All the Iraqi militias remain armed and organized, as are the Sunni. Clausewitz would say no war was won there.

I hope Obama and the Dems do not screw this up.

Maybe the Iraqis are running out of money too.

This sucks. -The Left

Damn it! They were supposed to wait till February.

Good, can my best friend come home now?

"Attacks in Iraq at lowest level since 2003"

HOW COME WE DON'T HEAR ANY COMMENTS FROM THE ASSHOLE LIBS?

HOW COME WE DON'T HEAR ANY COMMENTS FROM THE ASSHOLE LIBS?

You still act as if there is a war there but haven't figured out wars don't negotiate when troops are leaving the country.

HOW COME WE DON'T HEAR ANY COMMENTS FROM THE ASSHOLE LIBS?

Because they aren't coming home yet dickhead.

This is the functional equivalent of killing the AQ #3 over and over again. Who gives a fuck? If they are coming home, great! If they aren't, you're pissing into the wind.

But it is good to know the metric that defines when we've won. It will be nice to see the warmongers not moving the goalposts for once.

HOW COME WE DON'T HEAR ANY COMMENTS FROM THE ASSHOLE LIBS?

#7 | Posted by ozzieoswald

It is very good news.

Hey, have you started working on that grammar school education you think all posters should have yet Oozie. Lead by example, man.

"This sucks. -The Left"

Woohoo! What a great victory for the US. We blew our entire treasury and lost 4,000 of our best people and Iraq is back to square one! - The few idiots who still won't admit they've been wrong all along.

HOW COME WE DON'T HEAR ANY COMMENTS FROM THE ASSHOLE LIBS?

#7 | Posted by ozzieoswald

'kay, I'll bite, even though you just called me an asshole.

It's very good to see that attacks on civilian and military targets alike have gone down; I don't think anyone's arguing that. This war has claimed the lives of enough American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. But a reduction in violence levels doesn't indicate that we can assume that we're winning, or that the war is anywhere near over.

Right now we're seeing a transitional phase in Iraq. As you probably know, we'll see the new security agreement in place beginning January 1, where we will follow a steady timeline for the withdrawl of our troops. With any shift in power (in this case, taking away the responsibility of police actions and security from US troops and giving them to Iraqi forces) will come changes.

For all we know, the terrorist groups and insurgent militias are biding their time - waiting for US troop levels to go down and trying to lull the less experienced Iraqi forces into a false sense of security. This is obviously pure speculation on my part, but my point stands - we have no way to truly know why violence levels are decreasing.

Yes, it's a good thing, but it doesn't mean that we can become overconfident.

Woohoo! What a great victory for the US. We blew our entire treasury and lost 4,000 of our best people and Iraq is back to square one! - The few idiots who still won't admit they've been wrong all along.

#11 | Posted by Sully

What's the alternative that would float your boat? And your can't "Turn back Time", Cher.

your=you.

We should never forget how we got dragged into Bush's web of eternal failure, who dragged us there, and how it was done.

Reagan was a boob, but his minders did hand him one decent quote to play with: "Trust but verify." (Of course, it wasn't his own line; few of them were. The guy was a not-so-good actor. Bush & Co. are bad actors, and that needs to be remembered. Complete POS operation.)

"But a reduction in violence levels doesn't indicate that we can assume that we're winning, or that the war is anywhere near over."

Basically, the cheerleaders don't even understand what the fuck they are shaking their poms-poms for..........

Our idiot Commander in Chief has defined "victory" in Iraq as "Iraq turns into a thriving, US friendly democracy". First off, it isn't a military goal. Secondly, it puts "victory" completely in the hands of Iraqis, who hate us and each other. A reduction is violence doesn't necessarily mean we are any closer to this ridiculous goal. As soon as we leave, these savages will be at each other's throats again. It isn't as if things are so fucking good over there that they've dropped their own beliefs and adopted a new way of live - and that is really the only way they won't go back trying to dominate each other once we leave. You have to be a real Polly Anna to think that Iraqis are going to continue to act the way we'd like them to once we take the boot off their neck.

"What's the alternative that would float your boat? And your can't "Turn back Time", C"

Admit we were wrong. Pull out. Stop wasting money over there. Learn from the mistake. On our way out explain to Iraqis that we don't care what the fuck they do to each other but if they start hosting terrorists who attack Americans we will bomb them to hell and they will never even see their attackers.

Why would anyone be so stupid as to think Americans should care whether people who hate us have democracy or not?

"This is the functional equivalent of killing the AQ #3 over and over again. Who gives a fuck? "

Al Qaeda probably.

Two million Iraqis of African American descent are now raising their voices to be treated with dignity and equality. Thanks to Bush for creating a new order in the society --- thanks for breaking the fallow ground. Now hope may spring up and grow and bear fruit!

And thanks to Barack Obama for giving these Iraqis of African descent a reason to hope. If the US can open the White House (built by African slaves) for an African American, why can't Iraq treat its African descent citizens who has been in the nation for over a thousand years with justice and equality.

Two million Iraqis of African American descent...

#19 | Posted by takitez

???

So it only took Bush 5 1/2 years to bribe al queda enough that attacks are down to where they were BEFORE Bush invited them in? Anybody got attack figures from Japan or Germany in 150-51 for comparisn?

A Victory of Custerian magnitude to be sure. Meanwhile , the shia and sunni militias are quietly wheeling and dealing to get their turf settled. Iranian ayatollah sistani is the Deciderer-in-Chief in Iraq and the government 4300 Americans died to install sentenced an Iraqi to death for visiting Israel.

Mission Allfuckedup.

On our way out explain to Iraqis that we don't care what the fuck they do to each other but if they start hosting terrorists who attack Americans we will bomb them to hell and they will never even see their attackers.
Posted by Sully

Right. That would go over well both at home and the Middle East. We don't have the balls to talk that tough to Iran, Packistan et al.

ooops, 2 million African Iraqis. Thx Sanantoniorogue.

So...the war ends and is won when we pull out our troops?

I guess WW2 is still going on as we have multiple bases in Germany and other European nations as well as Japan.

I guess the Korean war is still going on then as well.

Face it, the fact is that: WE THE USA, walked into Iraqi and destroyed the 8th largest army in the world in matter of weeks. We then established the ability for the Iraqis to have a free election - something that they have not had in thousands of years.

The expansive growth of the Iraqi economy after the war taxed the reconstruction of the power grid (which is pumping 5X the electic wattage than before) and the rest of the countries infrastructure.

Iran and Syria along with Al Queda seeked to undermine our occupation with an insurgency that was support by the Democratic members of our own Senate (Harry Ried and the white flag as well as others)

Instead of backing down like the insurgents expected...we added troops (the surge) which gave hope to our allies and turned the tide.

This bought additional time for Iraqi force training and resulting in us reducing the Al Queda force in Iraq from over 15,000 to now less than 1000 with the extermination of most of the leadership.

We went into Basara (which the UK had abandoned) with the Iraqis themselves taking the lead and virtually wiped out the Sadr Army effectively ending the "religious" war that was being fermented by Iran and Syria.

We have build multiple Schools, hospitals, power plants, we rediverted water to restore a massive wetlands that Saddam had ruined.

We now have put in place a country with a constitution, elected officials, and a focus on thier own populace.

No..it isn't perfect..there is corruption - like Chicago in the US or NYC. There is death by criminals - Like Washington DC. There is a budget mess...like Washington DC. But come to Iraq 5 years from now and ask them if it was worth it.

They will say yes. Which is something you do not understand ...liberty is worth dying for.

George W. Bush won the war despite the dems active efforts to lose it like they did in Vietnam.

"Right. That would go over well both at home and the Middle East. We don't have the balls to talk that tough to Iran, Packistan et al."

We're talking about Iraq. We are occupying their country, I don't think we've been very shy with Iraqis so I don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

Basically, you want to keep following Bush's plan of wasting lives and money until the day Iraqis collectively decide they want to be Jr. Americans. I don't know how servicement need to die over there before you people can just admit it was a stupid idea and I really don't care to find out. I tell you the pragmatic way to get out of this fuckup and you say I'm unrealistic based on this ridiculous notion that we are shy. Once we drop the pretense about "spreading democracy", there is no reason for us to be all touchy-feely with these nutcases.

I predict we will win the Iraq war and lose in Afghanistan.

Anyone who quotes Cher is an obvious political genius. Obvious.

Anyone who quotes Cher is an obvious political genius. Obvious.

#28 | Posted by LetUsPrey

It didn't take you long to find me today. Better let Delux know.

"I predict we will win the Iraq war and lose in Afghanistan.

#27 | Posted by shirtsbyeric "

I thought I just saw a recent headline saying attacks were at a low in Afghanistan too.

With both Iraq and Afghanistan, "winning" isn't up to us. It is up to the citizens to decide how they want their country's to work. We can't keep our troops there patrolling the streets forever. If they want islamic radicalism they'll have it. I'm guessing that's more likely in Afghanistan though. Iraq being in the heart of the middle east and with its vast oil supplies will probably resemble Saudi Arabia (not necessarily a good thing, but could be worse).

This was the article I saw:

Al Qaeda probably.

Crunch all yah want, we'll make more.

-Gitmo

George W. Bush won the war despite the dems active efforts to lose it like they did in Vietnam.

#25 | Posted by fwthom

Tell me. What did you win?

"Crunch all yah want, we'll make more.

-Gitmo

#32 | Posted by IraqiBukkake"

Thankfully not for much longer

George W. Bush won the war despite the dems active efforts to lose it like they did in Vietnam.

That being said is long overdue. We keep hearing that we never learned anything from Vietnam but our enemies learned plenty! Give the libs in the US enough rope & they'll hang us all. The dems have put themselves in the unenviable position that what is good for America, particularly the military, is bad for them politically. I'm not questioning their patriotism, I'm questioning their judgement. Say what you will about Bush but he's no poll-watching, pussy waiting for "approval" like Reid, Pelosi, and the working leadership of the left. Everyone talks about Bush goes his own way, blah, blah, but being a commander sometimes means making a strategy and working it. OB is running to the right and we call it "changing to accommodate current conditions". The Office of the President Elect has that luxury whereas the Office of the President oftentimes does not. I will reserve my judgement on OB's decisions when he isn't calling plays from the side-lines & he isn't Monday-morning quarterbacking, and the good Lord bless him, he has my support as my CIC.
Now if we could just get the Hollywood elitists and protesting hippies and the "baby killer" insult attack dogs to get down on their knees & beg our Vietnam vets for forgiveness, we will have truly learned a lesson from Vietnam! We aren't perfect but we are the light of the world & I'm proud to say it. Our troops are doing a good thing for the right reasons politics aside, regardless of the mission, the soldiers are lions, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, WWI & II, everywhere they've been sent Always have been. LIONS!

...liberty is worth dying for.

WELL SAID!

Yup, its largely up to the Iraqis themselves now. If they continue to decide that profitability for everybody trumps infighting they will move ahead. If they don't, it will be a problem, but a problem for them to deal with. They have a constitution, and elected government, and a greatly improved army and police force.

I am not too sure about the militias lying low as some worry. AQ is not popular with the Sunnis, let alone the Shia and the Kurds. They will cause some trouble, but not take over the country. Al Sadr's big gripe has been our troops there, but they are leaving and the folks in Basra and Sadr City were glad to see his militia off the street and the Iraqi army back. The Sons of Iraq are a wild card. If Sadr decides to restart the war, or the Iraqi government does not give them due credit and make sure their needs are met, it could be a big source of trouble.

"Yup, its largely up to the Iraqis themselves now. If they continue to decide that profitability for everybody trumps infighting they will move ahead."

Money almost always seems to trump religion. That's why I think Iraq will actually end up much more stable than Afghanistan over the years.

"Tell me. What did you win?"

Well, we bankrupted our treasury while killing 4,000 Americans and the US dollar in the process. And Americans get? NOTHING. Iraq was not a threat before the war and if things work for the best won't be a threat after. Only a complete imbecile would believe that killing 4,000 servicement at the cost of billions to get back to where we were is some kind of victory.

But for some reason, these dumbfucks try to wrap themselves in the flag while supporting policies that kill Americans and harms many more.

Thankfully, nobody is buying it anymore.

The principal foriegn policy tool of the United States is not the Defense or State Department. It is bribery. Give elSadre a million bucks and he is willing to lie low for a while. Then you declare victory. This is the only reason some progress appears to have been made during the so-called "surge".

Count every dollar spent and every life fucked up by Iraq, and then tell me again how it was "worth it".
Idiots.

"This is the only reason some progress appears to have been made during the so-called "surge"."

It is certainly a reason, but it is not the only reason. Increased American troop presence and the Iraqi Security Forces growing in numbers and experience has contributed to the stability as well.

Maybe everything you do is symbolic & fake but don't put it on everyone else. As I said, our enemies learned plenty from the left. Thanks for the continuing education.

The good news keeps on coming.

Let's bring home the troops. They are/were courageous and persistent.

Awesome.

Sully,

What did we win?

We got rid of a dictator that was funding suicide bombers in Israel and had his sights set on us.

We got rid of a Facist government and proved that the US would not cut and run which bolsters our support in the world as we continue the fight on terror.

We killed over 9000 Afgan trained Al Queda fighters ( not to mention the Syrian and Iranian ones) that would have been fermenting hatred against the US.

By the way - They were Al Queda and out to kill us BEFORE Gitmo..that is how they got there in the first place. Gitmo did not create more ...you cannot create something that has already been created.

We have won a much safer world and have taken the fight to the enemy instead of being a Clinton and watching our people get killed though multiple attacks and do NOTHING about it until they finally got us on US soil...or did you forget about 911.

Iraq was not directly related to 911....but by using it as a way to "drain the swamp" of the middle east of its most viralent antiamericans we are now safer.

We have won a much safer world and have taken the fight to the enemy

Roger THAT!!!

FACTAPALOOZA!!!

"Iraq was not directly related to 911....but by using it as a way to "drain the swamp" of the middle east of its most viralent antiamericans we are now safer."

Dream on, dream on
Dream yourself a dream come true
Dream on, dream on
Dream until your dream come true
Dream on, dream on, dream on...

FACTOID-O-RAMA!!!!

"We got rid of a dictator that was funding suicide bombers in Israel and had his sights set on us."

"Gitmo did not create more ...you cannot create something that has already been created."

"More" was already created?

Hans

"you cannot create something that has already been created."

C'mon, you've got to be joking.
Of course you can create more.
By adding to something.
Get it?

"We have won a much safer world"

Conventional wisdom among the unthinking.
Try this: Prove it.

"We got rid of a dictator that was funding suicide bombers in Israel"

Not true. He was sending money to their families after th fact. At that is Israel's problem, not ours.

"and had his sights set on us."

This is a proven lie.

"We got rid of a Facist government and proved that the US would not cut and run which bolsters our support in the world as we continue the fight on terror."

Iraq has undermined our support in fighting terror.

"We killed over 9000 Afgan trained Al Queda fighters ( not to mention the Syrian and Iranian ones) that would have been fermenting hatred against the US."

At the expense of ignoring their leaders in Afghanistan.

"By the way - They were Al Queda and out to kill us BEFORE Gitmo..that is how they got there in the first place. Gitmo did not create more ...you cannot create something that has already been created."

This has nothing to do with Iraq nor did anyone say Al Queda didn't exist before Gitmo. You are pissing in the wind on this one.

"We have won a much safer world and have taken the fight to the enemy"

Actually, Iraq distracted us from fighting our enemy in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Your "much safer world" comment is an opinion - a very poorly informed one at that. Iraq was more stable and not a threat to us at all before the war.

"Iraq was not directly related to 911...."

Not related at all despite attempts by traitors like you to mislead.

"but by using it as a way to "drain the swamp" of the middle east of its most viralent(sic) antiamericans we are now safer."

Iraqis weren't the biggest threat to us at any ponit. You are lying about that. Not only that, but there is zero reason to believe Iraqis aren't anti-American now. Saddam had them under his boot and kept them in line. Now they can elect people who reflect their dislike of of us. There is no reason to believe a democratic Iraq is less of a threat to us considering Iraq was ZERO threat before the war.

Everything you said is either blatantly false or just very naive opinion.

4,000 Americans died in Iraq for no reason as people like you cheered on..... You assholes killed more Americans than Al Queda did on 9/11.

"You can't cite your enemy's delusional hopes as a basis for a rational strategy."

I'll bet sending 19 (or 20) muslims here to hijack and crash planes into buildings seemed pretty delusional back in the mid 90s.

Not saying Iraq was a good idea by far, just sometimes delusional hopes work out.

Iraq was NEVER a threat to us. He had neither the means nor the motive to launch a trans-Atlantic War against us. During a decade long embargo Iraq did business with Haliburton and Pennzoil. There were no al Qaida in Iraq until we moved in and became their target.

Hussein was our partner in assasinating Democratically elected Arab Leaders in Iraq and gasing Iranians. We assasinated Iran's Democraticallly elected Presidents replacing them with the Shah twice.

Arabs would like to live normal lives, but Israel and local dictators whom we support have made this nearly impossible.

No one should pretend that, since we didn't find any WMDs, the real reason we went in was to help the Iraqi people realize freedom and Democracy. That's just another ridiculous excuse invented after all the other excuses collapsed. In 1995 Cheney and the PNAC had demanded Clinton invade and stated that they needed a "Pearl Harbor like event" in order to create support for such and attack. The seized on 9-11 as just such an event. O'Neil has stated that the Bush Administration began talking about invading Iraq on day one.

"Arabs would like to live normal lives, but Israel and local dictators whom we support have made this nearly impossible."

Give me a break. Israel affects a very small percentage of Arabs negatively. Their dictators have nothing to do with us.

There's a difference between being against the war in Iraq and buying into every piece of propoganda our enemies put out their. The Middle East sucks because of Middle Easterners. They will never improve their lot by scapegoating us.

Foshaffer: ease off the kool-aid, bro.

The world does not support us "as we continue the fight on terror." In fact, we've managed to piss off the majority of the world, including our allies. The only reason England stuck with us in Iraq for so long was because Tony Blair is almost as big of a tool as W is.

The American public and Congress were duped into supporting an unnecessary invasion of a soverign country. Iraq had no link to 9/11. They never had WMDs. Saddam had no capability to launch an attack on the US itself. And yet, we attacked anyway, waving our flags and beating our chests and singing about Democracy and Freedom and all that. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and over four thousand American soldiers, lost their lives because of this war.

Yes, we've killed a lot of Al Qaeda operatives and higher-ups. But if anything, that's going to only engender more hatred of the US in the remaining members of Al Qaeda, and our continued military actions do nothing but to make them more angry and give them more rope to hang us with.

How do you define a "much safer world"? Because violence levels in Iraq and Afghanistan are down? Or are you going to bring up that tired old "there hasn't been an attack on the homeland since 9/11!" argument? How is that possibly proof? Just because there hasn't been an attack yet doesn't mean there won't be one.

We haven't "drained the swamp of the middle east of its most viralent [sic] antiamericans." All we've done is give the extremist Muslims over there a reason to hate us more. That's the thing a lot of people fail to understand - the more of them our troops kill, the more the survivors hate us. The longer we're there, the angrier they get. We're not battling a nation. We're battling an idea - the idea that the US is the "Great Satan."

And you know what? You can't fight ideas with bullets.

(anyone who gets that reference is cool in my book)

The "war" in Iraq was a lie. Military action based on lies does not defend liberty; it insults those who truly believe in liberty.

And to those who would believe that we are now safer than before 9/11, a new report now makes a grim forecast: the United States is likely to be hit by a terrorist biological or nuclear attack by 2013.

HOW COME WE DON'T HEAR ANY COMMENTS FROM THE ASSHOLE LIBS?

Maybe GWB stopped paying for the attacks to occur?

PROVOST MARSHAL BARRED FROM ENTERING SECRET ROOM INSIDE MORGAN STANLEY
In October 2007, the Provost Marshal of the day, with appropriate back-up, visited the offices of Morgan Stanley in New York City. We alluded to the activities of the Provost Marshal extensively in our reports dated between 4th October 2007 and 11th November 2007 [see Archive]. The Provost Marshal at that time was under the control of (criminal) Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

Our impeccable sources were unable to inform the Editor, but are now able to inform us, that:

The Provost Marshal and his team attempted to obtain entry to a locked room inside the Morgan Stanley building. They were specifically barred from entering this room, by Morgan Stanley staff, who stood outside the doors and prevented them from entering.

The purpose of the Provost Marshal's demand for entry to this room was to obtain back-up evidence that Morgan Stanley, the CEO of which remains John Mack, was engaged in financing terrorism operations in general, and Al-Qaeda in particular, from this room.

How did the Provost Marshal know this? Because following the arrests bankers in Europe which we also reported during that period, investigators had obtained tear-sheets PROVING that such terrorism financing operations were being run out of this room at Morgan Stanley. Specifically, the tear-sheets carried the finger-prints of the following criminal operatives holding the highest US offices: George H. W. Bush Sr., Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Henry M. Paulson Jr., Dr. Alan Greenspan, William Jefferson Clinton, and Mrs Hillary Clinton (these being the names confirmed to us, but of course there were others, too). The tear-sheets referenced key secret bank accounts, access to which was blocked off and which the Provost Marshal, controlled by Cheney at the time, was unable to inspect. At the time, our sources were ordered NOT to convey this information to us.

SECRET ROOM FROM WHICH AL-QAEDA AND OTHER TERRORIST OPERATIONS WERE FUNDED
We are told that this room housed contracts and other documents relating to the use of funds in the secret bank accounts referenced immediately above.

The operations directed from this secret Morgan Stanley room or office suite were concerned SPECIFICALLY with the terrorist-financing of Al-Qaeda and other international terrorism operations, according to our sources. This means that, as stated above, ALL those named by military sources as beneficiaries of the secret 'offshore' accounts, headed by Mr Paulson as US Treasury Secretary, were engaged in the diversion of illicit funds for the purposes of financing terrorism and Al-Qaeda, which the United States and Britain routinely blame for the terrorist abominations that are being financed through these operations run out of the secret office inside Morgan Stanley.

"George W. Bush won the war...."

God this makes me so tired----If the enemies of the United States in Iraq are still armed and organized (they are) no war was won there.

more truck bombings today,more tribal elders assasinated,more government employees killed,more american soldiers dead..how anyone can say this war is won is beyond me..i personaly think the insurgent groups are only biding their time and it will all be back to how it was a couple of years ago. a war without end unfortunately.

Woohoo! What a great victory for the US. We blew our entire treasury and lost 4,000 of our best people and Iraq is back to square one! - The few idiots who still won't admit they've been wrong all along.

#11 | Posted by Sully at 2008-12-04 09:26 AM | Reply | Flag:

1 in 5 is hardly "a few".

Sectarian violence is down because all the killing was basically taken care of. Read the pentagon report. It wasn't the surge that ended the violence, it was "successful" violence that did it. Few iraqi targets left the insurgents wish to kill.

A handful of Saudi terrorists kill 3,000 Americans. So what does Bush do? Goes into the wrong country, and kills over 4,000 Americans.

5 million Iraqis are killed and displaced.

Now that less Americans and Iraqis are dying, Bush deserves a pat on the back for a heckuva job.

.........we turned Iraq over to the same people who rule Iran.......

......not worth the blood and money........

I'm sure the families of the several soldiers who were killed this week are rejoicing over this news!

Leave it to the right to rejoice in the deaths of our soldiers and to try and politicize it.

Way to go! You only have the blood of 4000 dead soldiers on your hands! Be proud!