Michael Yon was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt today and he had a few words for Harry Reid, one he hears quite a bit.
You’re wrong.
A few of the choice soundbites:
HH: Now yesterday, Harry Reid said on the floor of the Senate that the surge has failed. Do you think there’s any factual basis for making that assertion, Michael Yon, from what you’ve seen in Iraq over the last many months?
MY: He’s wrong, he’s wrong. It has absolutely not failed, and in fact, I’m finally willing to say it in public. I feel like it’s starting to succeed. And you know, I’m kind of stretching a little bit, because we haven’t gone too far into it, but I can see it from my travels around, for instance, in Anbar and out here in Diyala Province as well. Baghdad’s still very problematic. But there’s other areas where you can clearly see that there is a positive effect. And the first and foremost thing we have to do is knock down al Qaeda. And with them alienating so many Iraqis, I mean, they’re almost doing it for us. I mean, yeah, it takes military might to finally like wipe them out of Baquba, but it’s working. I mean, I sense that the surge is working. Reid is just wrong.
Listen to the whole interview here: (10 minutes)
And read the whole transcript at Hugh’s blog here.
And Hugh didn’t stop there, he interviewed Joe Lieberman, the only sane Democrat around it seems unfortunately, which you can listen to below. But first check out this soundbite:
HH: And if you were to follow the example of Jim Jeffords and cross the aisle, it would end, at least for this Congress, the circus surrounding the defeat by a date certain rules, and all these different bills. Isn’t that enough of an incentive to cross that aisle?
JL: Well, it’s a fair question. My guess is that it wouldn’t change much but the leadership, because the votes would be the same. That would have some effect…look, I’ve got a feeling that I’m carrying a banner for a group of Democrats who believe that you could be, you know, progressive on domestic policy and tough on foreign policy. Unfortunately, a lot of them, most of them are gone now, but I’m talking about Truman and Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey and…
HH: Jack Kennedy.
JL: Jack Kennedy, exactly right, who was the inspiration for my generation to get into politics. So for now, I’m going to stay and fight this fight here. But I’m disappointed with the Democratic Party. I’m deeply disappointed.
Listen to the whole interview below: (about 17 minutes long)
See author page
Sorry to have been neglecting your site lately. I figure the surge’ll bring me back to read, link and comment more often, not that that’s the main benefit of military operations in Iraq, but ancillary benefits are nice too. 😉
No problem Honza, I’m thankful to get even one reader. Trying to get the message out one reader at a time.
Harry Reid and his ilk tell people what the Socialist Dems want us to believe. What he says has nothing to do with the facts.
If you read between the lines when you watch the news you can tell there has been some progress made against the terrorsts. It has to be remembered this is a war against terrorism not simply ‘The war in Iraq’. This distinction is never made. If we lose the war against the terrorists the Dems and the media and liberal activists will have to take the blame.
GWOT rundown with a focus on Iraq
MSNBC considers this fellow one of the most capable politicians in Afghanistan. Here’s what he has to say about pulling out:
There’s a lot of talk in the U.S. Congress now of forcing the Bush administration to withdraw from Iraq. If that we…