Clipmarks | n2sooners's 'iraq war' clips

Why can't Obama admit the obvious

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:33:58 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: Even USAToday (who thinks the world would be a better and safer place if Saddam was still in charge of Iraq) is baffled by Obama's reluctance to admit the truth.

Clip Source: minx.cc

I don't want to knock USAToday too much for an editorial I agree with, but it is ironic that USAToday is bashing Obama for not admitting the surge worked, when, as far as I know, this is the very first time USAToday admitted it themselves.

Why then can't Obama bring himself to acknowledge the surge worked better than he and other skeptics, including this page, thought it would? What does that stubbornness say about the kind of president he'd be?

The great irony, of course, is that the success of the surge has made Obama's plan to withdraw combat troops in 16 months far more plausible than when he proposed it. Another irony is that while Obama downplays the effectiveness of the surge in Iraq, he is urging a similar tactic now in Afghanistan.

Perhaps it's too much to ask that Obama risk being taunted by headlines such as "Obama says Bush was right." But for the nation to move forward on its single most vexing debate, it would help if the next president could admit the obvious

Tags: usatoday, msm, media, obama, iraq, surge, war on terror, success, politics

Majority sees US winning war on terror

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:13:56 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: headingright.com

Over half of American voters (51%) now believe the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, the highest figure recorded in nearly four years by Rasmussen Reports in a nationwide survey.

Only 16% now think the terrorists are on top, while 27% view it as a stalemate. Prior to this week’s survey, the number who believe the terrorists are winning had never fallen below 20%.

Last July, just 36% thought the U.S. and its allies were winning. At that time, an equal number—36%–thought the terrorists were ahead … Only 23% now expect things to get worse in Iraq, down from 49% last July.

Appears those on the left may be losing their primary source of criticism. UH-OH. So when the polling was down he was a loser and wasn’t listening to the American Public. So I can only assume that now the left will pat him on the back and say good going, keep it up.

I AM WAITING LEFTIES!!!

Tags: war on terror, iraq, politics, success

Obama is wrong

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:53:16 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks:

While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks.

Mr. Obama's account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered.

Tags: obama, iraq, war on terror, afghanistan, pakistan, al qaeda, politics

Media dragging economy down

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:03:21 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.rasmussenreports.com

Only 34% of Americans believe the United States has the world’s best economy, but 50% believe the media makes economic conditions appear worse than they really are, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Only a quarter (25%) think reporters and media outlets present an accurate picture of the economy and 18% believe they actually portray it as better than it is. Just 34% trust reporters more when it comes to news on the economy, and 32% see stockbrokers as more reliable.

A plurality of Americans (41%) similarly believe that the media has tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is, while 26% say reporters have made it look better than reality and 25% think they’ve portrayed it accurately.

Over half of unaffiliated voters (55%) share this negative assessment of the media’s economic reporting.

Tags: economy, politics, media, msm, bias

Media reports Bush didn't lie

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 06:16:45 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: In other news, Satan builds a ski resort and the car wash business is up sharply due to cars being soiled by flying pigs.

Sorry for skimping on the AP quote, I hear they start charging at five words so I cut it down to four.

Clip Source: www.floppingaces.net

New York Times 6/5/08

public statements from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other senior officials were generally “substantiated” by the best estimates at the time from American intelligence agencies

Washington Post

the phony “Bush lied” story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

Los Angeles Times

Rockefeller’s highly partisan report does not substantiate its most explosive claims.

what did his report actually find? That Iraq-Al Qaeda links were “substantiated by intelligence information.” The same goes for claims about Hussein’s possession of biological and chemical weapons, as well as his alleged operation of a nuclear weapons program

New York Sun

Quoth Senator Rockefeller: “Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.” Well not exactly

Associated Press

intelligence supported

administration’s statements

Tags: bush, bush administration, iraq, al qaeda, war on terror, lies, politics, truth

Chris Matthews' Russert Eulogy: Like a Belch in Church

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:58:52 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: In an uncharacteristic moment of staggering truth, Mr. Olbermann then paraphrased news doyen Barbara Walters in noting, "This is a loss for the country. This is a loss in terms of the ability to get information from an honest broker -- someone who managed a neutrality that the rest of us dream of, perhaps. How big is that gap that we have now seen opened today...How big is the loss, and how on earth is the American public going to fill it in terms of getting the information it needs for the vital choices ahead?"

Mr. Matthews wisely dodged the query, perhaps because the answer is painfully obvious. Having the Olbermann-Matthews dynamic duo discuss this valid question would qualify as satire of the highest order.

Clip Source: scottott.blogtownhall.com

Asked by a justifiably teary-eyed Keith Olbermann to reflect on the sudden death, Mr. Matthews professed his love and admiration, calling Mr. Russert "everyman", a "true patriot", "Mr. America" -- by which he meant that the Meet the Press moderator had supported the Iraq invasion because of the trumped-up threat of nukes.

In other words, Mr. Matthews clearly implied, Tim Russert was like the rest of you rubes who were suckered by Bush.

Less than two minutes into his fond memories of his departed colleague, Mr. Matthews called Mr. Russert's privately-expressed concern about atomic terrorists "the essence of what was wrong with the whole case for the war."

It's hard to fathom a soul so craven that he would use a eulogy to resurrect his timeworn attack on the stagecraft of the Bush administration.

In a nutshell, we're all just a bunch of hard-working dopes like Tim Russert.

"Tim was...us, the American people," said Mr. Matthews.

Of course, by 'us' he doesn't mean 'me and you', just 'you'.

Tags: olbermann, russert, matthews, msm, media, bias, politics

Dem says surge opposition was reverse psychology

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:13:02 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: minx.cc

Democratic Rep: By Opposing the Surge, We Actually Encouraged the President to Enact the Surge, Which in Turn Resulted in Victory... and You're Welcome

Great post from Jeff Emmanuel. This is the same Democrat Rep who recently admitted Democrats had "stretched the facts" about the feasibility and prudence of a quick withdrawal from Iraq, just to win the election.

Now he makes this curious claim:

In February 2007, Kanjorski went to the floor of the House to say:

Ms. Speaker, I rise today to join the overwhelming majority of the American people, the Congress, and many top U.S. military commanders to voice my opposition to President Bush's ill-conceived plan to send more American troops into the middle of an ongoing Civil War in Iraq.
Then, in an interview from just days ago, Kanjorski said:

We've taken public positions which have now forced the president to go into the surge mentality, which is somewhat working.

[Video]

Tags: democrat, surge, iraq, war on terror, politics, wtf

What is success?

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:37:14 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks: This doesn't mean it is over. It doesn't mean things can't change. What it does mean is we are on the right path and it would be pure ignorance to depart from that path now.

Clip Source: www.aswataliraq.info

Baghdad, May 31, (VOI) – The CIA has declared that al-Qaeda is virtually defeated in Iraq and that the country is seeing its lowest level of violence for four years, according to the British newspaper The Times.

Nineteen US military personnel have died in Iraq this month, according to the Pentagon, making May the least deadly month for US troops since the beginning of the war, writes journalist Tim Reid in an article.

The deadliest month for US troops was May 2007, when 126 died as the insurgency in Baghdad raged.

Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, a US spokesman, said violent incidents in Iraq were down 70 per cent since President Bush ordered a “surge” of 35,000 extra troops into the country last year.

In April, 75 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police were killed, the lowest level since November 2004.

Tags: iraq, war on terror, military, success

General McClellan's War

Sat, 31 May 2008 18:47:46 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

The problem is that Mr. McClellan presents no major new detail to support his conclusions about Iraq, or even about the Administration's deliberations about how to sell the war. This may be because he was the deputy press secretary for domestic issues during the run-up to war and thus rarely attended war strategy sessions. His talking points are merely the well-trod claims that the Administration oversold the evidence about WMD and al Qaeda.

Three independent investigations have looked into these claims, and all of them concluded that political actors did not skew intelligence to sell the war.

As we read it, the real critical lesson in Mr. McClellan's book concerns personnel and management. Despite his MBA pedigree, Mr. Bush often failed to mediate his Administration's many internal disputes

Mr. Bush also tolerated too many mediocrities for too long, either out of loyalty or Texas ties. On that point at least, Mr. McClellan is persuasive.

Tags: mcclellan, iraq, war on terror, politics, book

Depends on the meaning of "all"

Fri, 30 May 2008 07:50:07 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners
clipper's remarks:

For Kurtz and the rest of the MSM, then, the concept of “tell-all” has little to do with the amount of actual information revealed, or its quality. The key, instead, is the amount of vitriol directed at (in this case) a president the MSM dislikes.

Clip Source: www.powerlineblog.com

Kurtz refers to McClellan’s book as an example of the “tell-all” genre.

whether this amounts to a “tell-all” depends on how much McClellan actually knows, and this is the subject of considerable doubt. Though I haven’t read his book, I do know that it is devoid of footnotes, endnotes, and supporting documentation.

Feith’s book stands in sharp contrast. First, unlike McClellan, Feith was at the center of the policy-making at issue. Second, his book provides detailed accounts of key meetings based on contemporaneous notes. And it includes more than 30 pages of original source material plus almost 90 pages of endnotes. Readers can thus determine for themselves whether the author is providing a reliable account or merely settling scores and/or trying to make a buck (Feith, by the way, is donating all proceeds from his book to help Iraq war veterans). Yet the MSM is breathless over McClellan’s book, while it continues studiously to ignore Feith's.

Tags: media, msm, bias, mcclellan, feith, iraq, war on terror, politics

Surge still succeeding

Fri, 30 May 2008 04:37:00 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

BAGHDAD — This May has been one of the least violent months of the Iraq war. The relative calm follows a cease-fire agreement by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia in the face of steady pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Eighteen U.S. servicemembers have been identified as having died in Iraq so far in May, according to the Pentagon. To date, the least deadly month of the five-year war was February 2004, when 21 U.S. troops were killed in a 29-day period. The number of wounded also has fallen.

Overall, militant attacks in Iraq have dropped to levels not seen since spring 2004, U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll said this week. Attacks are down 70% since President Bush ordered a U.S. troop increase, or "surge," early last year.

"We're seeing progress because we're getting more capability out of the Iraqi security forces," said Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the number two U.S. commander in Iraq.

Tags: surge, iraq, war on terror, military, politics

Pelosi says surge a success, credits Iran...

Fri, 30 May 2008 03:02:16 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: ace.mu.nu

Having blurted out, probably accidentally, that the surge was in fact successful, Granny Rictus McBotoxImplants now scrambles to credit the enemy nation murdering our troops with the victory our troops accomplished through blood, sweat, tears, and more blood.

It's not our troops. It's not Petraeus' leadership. It's not the Iraqis turning on the Al Qaeda murderers. No -- it's Iran's goodwill.

And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

Now on Drudge...

Nancy Pelosi proudly declares Iran has agreed to a 25% reduction
in the terror-bomb murdering of our troops. She says she hopes that
further "goodwill" from Iran might result in 33% reductions in the "near furture." ""With further careful diplomacy," she says, "it could be that only 15-25 American troops are being murdered by our Iranian friends per month."

Tags: pelosi, iraq, iran, war on terror, politics, wtf

Iraq media coverage drops 92% in one year

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:35:35 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: gatewaypundit.blogspot.com

Democracy Project analyzes a recent report published at the American Journalism Review titled: "Whatever Happened to Iraq?"

In a media shocker...

This past year Iraq has disappeared from the front pages of the nation's newspapers and from the nightly network newscasts.

Network news devoted to Iraq dropped from 23% to 3% (92% decline) compared to last year:

Cable news dedicated to Iraq dropped even further from 24% to 1% over last year:

Print news dedicated to Iraq dropped 70% over last year.

Related... Don't expect to see this on the American networks:
The following is a translation by Iraqi-American Haider Ajina from the Iraqi Buratha News:

Baghdad Parks & Recreation department Invites families to visit Abu-Nawass Gardens

Tags: media, msm, bias, iraq, war on terror, surge, politics

McCain broadsides Obama

Thu, 29 May 2008 07:55:58 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.floppingaces.net

He could see the fact that Sadr City is quiet. He could see that the Maliki government is taking control of Basra. He could see that the Iraqi military is leading the fight in these places with the support of American troops. And to say that we failed in Iraq and that we’re not succeeding, does not comport with the facts on the ground.

if we set a date for withdrawal, which Senator Obama wants to do, there will be chaos. There will be genocide. There will be increased Iranian influence there, and we will have to go back with further sacrifice of American blood and treasure.

Senator Obama has said, as you know, that he wants to sit down without any preconditions with the President of Iran, Ahmadinejad. He has said that he wants to sit down with a leader of a country that a few days ago called Israel a quote, ’stinking corpse’.

Now, why is it that Senator Obama wants to sit down with the President of Iran, but hasn’t yet sat down with General Petraeus, the leader of our troops in Iraq?

[Video]

Tags: mccain, obama, iraq, war on terror, military, politics

Pelosi snubbed in Iraq

Sun, 18 May 2008 05:01:15 GMT

clipped by: n2sooners

Clip Source: www.time.com

Pelosi is something of a nonentity to average Iraqis. If they know who she is at all, she is generally seen as an antiwar caricature figure, someone whose views on U.S. troop withdrawals are widely considered unrealistic.

Not even Mahdi Army militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, the fiercest advocate of a U.S. withdrawal on the scene, has called for such a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The lack of popularity of Pelosi's views was evident in the fact that her first day on the ground Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not make an effort to see her. Maliki is currently in the northern city of Mosul overseeing a crackdown on insurgent networks there. But the city has been largely quiet in recent days, and there was no obvious pressing reason for the prime minister to skip Pelosi's arrival.

Pelosi may not get much more warmth from the American military leaders she plans to meet either.

Tags: pelosi, iraq, war on terror, baghdad, politics, millitary