! We told you so! Nothing is going to work in Iraq. There is no military solution! Bush is Hitler!” Even when there is progress, substantial progress based on this report, they just do what they do and move the finish line further out.

The war in Iraq is a political issue. Everything is a political issue for libs, but Iraq is the foremost political issue in this hyperactive political climate. One of the sites I am active on, NowPublic, is mostly run by left-leaning recent college grads and most of the members on the site don’t share my views (to say the least). So, I figured I would give this story a couple of days to see if it showed up on the site. It’s news, it’s potentially explosive political news, and yet nothing.

Just so I get everything straight for you: good things going on in Iraq = no news. Even the story I cite from Breitbart gave mostly the lib slant to it. I just don’t get it.

On the one hand we ask hundreds of thousands (in total) of our men and women to go and risk their lives trying to spread democracy in the Middle East - to make our shores safer. But on the other hand the average person in America doesn’t even know what the Hell is going on. Sure, the media should be blamed because they either bury good news or trumpet bad news over there. But I still thought this country could keep it together long enough, especially when the vast, vast majority doesn’t serve, I thought we could keep it together long enough to win this war. We’ll find out one way or another come November. BigT

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