Al Qaeda in Iraq has been virtually defeated. 15 of 18 surge benchmarks have been met. Violence has dropped dramatically, to it's lowest level in 4 years. The insurgency is being quelled as crackdowns against both Sunni and Shia insurgents have been carried out. The Iraqi people are rejecting violence. Iraqi troops are taking mission leads now, with US forces providing backup roles. Iraqis already run 9 of 18 Iraq provinces. The US is beginning to draw it's troop levels down. There will be more troop reductions this month. Some troops will be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Now, as part of current security negotiations with the US, Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki has called for a timetable for American troop withdrawal. An Associated Press article states the Iraqi position as follows:

"Our stance in the negotiations underway with the American side will be strong … We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq," [Iraq security adviser] Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said.

He provided no details. But Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite lawmaker and a prominent official in the prime minister's party, told The Associated Press that Iraq was linking the timetable proposal to the ongoing handover of various provinces to Iraqi control. The Iraqi proposal stipulates that, once Iraqi forces have resumed security responsibility in all 18 of Iraq's provinces, U.S.-led forces would then withdraw from all cities in the country. After that, the country's security situation would be reviewed every six months, for three to five years, to decide when U.S.-led troops would pull out entirely, al-Adeeb said.

"This is what the Iraqi people want, the parliament and other Iraqi leaders," said al-Adeeb.

The proposal, as outlined by al-Adeeb, is phrased in a way that would allow Iraqi officials to tell the Iraqi public that it includes a specific timetable and dates for a U.S. withdrawal. However, it also would provide the United States some flexibility on timing because the dates of the provincial handovers are not set.

This is the best news yet. It looks like we can finally start pulling our troops from Iraq. President Bush has resisted fixed withdrawal timetables up to this point, preferring instead to have troop levels dictated by conditions on the ground in Iraq. Defense secretary Robert Gates reiterated that view yesterday:

"As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better, then we will be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future," Gates told reporters Tuesday during a visit to Fort Lewis, Wash. "However long that takes really will depend on the situation on the ground. But things are going very well at this point."

While wanting troop levels to be determined by the conditions on the ground, Bush himself has said US forces would leave if the Iraqi government told us to leave. In May, 2007, Bush said "It's their government's choice. If they were to say, 'Leave,' we would leave."

I think it's time to grant the Iraqis their wish. All along, the stated plan from the Bush administration has been "as they stand up, we'll stand down." Well, the Iraqis are standing up. It sure took long enough, but they are finally taking control of their country, and it IS their country, not ours. A withdrawal timetable now might actually be a positive thing, a signal to the Iraqi people that the US is not interested in occupying their country, only in securing it. This timetable would be predicated on successful completion of the Iraqi mission, not on failure-producing political tactics, as were previous calls for withdrawal by Democrats, including Barack Obama. If Obama and the Congressional Democrats had gotten their way in 2006/2007, there would have been no surge, there would be no successful completion of the Iraq mission, and there would be no stable Iraq government. There would be only defeat and chaos.

John McCain should get some props here. He was the one who advocated for the surge long before there was a surge. McCain was long a critic of the pre-surge Bush/Rumsfeld Iraq policy that was not working, and McCain was proven correct. Obama, on the other hand, displayed only his inexperience and desire for defeat, claiming that the surge could never work. What was that Wesley Clark said about military experience not qualifying a man to be president ? Sure, Wes, whatever you say. Go find another talking point, because you know what REALLY doesn't qualify a man to be president ? NO EXPERIENCE, whose name is Barack Obama.

Setting a success-based timetable for withdrawal from Iraq could also quell the suspicions of those who view the US as imperialists in the Middle East. If our presence in Iraq is a terrorist recruiting tool, as the Dems have long said, and are most certainly correct about, a withdrawal timetable might lessen that a little bit. Of course, we'll still be in Afghanistan, so I'm not sure how much it would be lessened. Probably not much. The Dems never spoke about THAT part of the equation, because it would have mostly nullified their point. All the Dems were really interested in was losing the Iraq war. Fortunately, we didn't take the Dems advice, and today Iraq is far better off because of it. After taking down Saddam's wretched government, we obliged ourselves to the Iraqi people. It looks like that obligation may soon be fulfilled (knock on wood), and then we can get out of Iraq, the right way.

There's not much coming from the media about the war these days, is there ? How very curious. The reason is, the war is being won. I guess that's not news.

“Back from the front, Gen. David Petraeus called on Congress Thursday to begin considering a drawdown of U.S. troops after five years of war. Violence in Iraq has plunged to its lowest levels since 2004, and al-Qaida is a tattered shadow of its former self—key leaders dead, successors weak and recruiting down. ’My sense’ Petraeus said, ‘is I will be able to make a recommendation (in the autumn) for further reductions.’ This is no Saigon-style exit, but a coming victorious end of a long conflict. U.S. forces have pounded al-Qaida into irrelevance. Using highly disciplined Special Forces strikes, advanced intelligence and communications, and local allies in the right places, 155,000 U.S. troops have been crushing a vicious enemy motivated by no rational forces in a war with no precedent. They are winning against all odds, overcoming not just terrorists, but other obstacles such as a lumbering Pentagon bureaucracy and weak-kneed Western intelligentsia whose media toadies trump every military error and harp on every isolated bad deed. Now proven wrong, these same critics retaliate by ignoring what is a very big story. Worldwide terror attacks have fallen off 40% since 2001, according to a study by Canada’s Human Security Report Project, and support for al-Qaida in the Arab world has collapsed. The study found terror attacks had been over-counted because Iraq War atrocities distorted the figures. Security gains elsewhere included even sub-Saharan Africa, where the improvement was called ‘extraordinary.’ Just as the conflict in Iraq is coming to a close, two related terror wars—in Spain and Colombia—are also seeing signs of victory… From the deserts of Iraq to the villages of Spain to the jungles of Colombia, these victories against terrorist groups are all linked. They are the result of using proven tactics, holding together resolutely, cooperating with other nations to share and deliver intelligence, and forming united fronts. When this happens, terrorists cannot flourish. Recent successes show that these wars are winnable.” —Investor’s Business Daily

This is not the Iraq war of 2006, the one that was spinning out of control, the one that prompted Harry Reid and Barack Obama to declare the war lost. We are winning this war, which liberal Democrats said could not be done. They said there was no military solution, but people like General Petraeus proposed a military solution known as the Surge (with John McCain's backing, speaking of judgement), and it has worked. Liberals like Barack Obama said it couldn't ever work (speaking of judgement). The Iraqi military is taking the lead in many areas now, and Iraqis are turning against the extremists.

Now I propose that liberals get up to speed, because the dynamic under which they are operating is obsolete. Liberals have tried to end the war all along, but what does it say about them if they try to end it when the Iraqi government is close to standing on their own, when Al Qaeda is all but eliminated, and when political reconciliation is moving forward ? Yet still, every day on the stump, Obama tells his supporters he'll end the war, and they applaud. I propose that Obama do something new, something patriotic, and tell his supporters the truth, and that as president he will help to WIN THE WAR, a war that is already being won. As Scott McClellan said in his book, it was Bush's goal to remake the Middle East. I always thought that was Bush's goal as well. It was one heck of an ambitious goal, and I didn't think it could be done, which is why I didn't think the Iraq war was a very hot idea. I still think that goal is quite an overreach, but I would never, ever abandon the Iraqis after the fact, after Saddam was gone and the gap hadn't been filled. After the Iraq invasion, it was simply unthinkable and immoral to abandon that country to the extremists. I can think of nothing more irresponsible than that, yet that was the liberal policy all along. It's time for that policy to shift from one of defeat to one of success. If Obama does become president, by the time he's sworn into office, it may be that the only thing he has to do regarding Iraq is to not screw it up, to not reverse all the progress that has been made, to not pull the rug out, to not make the price we paid in blood worth nothing. That is the least we should expect from any American president.

President Bush has threatened to veto a new G.I. Bill that passed the House and Senate. The Senate version was proposed by Jim Webb (D-VA) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE). It would pay full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for veterans who served in the military for at least three years since 9/11. Bush and other opponents of the bill, which includes Republican nominee John McCain, argue that with an all-volunteer military, the bill would encourage enlistees to serve only one enlistment period. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new and improved benefits would decrease re-enlistment rates by 16%. Apparent Democratic nominee Barack Obama supports the Webb/Hagel G.I. Bill. Proponents of the bill argue that we owe our veterans the same type of benefits they received following WWII, and that the loss of re-enlistments would be made up by increased numbers of new enlistees seeking the benefits.

Not surprisingly, the New York Times excoriated Bush and McCain in an editorial appearing in it's pages on Memorial Day. The Times editorial board opined:

"[Bush] is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break…So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home… Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put…a long-term investment in human capital, in education and job training, there is no good argument against an expanded, generous G.I. Bill".

I think I share the opinion of virtually all Americans when I say that our veterans deserve G.I. benefits after serving their country. What the New York Times left out of it's editorial is that the Webb/Hagel G.I. Bill isn't the only G.I. Bill that was proposed. The Times is, of course, doing this intentionally to mislead it's readers and to have the maximum political impact against Bush and McCain, but the Times does it's readers a disservice (as usual), especially when a competing G.I. Bill has been sponsored by McCain himself. In the McCain version of the new G.I. Bill, benefits are improved along with longer periods of military service, and the benefits are transferable to a soldiers spouse and children, an element missing from the Webb Bill (the Times didn't mention transferability either). The Senate Democrats blocked the McCain version of the G.I. bill. Here's a White House statement responding to the NY Times:

[The New York Times is] expressing its vitriolic opinions - no matter how misleading they may be…[The President] specifically called upon Congress to answer service members' request that they be able to transfer their GI Bill benefits to their spouses and children. Secretary Gates has also laid out guidelines requesting transferability as well as “greater rewards for continued military service in the all volunteer force." The Department of Defense has specific concerns about legislation sponsored by Senator Webb because it lacks transferability and could negatively impact military retention.” Adding, there are many other proposals before the House and Senate and the President “specifically supports” one “proposed by Senators Graham, Burr, and McCain because it allows for the transferability of education benefits and calibrates an increase in education benefits to time in the service.”

Under the McCain version of the G.I. Bill, people with longer military service get better G.I. benefits. That sounds reasonable to me, and so does the transferability option. So does the Webb bill provision. I'm not really taking sides here, other than the side of accuracy. I think the correct course is to craft a bill that combines all the necessary elements. There is a legitimate debate here, along with a golden opportunity for a bipartisan compromise, but we don't need the blatant distortion and demagoguery of the New York Times on this issue, nor do we need the unecessary political games that are being played. For once, it would be nice if politics was set aside and our soldiers could be taken care of as they deserve. Instead, our Senators appear to realize all too well that it is an election year, which is why partisan hacks like Harry Reid (D-NV) make statements like this:

This vote [to strike down the McCain bill] is a message to Bush-McCain Republicans that the U.S. Senate will not stand for political games at the expense of our nation's first responders and veterans," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

It's all about political one-upmanship to Dirty Harry. Our soldiers deserve better.

At least this time, the Left didn't slander general David Petraeus or call him a liar (not as much, anyway). There were no 'General Betray-Us' ads or references to the 'willing suspension of disbelief'. The Left learns to censor their more hideous traits, but they usually have to step in it a time or two before they do.

There has been undeniable progress in Iraq in the seven months since Petraeus last spoke to Congress, and substantial progress in the last year since the surge started. Anyone who denies those facts is simply not being truthful. However, as Petraeus put it, the progress is "fragile and reversible." Much remains to be done, and though we all want our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible (and for you Dems out there, that includes John McCain), the idea of a fixed timetable for withdrawal is neither wise nor workable if a secure Iraqi government is our goal. Both Petraeus and Iraq ambassador Ryan Crocker made that point during their testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

There's something about a group of presidential wanna-bees (that's 'bees', as in buzz, buzz) and congressional partisans making political speeches disguised as questions for Petraeus and Crocker that irks me. With the cameras rolling, the effect is magnified, since the cameras amount to free political advertisement. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich), who opened the proceedings, personified partisanship. He downplayed the progress of the surge, acted like the recent Basra flare-up nullified it all, and mentioned every possible negative aspect of the Iraq conflict. If there was a poster boy for the attitude known as "Defeatocrat," Levin was it. Since Levin said nothing at all helpful, I'll briefly paraphrase his opening comments and move on. Levin more or less said "Bush sucks, Iraq's a mess, screw the Iraqis, let's quit." Not exactly the can-do spirit that made america great.

When Barack Obama, an intelligent man, but one who frankly knows little more about Iraq than I or any other random person who follows the events knows, offers up his opinions to Petraeus, opinions are all they are, and they'd be insignificant, except Obama could be the next president, so we have to pay attention to him. Obama has spent a grand total of two days in Iraq in his lifetime, and those were in 2006. He couldn't possibly have an iota of knowledge about Iraq in comparison to Petraeus or Crocker. I don't mean this to be a particular criticism of Obama, since pretty much the same could also be said of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. In fact, if I heard what I think I heard yesterday, McCain repeated his blunder of not knowing whether Al Qaeda is Sunni or Shia. If McCain wants to be the big boss man, he should at least know a wahabbist from a wabbit, and it seems he doesn't. An insufficient regard for the different fractious elements within Iraqi society is a large part of the reason our troops are still there 5 years later. When McCain makes this mistake, I am reminded of gross oversimplifications like Dick Cheney saying "we will be greeted as liberators." Yes, by some Iraqis we were, but most definitely not by others, and Dick, what about the post-liberation ? The Bushies went in like a bull in a china shop, but didn't appear to know the first damned thing about what they were getting into, given the ensuing events.

Since Obama is the likely Democratic nominee for president, here's a link to a transcript of Obama questioning Petraeus and Crocker, and following is a cobbling together of key parts of that testimony:

OBAMA: I just want to close with a couple of key points.

Number one, we all have the greatest interest in seeing a successful resolution to Iraq — all of us do. And that, I think, has to be stated clearly in the record…I also think that the surge has reduced violence and provided breathing room, but that breathing room has not been taken the way we would all like it to be taken. And I think what happened in Basra is an example of Shia versus Shia jockeying for power that underscores how complicated the political situation is there and how we still have to continue to work vigorously to resolve it. I believe that we are more likely to resolve it, in your own words, Ambassador, if we are applying increased pressure in a measured way. I think that increased pressure in a measured way, in my mind — and this is where we disagree — includes a timetable for withdrawal. Nobody's asking for a precipitous withdrawal, but I do think that it has to be a measured but increased pressure; and a diplomatic surge that includes Iran. Because if Maliki can tolerate as normal neighbor-to-neighbor relations in Iran, then we should be talking to them as well. I do not believe we're going to be able to stabilize the position without them…Our resources are finite. And this has been made — this is a point that just was made by Senator Voinovich, it's been made by Senator Biden, Senator Lugar, Senator Hagel. There's a bipartisan consensus that we have finite resources. Our military is overstretched, and the Pentagon has acknowledged it. The amount of money that we are spending is hemorrhaging our budget, and Al Qaida in Afghanistan I think is feeling a lot more secure as long as we're focused in Iraq and not on Afghanistan. When you have finite resources, you've got to define your goals tightly and modestly.

…It's obviously not perfect. There's still violence, there's still some traces of Al Qaida, Iran has influence more than we would like. But if we had the current status quo, and yet our troops had been drawn down to 30,000, would we consider that a success? Would that meet our criteria, or would that not be good enough and we'd have to devote even more resources to it?

CROCKER: Senator, I can't imagine the current status quo being sustainable with that kind of precipitous drawdown.

OBAMA: …I'm not suggesting that we yank all our troops out all the way. I'm trying to get to an endpoint. That's what all of us have been trying to get to. And, see, the problem I have is if the definition of success is so high, no traces of Al Qaida and no possibility of reconstitution, a highly-effective Iraqi government, a Democratic multiethnic, multi- sectarian functioning democracy, no Iranian influence, at least not of the kind that we don't like, then that portends the possibility of us staying for 20 or 30 years.

If, on the other hand, our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo but there's not, you know, huge outbreaks of violence, there's still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it's not a threat to its neighbors and it's not an Al Qaida base, that seems to me an achievable goal within a measurable timeframe, and that, I think, is what everybody here on this committee has been trying to drive at, and we haven't been able to get as clear of an answer as we would like.

CROCKER: And that's because, Senator, is a — I mean, I don't like to sound like a broken record, but this is hard and this is complicated.

I think that when Iraq gets to the point that it can carry forward its further development without a major commitment of U.S. forces, with still a lot of problems out there but where they and we would have a fair certitude that, again, they can drive it forward themselves without significant danger of having the whole thing slip away from them again, then, clearly, our profile, our presence diminishes markedly.

But that's not where we are now.

The first thing I'd take exception with is Obama saying they all [Democrats] want a successful resolution in Iraq. Many of his comrades most certainly do NOT care about that. Many of them just want to get out of Iraq, with little regard for the consequences. Obama himself voted to stop funding the war last year, and he also voted to start a troop withdrawal that, had it been adopted, would have had all our troops out by now. Thus, Obama is being disingenuous when he says nobody is advocating a "precipitous withdrawal.' Obama himself advocated that.

Secondly, nobody has ever said that Iraq has to become the perfect society with no traces of Al Qaeda and no traces of sectarian violence before US troops pull out. Obama is building a straw man argument there. What has always been the stated goal is for the USA to stand down as the Iraqi forces stand up. That is where the difficulty has lain, and no formally announced public withdrawal timetable is going to assist in that effort. Even if we get to a place where a withdrawal timetable is set, there is no advantage in making it public, other than to some politicians who want to take credit and garner some support from it. I also keep hearing Democrat after Democrat being all indignant that Bush will leave Iraq for the next president (who they presume will be a Democrat) to deal with. Yes, that's probably so, Dems. Deal with it. Your party is not more important than the country.

Go here for a transcript of general Petraeus' comments to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Remember those 600,000 pages of Iraqi documents that were found during Operation Iraqi Freedom ? Some, but not all, have now been translated, and the Department Of Defense (DOD) has published redacted versions online, along with conclusions about Saddam's links to terrorism.

The venerable Grey Lady, the leading light of liberal print media, the New York Times, reported on the findings with the following headline: "Oh, By the Way, There Was No Al Qaeda Link".

So there you have it. Bush lied, kids died. Damn neocons. End of story. Nothing more to see here. Let's move on. What do you guys want for dinner - pizza, Chinese, or what ? Vote for Obama !

Well, actually, there is ONE little teensy weensy problem with the conclusions of the New York al Times, which is…

THEY ARE LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.

Far from proving that Saddam didn't have ties to terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, the documents proved the exact opposite. They proved Saddam DID have terrorist ties aplenty. Here's the report's abstract summary:

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam’s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

That sounds quite different from the al Times "Oh, By the Way, There Was No Al Qaeda Link", doesn't it ? This is why you can NEVER depend on the liberal media to report the truth. NEVER. They are not there to report the truth, they are there to create their own truth. There is a word for that. It's called 'propaganda.' If you get one lesson from this blog, get that. Find the real truth, not the swill they dish out.

Ken Timmerman details some of Saddam's specific ties to terrorism here. Following is a sample:

One of the most damning documents to emerge from the Harmony data base, I wrote, was a Jan. 18, 1993 order from Saddam Hussein, transmitted to the head of Iraqi intelligence, “to hunt the Americans that are in Arab lands, especially in Somalia, by using Arab elements or Asian (Muslims) or friends.”

In response, the head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service informed Hussein that Iraq already had ties with a large number of international terrorist groups, including “the Islamist Arab elements that were fighting in Afghanistan and [currently] have no place to base and are physically present in Somalia, Sudan, and Egypt.” In other words, al-Qaida.

The authors of the IDA study note that Saddam’s Iraq “was a long-standing supporter of international terrorism,” and that these particular documents provided ‘detailed evidence of that support.'”

The study also points out that the captured documents “reveal that Saddam was training Arab fighters (non-Iraqi) in Iraqi training camps more than a decade prior” to the 2003 war.

But the study shies away from identifying them as al-Qaida terrorists, even though many of them were members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, whose leader, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri, became the deputy leader of al-Qaida in 1998.

Saddam was a terrorist supporter and a terrorist himself. They were doing much more than flying kites in Iraq prior to the american invasion.

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama's view of the Iraq war is unqualified. "I WILL END THE WAR IN IRAQ !" Obama bellows to thunderous applause. That is his promise, that is what his supporters want, and that's why they support him. When I heard Obama speak in person, his unqualified statement about ending the war in Iraq brought his largest applause of the day, by far. In Ohio, Obama's second most popular position was probably his opposition to NAFTA, but now we all know he was just kidding about that, as was Hillary. You got played, Ohio. Never forget that the Hopester and Clinton 2.0 are above all, politicians. They are masters at telling people what they want to hear.

So, the question to ask is:

Does Obama really intend to pull the US troops out of Iraq, or is that just red-meat campaign chum to get the voters to bite ?

Let's look at a little history to begin to answer the question. It is well known that Obama made a speech in 2002 against the Iraq war. Everybody knows, because Obama won't let us forget it. He brings it up every five minutes. Any time Obama is criticized for anything, he comes back with 'yes, but I was against the Iraq war, unlike Hillary and McCain, so my judgement is better'. It's really becoming quite irritating, especially since Obama didn't have to cast an actual vote on the war, since he wasn't in the Senate yet. We aren't supposed to remember that in 2004, Obama said he wasn't sure how he would have voted, since he wasn't privy to the intelligence that the rest of Congress saw.

There's more you aren't supposed to remember about 2004, like the following Obama statements about the war, according to a Boston Globe article:

In July of 2004, the day after his speech at the Democratic convention catapulted him into the national spotlight, Barack Obama told a group of reporters in Boston that the United States had an "absolute obligation" to remain in Iraq long enough to make it a success.

"The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, according to an audiotape of the session. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective."

The statements are consistent with others Obama made at the time, emphasizing the need to stabilize Iraq despite his opposition to the US invasion. But they also represent perhaps his most forceful language in depicting withdrawal from crisis-ridden Iraq as a betrayal of the Iraqi people and a risk to national security.

These comments from Obama in 2004 sound a whole lot like comments the Republicans make. Just like them, as a matter of fact. It seems Obama did realize that abandoning Iraq would have dire consequences. So what changed ? Is abandoning Iraq to the radical Islamic influences of Iran and Al Qaeda now desirable ? No, it most certainly isn't.

In 2005, Obama's stance changed, and what changed was: politics. As public sentiment soured on the war, particularly Democratic sentiment, Obama soured too (just like a slew of other Dems). He began calling for an immediate troop withdrawal, the consequences to Iraqis be damned. After all, this was Obama's political career we were talking about. He wanted to be president, and couldn't afford to consider the consequences of an Iraq pullout any longer. Look what happened to Joe Lieberman when he opposed a troop withdrawal. The Democrats kicked Lieberman out of the party, and Lieberman was a former Democratic VP candidate ! The left would tolerate no dissent. In order to become president, Obama had to reject Bush's war in every way, as did Hillary, as did Edwards, as did all the Democratic contenders. Never mind that several of those Democratic contenders had voted to authorize Bush's war in the first place. That old history needed to be erased, and some new history created in it's place.

In Dem world, such position changes and conformity to the politically correct view is called 'leadership". Obama became a great 'leader', by, um, following. Others would call that 'taking the path of least resistance', but hey, those who don't hop on board the Obama Hope wagon are probably just racists anyway, right Dems ? Who cares what they think.

In conclusion, I would be very surprised if a president Barack Obama started pulling the troops out of Iraq immediately, unless the generals and Iraqi leaders also wanted it. To do so would be deeply irresponsible, and Obama knows it. He's a smart guy. He's also smart enough to keep telling the Democratic primary voters exactly what they want to hear, like any good salesman.

“I have some news, Al Qaeda is in Iraq. Al Qaeda — It’s called Al Qaeda in Iraq…I don’t understand how Senator Obama would say he would go back to Iraq if Al Qaeda were there when Al Qaeda is there and everybody knows it,” — Sen. John McCain on the campaign trail.

“I’ve got some news for John McCain — he took us into a war, along with George Bush, that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged.” — Sen. Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

This exchange highlights the difference between Republicans and Democrats regarding the Iraq war. Republicans believe we should stay there until we are successful, until Iraq is secured from the terrorists and insurgents and can stand on it's own. Democrats believe we should never have gone in, and we should get out ASAP. Obama has pledged to withdraw all troops in 2009 if he is elected president. McCain's statement that we might stay in Iraq for 100 years has been hyped to the rafters by Obama, even though McCain wasn't talking about fighting another 100 Years War, he was talking about a residual non-combatant force staying in Iraq, such as we have in Japan, Germany, Korea, Bosnia, etc. McCain's position is to finish the job in Iraq.

Obama's stated foreign strategy is not pacifism, however. He wants to withdraw from Iraq and send more troops to Afghanistan. He has also said he would strike Pakistan if he had "actionable intelligence" (and apparently, Bush has already struck Pakistan).

I think almost all americans wish the Iraq war was over. That is a given. I don't know of many who enjoy war, and I'd wonder about the sanity of anyone who did enjoy it. We hate the cost in human life the most. We hate the monetary costs as well. Obama continually talks about what he could do with the $12 billion we are spending in Iraq each month. He says it could go toward health care, schools, infrastructure (Hey, it just occurred to me. Nobody talks about paying down the debt anymore. Strange. That seems important…but I digress).

I also want the Iraq war to be over, but I don't want Iraq to descend into chaos by a premature american withdrawal either. After all that has been sacrificed to remove Saddam Hussein, push back Al Qaeda, fight the insurgency, secure the country, reconstruct the country, and get to where political reconciliation finally seems to be creeping forward, I would hope our next president would be responsible enough not to risk throwing all that away just to score some political points.

This brings me back to the quotes I repeated at the beginning of this post. Obama's point that we should never have gone into Iraq is MOOT, not to mention that it avoids McCain's point about Al Qaeda. The fact is, we ARE in Iraq. The fact is, Al Qaeda IS in Iraq. The decision the next president might have to make is — where do we go from here ? Obama has gotten a lot of mileage out of saying he was against the Iraq war back in 2002, even though he never had to vote on it, since he wasn't in the Senate. He's used that non-voting opposition to beat Hillary and Edwards in the primaries (who both were in the Senate and voted for the war, as did the majority of Democrats), and it appears he's going to use the same tactic against McCain. Notice how Obama has already started saying "McCain took us to war, along with Bush", as if it was all really McCain's idea. That's a politician for you. For a candidate who says this election is about the future, Obama seems to be the one talking about the past an awful lot. Read those quotes again. McCain is the one talking about the present. McCain is the one talking about where we go from here. That's what presidents have to do. The rest is politics. Obama is good at politics, good at speeches, and real good at getting a total free pass from an adoring media when he makes a mistake, as he did here.

—-

When I watched Hillary's commercial with the little girl sleeping, where the phone rings at 3am and something has happened in the world, (a very valid question to ponder when electing a president, btw, not "fearmongering" as Obama wrongly claimed), the president I wanted picking up that phone wasn't Barack Obama. Hillary had that much right. Unfortunately for Hillary, she wasn't the name that popped into my mind either. It was John McCain, the one with military experience, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the one who was first elected to the Senate in 1982. Experience DOES count. The Dems thought military experience was so important in 2004 that they dressed John Kerry up in a uniform and had a bunch of his fellow Vietnam soldiers lined up behind him onstage at the Democratic National Convention. It was "John Kerry, reporting for duty" back then. As ridiculous and ironic a spectacle as that was, the message was clear. No chickenhawks for president (even though Bush WAS in the service, oddly enough). Well, now it's 2008, Dems. Obama wasn't in the military. We have one candidate with military experience versus one chickenhawk who wants to become a wartime president and who wants to attack Afghanistan and Pakistan. What say you now, Dems ? Were you lying in 2004, or are you lying in 2008 ?

I submit to you that Hillary Clinton is NOT a leader, is dishonest, and for those reasons should NOT be the next president of the United States. Most of you already know this. This is for the few who don't. Her continuous lying about Iraq, for the sole reason of garnering votes, proves the point. Her non-stop shucking and jiving on the war, her myriad poll-driven positions on the same, all point to a woman devoid of principle, but one consumed with the hunger for power. Look at her history regarding Iraq.

Here's Hillary defending her husband's 4-day Iraq bombing campaign, known as Operation Desert Fox:

“[T]he so-called presidential palaces … in reality were huge compounds well suited to hold weapons labs, stocks, and records which Saddam Hussein was required by UN resolution to turn over. When Saddam blocked the inspection process, the inspectors left.” - Hillary in December, 1998.

And here's what Hillary said when the polls looked favorably toward the Iraq war, and when she thought it might look bad to vote against it, so she voted for it, as did John Edwards, as did John Kerry. Obama was not yet in the Senate, so he had no vote.

There is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm’s way, that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm. And I have absolutely no belief that he will. I have to say that this is something I’ve followed for more than a decade. If he were serious about disarming, he would have been much more forthcoming. . . . I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, trying to discount the political or other factors that I didn’t believe should be in any way part of this decision - Hillary addresses Code Pink on March 7, 2003.

Take note of the fact that in 2003, Hillary said she'd been following Saddam's movements for "more than a decade".

Here's what Hillary said to the troops back then:

“We must stay the course” in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked for more troops to finish the job…We have to exert all of our efforts militarily” - Hillary on November 29, 2003, when visiting the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But something happened on the way to the easy six-week american victory in Iraq. Saddam's men didn't really fight us. Instead, they disbanded and adopted guerilla-style insurgent tactics, and then Al Qaeda sympathizers flooded into the country to fight The Great Satan in the same manner, using terrorist tactics. It became a security nightmare, severely impairing the new Iraqi government and reconstruction.

So what did Hillary do ? She started dissembling. In 2005, Hillary embarked upon a new strategy, claiming she had been misled by false intelligence from - guess who - THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION ! You aren't supposed to notice that the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION had all the same intelligence conclusions for it's entire 8 years, that regime change in Iraq was the policy of the Clinton administration, or that the intelligence doesn't really come from any ADMINISTRATION, it comes from the CIA and other intelligence bodies.

"If Congress had been asked [to authorize the war], based on what we know now, we never would have agreed" - Hillary on November 29, 2005 in an e-mail sent to her supporters.

At the same time, Hillary began her absurd claim that she didn't know her vote authorizing the use of military force in Iraq actually authorized the use of military force in Iraq:

"assurances they gave that they would first seek to resolve the issue of weapons of mass destruction peacefully through United Nations sponsored inspections," Clinton lamented: "Their assurances turned out to be empty ones." - Hillary on November 29, 2005 from the same e-mail.

Of course, Hillary still "supports the troops", as she attempts to lose the war in order to get votes, as Iraq war popularity plummets. Hillary also doesn't want to be seen as soft on Al Qaeda, even as she begins shilling for an Al Qaeda victory in Iraq.

"I have continually raised doubts about the President's claims, lack of planning and execution of the war,while standing firmly in support of our troops…Criticism of this Administration's policies should not in any way be confused with softness against terrorists, inadequate support for democracy or lack of patriotism" Hillary on November 29, 2005 from the same e-mail.

By 2007, you weren't even supposed to remember that Hillary voted for the war, much less that Congress authorized it:

"Nearly four years ago our president rushed us into war in Iraq." - Hillary on February 7, 2007

When Rumsfeld was canned, and new tactics were implemented in Iraq (the surge) in 2007, Hillary was completely against it. She even called general Petraeus a liar in so many words for reporting on the success of the surge, a success that everyone must now admit to (other than the hardcore lunatic fringe who won't ever admit to anything being successful as long as Bush is at the helm).

But get a load of how Hillary actually tried to TAKE CREDIT for the successes of the surge she was dead set against. A giant hook should have come out and pulled her off the stage when she tried this lie out on Tim Russert on Meet The Press.

January 13, 2008, on Meet The Press

MR. RUSSERT: If General Petraeus says, "Senator, in September you called the surge the suspension of belief. It has worked, and you know it's worked"–let me finish–"you can see on the ground. I'm saying to you, Senator, or president-elect Clinton, don't destroy Iraq. It's working, the surge is working. Keep troops there just a few more months to get this reconciliation complete."

SEN. CLINTON: …The point of the surge was to quickly move the Iraqi government and Iraqi people. That is only now beginning to happen, and I believe in large measure because the Iraqi government, they watch us, they listen to us. I know very well that they follow everything that I say. And my commitment to begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009 is a big factor, as it is with Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, those of us on the Democratic side. It is a big factor in pushing the Iraqi government to finally do what they should have been doing all along.

One slight correction to Mr. Russert. Hillary actually called Petraeus' testimony "the willing suspension of disbelief".

In closing, there is one Hillary quote I can wholeheartedly agree with:

"The American people are tired of liars and people who pretend to be something they're not" - Hillary Clinton.

The number of lawyers seeking the Democratic presidential nomination has been reduced from three to two. The ambulance chasing lawyer is out. The coattail riding lawyer and the civil rights lawyer remain. The coattail rider is the frontrunner for the moment, and has the edge in experience, having both 35 years of coattail riding plus seven years in the Senate. The civil rights lawyer has only three years in the Senate, but at least he didn't earn his Senate seat because of his last name, like the coattail rider did. He earned it the old-fashioned way (his primary opponent, who was leading, self-destructed amid allegations of domestic abuse, and his opponent in the general election withdrew due to a sex scandal, leaving him virtually unopposed, with Alan Keyes jumping in as 11th hour opposition with no chance of winning). The Democratic party had tagged the civil rights lawyer for greatness even before he won his Senate seat by default however, by making him the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He is the anointed candidate of change, and the future of the Democratic party. The Kennedy family has endorsed him, and Caroline Kennedy said he reminds her of her father, JFK. Visions of a new Camelot are dancing in Democratic heads. Never mind that Caroline also said John F. Kerry reminded her of her father back in 2004 (Must be the initials in the name, because I can't think of any other resemblence there).

All this talk of change, the future, Camelot, and anointing has the coattail rider hopping mad, because, dammit, this was supposed to be HER year, she was supposed to be the anointee, and, double dammit, SHE'S A WOMAN, which gives her street cred in Democratic Identity Politics (DIP). However, in an ironic twist of cruel fate for the coattail rider, the civil rights lawyer is black, giving him even MORE street cred in DIP world. The ambulance chasing lawyer was a mere third wheel, with no DIP cred whatsoever. No wonder he was so angry.

The coattail rider pulled out her 'Big Gun' (pun intended) - the esteemed, venerable, beloved in the Democratic party, lecherous, adulterous, sexual abuser, the ex-president. The Big Gun called the civil rights lawyer's position on Iraq a "fairy tale", which was immediately denounced as a racist remark (don't ask me to explain how that was allegedly racist. This is the Democratic party. Nothing makes sense here. The Big Gun did make later remarks that were racially motivated, though). Apparently, the Big Gun didn't notice his wife the coattail rider's position on Iraq was much more of a fairy tale than that of her opponent. The coattail rider literally said that when she voted in favor of a resolution called the AUTHORIZATION FOR THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE IN IRAQ, she didn't know that meant it was an AUTHORIZATION FOR THE USE OF MILITARY FORCE IN IRAQ. She claimed she thought she was only voting for weapons inspectors to finish their job. Seriously. This is the woman Democrats call 'the smartest woman in the world'. And, SHE'S THE FRONTRUNNER ! Like I said, don't expect this stuff to make sense, it's the Democrats. Being a boldfaced liar is usually an asset. It mostly worked for the Big Gun, until a certain blue dress appeared…..

But I digress. Back on topic, there is a new fairy tale being tossed around by the Democrats regarding Iraq, and I've heard both the coattail rider and the civil rights lawyer mention it, so it must have been cooked up over at DIP headquarters, maybe at the DNC by Howie Dean. This fantasy seems too silly for even James Carville to have cooked up. The fairy tale goes like this : The Iraqis, knowing that either the coattail rider or the civil rights lawyer could be the next president of the USA, and would remove US troops, are behaving better and making progress, because they know their time for depending on the USA is running out.

This master(batory) stroke of demented and corrupt genius accomplishes a number of things for the Democrats: it is used to nullify the results of the surge, which the Democrats were uniformly wrong about; it lays more groundwork for pulling out of Iraq; it provides justification for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The Dems are heavily invested in defeat, because they must prove Bush wrong at all costs. If you haven't noticed, every time one benchmark of success is met in Iraq, and several have been met recently, the Democrats move onto the next one as proof of american failure. Now, I don't want to paint the Iraq picture as a bowl of cherries here, but shouldn't we at least expect a little basic honesty from our leading presidential candidates on one of biggest issues going, instead of this pure fiction and spin for political gain ? Shouldn't we at least expect our leading presidential candidates to WANT america to succeed ? At the VERY LEAST ???

For over four years, the Democrats have told us we can't win in Iraq, that the war is lost, that the surge was useless, that Iraqis weren't capable of democracy, that the war was immoral, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.

Fortunately, neither the Bush administration, our troops, nor the Iraqis listened.

I hope Hillary has suspended her disbelief by now, because the surge was a great success. Al Qaeda has been driven out of most of Iraq, and now has it's lone stronghold in the north.

And they are about to get their butts stomped there too.

Not by the americans, but BY IRAQI SECURITY FORCES. It's been a long time coming, but I'm sure glad the time is here.

Here's the story from Reuters in Baghdad:

Iraqi security forces have begun a "decisive" final offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq to push the Sunni Islamist militants out of their last major stronghold in the north, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday.

[U.S. military commanders] describe Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, as al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

"We have set up an operations room in Nineveh to complete the final battle with al Qaeda along with guerrillas and members of the previous regime," Maliki said, referring to other Sunni militants the Shi'ite-led government says remain loyal to former leader Saddam Hussein.

"Today our forces started moving to Mosul. What we are planning in Nineveh will be decisive," he said during a ceremony for victims of violence in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala in southern Iraq, broadcast on state television.

"Now we have a real army. The days when the militants could do anything in front of our armed forces are gone," Maliki said.

Now you know why the economy has become the number one issue in the presidential election. It's because we are winning in Iraq. The Iraqi forces are taking control of their own country. Al Qaeda, who was responsible for the vast majority of the bombings and chaos, will be beaten. Sometime soon, the Democrats may actually become right about one thing regarding Iraq - the troops might get to start coming home, because their job will be over, as Iraqis take control of their own country, as was planned all along.

Sorry, Defeatocrats, looks like Iraq will be a success after all. Better luck next time. No, strike that. The next time, I hope you join the side of the righteous, instead of acting as useful idiot tools for the enemy.