How desperate?

Who said this: Iraq "Could Be One of the Great Achievements of This Administration"?

Joe Biden. That's right. The President that ran on pulling out of Iraq and bashed Bush for Iraq is now claiming a stable, peacefulish, freeish Iraq as a win.

Pretty desperate.

More on Military stuff.

The "Insurgents" in Iraq are having trouble. Money is getting harder to get, arms are getting more expensive, and trained people are either being killed, captured, or leaving.
Which has caused the IED to morph into the "homemade grenade".
StrategyPage has more.


Recently I was talking with a friend about how Russia lost so many aircraft to the relatively weak Georgian air defenses and that the Russians had very poor performance in their bombing accuracy. Well, Strategypage has an article on that exact subject. Russia's problem in Georgia.

Contrast Iraq of 2006 & Iraq of 2008

Pulitzer winner Dexter Filkins of the NYT writes on how Iraq has changed since he was last there in 2006.

But if this is not peace, it is not war, either — at least not the war I knew. When I left Iraq in the summer of 2006, after living three and a half years here following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, I believed that evil had triumphed, and that it would be many years before it might be stopped. Iraq, filled with so many people living so close together, nurturing dark and unknowable grievances, seemed destined for a ghastly unraveling.

And now, in the late summer of 2008, comes the calm. Violence has dropped by as much as 90 percent. A handful of the five million Iraqis who fled their homes — one-sixth of all Iraqis — are beginning to return. The mornings, once punctuated by the sounds of exploding bombs, are still. Is it possible that the rage, the thirst for revenge, the sectarian furies, have begun to fade? That Iraqis have been exhausted and frightened by what they have seen?

Read it all. The picture isn't all rosey, but it's a breath of fresh air to see a major outlet reporting from Iraq and going beyond the casualty lists (though with the drop of voilence they've stoped doing even that).

Via Hotair.

Al Qaeda Media Massacre

Something you don't think about until someone points it out to you.

August 27, 2008: Over the last few months, al Qaedas Internet propaganda department has been virtually destroyed. The most visible evidence of that is the sharp decline in al Qaeda press releases (often accompanied by vids of attacks on U.S. or Iraqi troops). Last year, there were as many as 200 of these items a month. Over the past few months, this fell over 90 percent.
The reason for this sharp drop was the physical capture of the al Qaeda news and production staff, along with their PCs and data files. Over the last few months, several dozen of these specialists were captured or killed, and nearly a terabyte (a thousand gigabytes) of raw video, sound files, documents and software was captured. This put many key terrorist PR operations out of business. This in turn led to fewer cash donations, or volunteers for combat, or suicide missions. Moreover, the sudden collapse of the al Qaeda PR operation caused the Arab media to move towards more coverage of the Iraqi government (which was now distributing more of its own very professional combat videos).

Interview with Gen. Petraeus

Give it a listen.

ISR

Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

For years, there have been calls from Iraq and Afghanistan for more intelligence analysts, computer techs and geeks of all types. It's easier to get good infantry than it is an effective intelligence analyst. None of this gets covered much in the media, because the military, especially the army, doesn't want to talk about it. That's because they don't want the enemy to know too much about how U.S. troops can predict what the enemy will do, who they will do it with, and how they will do it. This sort of predictive analysis is nothing new. Been used for years in the commercial world. But even there, not many people paid much attention to what the bean counters and geeks were doing. However, most of the time all this analytical stuff, and the math it is based on, does work. ISR has saved thousands of American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's saved even more Iraqi lives, because it enables U.S. troops to go after the enemy with more precision, and fewer casualties among nearby civilians. So it's no wonder that the generals, and troops, want more ISR.

Very cool. There's some really interesting stuff that the media has ignored. Which in this case is for the best. Though it can get very frustrating.

I'm right, it's reality that's wrong.

Richard Fernandez of the Belmont club notes something
"Tetlock described how analysts who failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union still argued that if the coup attempts against Yeltsin had been somewhat better organized and succeeded there would still be a USSR. Hence they were almost right but they were betrayed by facts."

Hmm... alot of people are more bound to their own ideas than the actual facts and reality of events.

The link shows the obvious current examples.

He also has a post of some heroism and interesting stories from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Couple interesting combat reports

Obama Iraq

What if Obama got what he wanted?

Imagine if it were American forces fleeing Iraq in retreat, as the American Left has long urged. Al Qaeda and Iran would be surging into their new playground in Iraq, with new terrorist recruits from all over the Muslim world surging into the triumphant al Qaeda that defeated the American superpower.

Try to remember this. What would have happened if Obama et al had gotten what they wanted.
Remember this when you think of who you want in charge.
Not terribly good judgement when you put it into context is it?
Out of touch

"I strongly stand by my plan to end this war." Wake up, Barack, its over. We no longer need a "plan to end this war." Obama said, "To achieve that success, I will give our military a new mission on my first day in office: ending this war." The U.S. military has already developed, implemented, and succeeded with their plan to end this war. What would they send you next year, press clippings from this year?
Obama reiterated his commitment to remove American combat brigades within 16 months of taking office. But under current plans, there will be no American troops fighting in Iraq 16 months into the next presidential term.
....

The problem was illustrated when Obama, after one of his spring primary victories, declared, "We need to talk to our enemies, the way Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy did." Obama would do well to consider carefully Roosevelt's talks with our enemies: Japanese diplomats were in Washington for negotiations to resolve our differences peacefully on the very day that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Ah, once again Obama's stunning ignorance of history rises up to bite him.



The interesting thing about Prime Minister Maliki's comments is not the various ways its been translated or if it helps Obama (it likely will), but how it underscores how little McCain and Obama differ in Iraq policy going forward.

Obviously, both campaigns will loathe the suggestion that there's not much difference between their stands on one of the biggest issues in the campaign. But if McCain says that most of 140,000 will be leaving over the next four years, and Obama says that after 16 months the U.S. will be down to 50,000 troops in Iraq... aren't we arguing about whether the U.S. should have about 50,000 troops in Iraq after 2010 or some number less than 70,000 by 2012?

Interesting how Iraq has gone from Republican kryponite to being a non-issue that the candidates seem to agree on, at least in the most gross terms. That Obama's plan becomes less of a disaster is not due to Obama's wisdom but the situation improving beyond even his most cynical netroots pleasing expectations.

Remember, what would have happened if Obama had gotten what he wanted.
Via Glen

If we had listened to Barack Obama in 2002, Saddam Hussein (or his murderous son Qusay) would still be brutally repressing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, and some of the world's most accomplished terrorists (such as Abu Abbas, 1993 WTC bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) would still be calling Iraq home. I doubt Obama would be flying to Baghdad.

If we had listened to him in 2005-2006 when things were at their worst, then the nightmare scenario of an open Iraqi civil war fought with the backing of Saudi Arabia and Iran and verging on a wider regional war would possibly be playing out. I doubt Obama would be flying to Baghdad.

Obama can only visit Iraq now because the Surge worked. Something even now he doesn't support.


Knowing What He Knows Now, Obama... Still Would Have Opposed the Surge

Moran's close of the story: "And so, when pressed, Barack Obama says that he still would have opposed the surge but said he didn't anticipate what people here call the Iraqi surge uprising against Al Qaeda and Shi'ite extremists. He said he didn't anticipate that, but he is insisting that he is focusing forward on what needs to be done — setting that timetable for withdrawal."

So he didn't foresee the surge working, but as his adviser Susan Rice said, Obama "bows to nobody in his understanding of this world.

Stuborn Arrogance.


"I'm glad that they were all smiles on the helicopter tour of Baghdad. But lost in the photo ops is the pretty darn important point that Petraeus disagrees with Obama's withdrawal timeline."



"My opponent, Senator Obama, announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before departing on a fact-finding mission that will include visits to both those countries. Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy. Remarkable." Sen, McCain Link also has an overview of how Obama's handlers did everything in their power to keep him from making gaffes.


Victor Davis Hanson weighs in.
Yet, the more his handlers treat him like fossilized amber, the less experience he gains, guaranteeing that on almost every rare ex tempore moment he will suggest something that doesn't compute—that he might be president for 10 years, or that we need a civilian version of the Pentagon with the same $500 billion annual budget, or that someone like a Centcom commander like Petraeus doesn't have his strategic comprehensive view, or that the Anbar awakening and the Surge were not, at least in part, connected (as if the signal that we were not pulling out, [as Obama advocated] or that we were changing tactics to ensure the safety of those in the neighborhoods who would help us, did not reassure tired Sunnis to join with us in expelling al Qaeda.)

Troops Angry At Media Bias and Laziness

What else is knew?

From StrategyPage

American troops in Afghanistan are not happy with how a July 13th battle with the Taliban was reported. In that action, some 200 Taliban attacked a U.S. "base" and killed or wounded more than half the 50 or so U.S. and Afghan troops found there. Actual U.S. casualties were nine dead and fifteen wounded (including walking wounded).
U.S. troops were irked that, once again, the mass media got lazy and didn't bother to report the action accurately. For one thing, there was no "base".

At least now the real story can get out.

StrategyPage: World Terrorism Status

Wars Update: Fighting Goes Out of Fasion

If you want more of a historical and sensible view on current wars, you can do a lot worse than StrategyPage.

The War on Terror has morphed into the War Against Islamic Radicalism. This religious radicalism has always been around, for Islam was born as an aggressive movement, that used violence and terror to expand. Past periods of conquest are regarded fondly by Moslems. The current enthusiasm for violence in the name of God has been building for over half a century. Historically, periods of Islamic radicalism have flared up periodically in response to corrupt governments, as a vain attempt to impose a religious solution on some social or political problem. The current violence is international because of the availability of planet wide mass media (which needs a constant supply of headlines), and the fact that the Islamic world is awash in tyranny and economic backwardness. Islamic radicalism itself is incapable of mustering much military power, and the movement largely relies on terrorism to gain attention. Most of the victims are fellow Moslems, which is why the radicals eventually become so unpopular among their own people that they run out of new recruits and fade away. This is what is happening now. The American invasion of Iraq was a clever exploitation of this, forcing the Islamic radicals to fight in Iraq, where they killed many Moslems, especially women and children, thus causing the Islamic radicals to lose their popularity among Moslems.

The article also has summaries and links of many hotspots in the world.
A good primer to learn more about the status of the world, beyond the headlines.

Wrong then Wrong Now

Via Gateway Pundit

"The same people that are saying we have to set dates for withdrawl, are the same people that said we would fail in Iraq. They were wrong then and they're wrong now."



It's good that McCain is hammering this in.
Because alot of people would prefer to pretend that they never said Iraq was unwinnable or that the Surge would not help.

Odds and Ends

A Bridge to the 7th Century

These bizarre, frightful incidents illustrate the bottomless depravity
of America's chief enemy in Iraq. This is a glimpse of how Iraq could
look if U.S. forces prematurely withdrew, and the bad guys returned.
This also is a cautionary tale of the insanity that likely would erupt
wherever al-Qaeda or any of its allies gained power.

Finally, al-Qaeda's chilling tenure in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq
puts the lie to the notion that Islamofascists merely are defending
themselves against America's allegedly over-assertive foreign policy
and Israel's supposed anti-Muslim menace. Combating ice, cucumbers,
and wedding gowns has nothing to do with the policies of the Pentagon
or the Knesset. It's all about building a bridge to the 7th century.

Victor Davis Hanson as always has a very readable post.


More on a cynical Pol using the emotions of the masses to trick them
regardless of the actual facts.


"Editing History"
Obama's campaign has been editing his website. Removing, without explination, his remarks saying the Surge wouldn’t work.
"Yes, this will help dispel the recent "flip-flopper" talk."

From Glen Reynolds "I tried to check the Google Cache of his site,
but, interestingly, his site doesn't cache in Google. How
convenient.... It was the audacity of hopelessness, and it was a
miserable failure. He's counting on the press to make sure nobody
notices."



A couple days out of date, but still very interesting.

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the
executive-branch moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news
conference, Bush repeated his new position, and slammed the Democratic
Congress for not removing the congressional moratorium on the Outer
Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil futures for August delivery
plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as Bush was
speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

Now isn't this interesting?

Democrats keep saying that it will take 10 years or longer to produce
oil from the offshore areas. And they say that oil prices won't
decline for at least that long. And they, along with Obama and McCain,
bash so-called oil speculators. And today we had a real-world example
as to why they are wrong. All of them. Reid, Pelosi, Obama, McCain —
all of them.

This shows a massive ignorance on how commodities are priced and how
their value fluctuates, and yet the democrats (and many republicans)
want *more* control over our economy.

Fun with Google Maps on Iranian sites. Its really amazing the power avaliable to an individual person now. This used to be just the domain of nation-states, but now anyone can do it.

Happy Independance Day.

More good news from Iraq. Interestingly one has to go there to see more news of Americans doing exemplary things. Things that show some people really care about America and the values of this nation.

How did you spend Independance Day?

Prediction

There may be one issue Obama hasn't "adjusted" himself one, but Glen Reyolds makes a prediction.

Go to the link to find out (or read the tags).

It will be interesting to see how the "faithful" handle this pivot.

Aslo pointed out by Glen is Darleen Click on some things that acutally are unpatriotic.

More StrategyPage.

With Iraq calming down other more intractable problems are coming to the front

Say what you will, it is a sign of progres when the problems change in size and nature, maybe this'll be some new bad news to get Iraq in the news again.

Some stories just don't get reported...here's another big front in the "War On Terror" that keeps being ignored.

Afghanistan and Iraq

From StrategyPage Afghanistan Becomes The Most Dangerous Place

A little update about what's happening over there.

Plus this...

It's a different kind of war in Afghanistan, with the enemy taking higher losses than their Iraqi counterparts. Al Qaeda has shifted its operations to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is using the same tactics that caused it to be defeated in Iraq. Yes, it sounds idiotic. But these are the same people who believe they get 72 virgins (to abuse for eternity) when they are killed in combat, and seriously believe that if they keep fighting long enough, the world will become one big Islamic religious dictatorship, where women will live very restricted lives and all the men will wear beards. If it weren't for all the innocents these maniacs kill, it would be comic. But they do, and it isn't.

Similar to the previous post about problems in Canada. Just because it's humerous, even darkly, doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.

USAF Changes & After the War

An overview of the situation facing the US Airforce.

Then there's what the Army will do after the War.

Iraq, Iran, the Pentagon & Obama.

IRAQ: Kill Them All, Please

June 9, 2008: U.S. combat deaths (19) hit an all time low last month. This is the continuation of a trend that began a year ago. Iraqi deaths (532 civilians and security forces) were also the lowest this year, but indicate that the Iraqis have taken over most of the fighting, and were suffering over 96 percent of the combat deaths. The nature of the fighting has fundamentally changed in the last year, with the Iraqi security forces finally coming into their own, after years of recruiting, training and weeding out those who were inept, unwilling or disloyal.

U.S. troops now concentrate on mentoring Iraqi combat units, and going after key terrorist operatives (leaders, financial supporters and technicians). There are at least a dozen terrorist cells still operating, and all have to be hunted down.

Doesn't exactly sound like that old "No progress in Iraq" chestnut. Though the decreased media coverage may be a bit of a hint too, but good news doesn't get the ratings of bad news.

Related to the situation in Iraq, what would you call a person that doesn't change their opinion in light of new information?

Remember when people called Bush disconnected and ignorant for ignoring the changing (for the worse) situation in Iraq? And now that things are getting better...


LEADERSHIP: The Pentagon Gets Ready For President Obama

Here's a hint, it's not a good thing, remember change isn't always an improvement.
The Pentagon is getting ready for some fairly heafty cuts into their spending, but it's not like they'll have a war to worry about.

President Obama will make sure of that.

Well, maybe Obama wants a more "European" military model

MURPHY'S LAW: Peace Destroys the French Army

The French problem is a common one throughout Europe, where the post Cold War military is as seen more of a jobs program, to keep unemployment down, than as a serious attempt to maintain military power.

Also here's a primer about the situation in Iran.

An Open Offer to U.S. Senators

Michael Yon has an open offer to US Senators.

I hereby offer to accompany any Senator to Iraq, whether they are pro-or anti-war, Democrat or Republican. I will make this offer personally to a few select Senators as well. Our conversations during the visit would be on- or off-record, as they wish. Touring Iraq with me, as well as briefings by U.S. officers and meetings with Iraqis, would provide an accurate and nuanced account of the progress and challenges ahead, so that the Senators might have a highly informed perspective on this most critical issue. Our civilian leaders need to make decisions based on the best information available. The only way to learn what is really going on in Iraq is to go there and listen to our ground commanders, who know what they are doing. Generals Petraeus and Odierno have years of experience in Iraq, and vast knowledge of our efforts there. But the young soldiers who have done multiple tours in Iraq also have unique and invaluable perspectives as well. These young soldiers have personally witnessed the trajectory of the war shift dramatically, and can articulate those changes in concrete and specific terms. It doesn’t matter if a soldier is only twenty-something. If he or she spent two or three years in the war, that person is likely to have valuable insights. The best way to understand what is really going on is to listen closely to a wide range of service members who have done multiple tours in Iraq. Some will be negative, some will be positive, but overall I am certain that the vast majority of multi-tour Iraq veterans will testify that there has been great progress, and now there is hope. Combat veterans don’t tolerate happy talk or wishful thinking. They’ll tell you the raw truth as they see it.

I'm not alone in hoping that some will take him up on his offer.

Gone for a week.

Stuff had come up.


Here's a bunch of good posts by Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial.

Canadian Kangaroos has links to the start of the completely Orwellian and textbook definition kangaroo court (no presumption of innocence, much looser rules or procedure, sloppy evidence, and actual thought crime) against Mark Steyn.

That right there is how free speech is controlled and taken away. Read.

Splitter Has some good news on the situation of Al Qaeda

One would think this is a good thing.

Even the French are getting it.

This Is Leadership? Links to comments on Barry's judgment and leadership. Specifically in relation to his (after 20 years) former church. It looks like he threw that under the bus when it became inconvenient for the General Election.

New Politics.

You Can Take The Man Out Of The Leftist Church Where he links to Stanley Kurtz's research showing how that racist church was not such an ill-fit for Barry.

The Uncle Seems Real delves into Barry's stories. Once again it shows my main thesis of fact-checking the news. Anyone with a basic inkling of history (or even geography) would smell something fishy about Barry talking about a relative liberating Auschwitz. Given it's in Poland.

It looks like having a relative at the liberation of Buchenwald wasn't punchy enough.