The New Democrat Offensive

The Democrat offensive against General Petraeus has begun.  Karen De Young at the WaPo writes two articles this morning to do her part.  First is her report that the actual numbers coming out of Iraq are not real.  Things are actually worse in Iraq you see because the military is hiding deaths:

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers — most of which are classified — are often confusing and contradictory. "Let’s just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Clinton appointee David Walker was expected to testify that Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket and he did not disappoint for the Democrats in Congress.  Of course there is no evidence that the military is hiding numbers, just innuendo seeing as how most of the numbers are classified.  The AP keeps track of numbers but they cannot be trusted one iota.  They report on every death as if there is no crime in the country, just war.  Hell, they have been known to report deaths that never occurred.  So to trust their numbers is foolhardy. 

But we know the Democrats will.

Most of the reports coming out of Iraq, from liberal reporters to conservative politicians say that things are in fact turning the corner.  But the Democrats in Congress want some fodder for their defeat machine so the GAO complies.

The next report from Karen De Young is that the Iraqi army isn’t really do as well as the government says they are:

Iraq’s army, despite measurable progress, will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and "cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven," according to a report on the Iraqi security forces published today.

The report, prepared by a commission of retired senior U.S. military officers, describes the 25,000-member Iraqi national police force and the Interior Ministry, which controls it, as riddled with sectarianism and corruption. The ministry, it says, is "dysfunctional" and is "a ministry in name only." The commission recommended that the national police force be disbanded.
   
Although citing recent "tactical success" and favorable "strategic implications" resulting from the Bush administration’s current war strategy, the commission recommends that U.S. troops in Iraq be "retasked" in early 2008 to protect critical infrastructure and guard against border threats from Iran and Syria, while gradually turning internal security over to Iraqi forces despite their deficiencies.

Hmmm, doesn’t that "retasking" sound familiar?  Oh yeah, its a strategy the Democrats have been calling for over the last year.  Draw down the troops, the remaining just stay in their bases while the rest go off to Okinawa and be ready "just in case" to fight al-Qaeda (like we’re not doing that already). 

It’s a wonder that the Democrats sent some retired Generals to report on Iraq and that these few Generals came back with the same message that the Demcrats have been spouting.  Shocker!

Meanwhile we have Schumer insulting our troops telling us that Anbar turned around despite the troops, not because of:

And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves. It wasn’t that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here. And that is because there was no one else there protecting.

I’m sure Michael Yon can tell this loser a thing or two about how our troops did in fact create the peace that is now going on in Anbar.  How in the world did we gain the trust of these tribes if not because our military adapted and began to open dialogue with the tribes? 

Captain Ed:

If we were as incompetent as Chuck says, why would they bother working with us at all? Why not just rise up against us and get us out of Iraq? If we can’t fight the terrorists, why would the tribes hesitate to drive us off their land? It’s because the tribes understand that we are a highly effective force against the mostly-foreign terrorists in AQI, and they need our protection to bring normalcy to their areas.

and:

In the comments section of the previous thread, a few of Uncle Chuck’s goalpost movers tried to explain this away by saying the tribes did it all by themselves, and that the Americans had nothing to do with the improvement. This, of course, conflicts with their equally vehement statements over the last few weeks that nothing has improved in Iraq, and that the Americans were just making things worse. Some claim that al-Qaeda in Iraq is just an administration dodge.

The Iraqis aren’t fooled. They named the police station after the man who masterminded the liberation of Ramadi from al-Qaeda. They named it after US Army Captain Travis Patriquin.

They can’t have it both ways.  Either our country has screwed everything up and Iraq is falling apart or we did in fact turn the corner and succeeded in some of the worst of the worst of Iraqi provinces.  Which is it?  It’s like the idiocy we hear from the left about Bush.  Either he is a brilliant mastermind of a huge conspiracy to take us into Iraq or he is a bumbling idiot. 

All these leftists do is throw crap at the wall and see which sticks, then this becomes their new talking point.  How pathetic is that?

The fact remains that if we leave Iraq like cowards Iran would be emboldened, along with Syria.  Al-Qaeda would have a new stronghold in the Middle East to attack the west over and over and over again.  AQ along with every other enemy of ours in the world would understand that bin-Laden was right, we are a paper tiger.  We left running even though close to 4,000 of our own countrymen died.  We left running even though we were kicking ass throughout the country.  We left because of a few thousand cowards who strap bombs to their chests and blow of civilians.  Not because we were fighting a more intelligent, much larger fighting force. 

And the world would know from that day forward that we could never be trusted to do what we say we would.

But as long as the left can say Bush was wrong they are happy.  Our security be damned.