Iraq: A War We Just Might Win
POSTED BY: Skywalken
UPDATED: Thursday, February 19, 2026 15:12
VIEWED: 3564
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Yes, the Iraq War is a "war we just might win" according to an op-ed in the ultra-reactionary right-wing rag...the New York Times. Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack, members of the left-wing Brookings Institution proclaimed that "we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, "morale is high," and, as a result, this is "a war we just might win."
Here it is:
Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration's critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.
Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.
In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.
In Baghdad's Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.
We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.
But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army ba
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*waits for hell to freeze over*
King of the Mythical Land that is Iowa
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Make of it what you want, but the victory over Saudi Arabia by Iraq to win the Asian Championships couldn't have come at a better time. ( Remember the torture that Saddam's son, I forget which, inflicted onto the Iraq team when it performed poorly ? ) A Sunni assist and a goal made by a Kurd.... at least for a moment, Iraqis can stand together and share in something positive. Might not mean much, or it could help foster in better days to come. Much like the U.S.A defeating the Soviets in the '80 Olympics...?
Time will tell.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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Bah! Right-wing propaganda!
Seriously though, good news and I hope to hear more of it.
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100,000 dead US Gulf War soldiers in 17-year war
600,000 disabled US Gulf War soldiers so far
400,000 Nagasaki DU nuke bombs dropped on Iraq since 1990
300% increase in price of oil
$3.5-Trillion missing from Pentagon
Pentagon borrowed $2.5-trillion from Communist China
Usama Bin Laden not indicted or arrested for 9/11
Bush & Cheney ordered NORAD to stand down on 9/11/2001
Bush signed www.SPP.gov to overthrow USA & merge with Canada & Mexico
WE WIN
Quote:
"Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."
-Sir Heinz "Henry" Kissinger Jewish Knight of the British Empire, Communist Russian spy, George Bush Jr's first nomination for director of the 9/11 Commission, quoted by Monika Jensen-Stevenson, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Dutton, 1990, Page 97, citing The Final Days, Woodward and Bernstein (Simon & Schuster, 1976)
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
-Sir Heinz "Henry" Kissinger Jewish Knight of the British Empire
"Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government."
-Sir Heinz "Henry" Kissinger Jewish Knight of the British Empire, 1991 Bilderberger conference held in Evians, France
"Look for $150 a barrel oil. It should not be long.”
-Sir Heinz "Henry" Kissinger Jewish Knight of the British Empire, 2005 Bilderberg Conference, 5-8th May, Rottach-Egern, Munich, Germany
MSNBC TV: Bush ordered the assassination of Pat Tillman
www.infowars.com/articles/ps/tillman_bush_needs_to_resolve_whether_til
lman_was_killed_for_political_views.htm
"Two words I never want to hear again in a sentence are Flash and Drive!"
-Nathan Fillion, Drive
DRIVE VS POLICE STATE: FREE TV EPISODES ONLINE
OOPS! CANCELLED!!! FINAL EPPS ON JULY 4 8PM EST
WTF?! FINAL EPPS FRIDAY 13 JULY 8PM EST!!! FOX SUX!
NOW FOX KILLED FINAL EPPS - ONLINE ONLY!!!
www.myspace.com/driveonfox
FOX, MYSPACE & FIREFLY OWNED BY COMMUNIST CHINA!
www.piratenews.org/pntv-schedule.html
FIREFLY SERENITY PILOT MUSIC VIDEO
Tangerine Dream - Thief Soundtrack: Confrontation
www.myspace.com/piratenewsctv
Does that seem right to you?
www.scifi.com/onair/
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Will be there as long as it takes. Terrorism is what they export.
"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".
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A war we might win, my question is win what? what is it that they are trying to win;in order to win something you've got to know what your fighting for, and so far that story has changed several times over the years.
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Pollack and O'Hanlon are Brookings Institution writers. Have you been to the web site www.brook.edu
Anyway...the climate change section of that site spends most of it's time praising Arnold Schwartzenegger...but hey....Arnold is the "greenest" republican alive.
I tried my best to find evidence that they are a Republican think tank that will write you an objective opinion of your choosing while being funded completely by Satan. And I didn't find that. Nor did I find any liberal slants either, nice try Walken
But...these are not staff writers for the NY Times and this piece should in NO way make anyone think that the "liberal media conspiracy" is changing thier tune about the war. This is all stuff the pro war crowd loves to hear and aids them in thier preparations for the inevitable ceremonial dumping of the war into Hillary's lap. If the war ends before Hillary takes office, Hillary will go 8 years, that's what pro war repugs want the least
If you're not on Malbadinlatin's side, you're with the terrorists.
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The War On Terror will last 100 years, according to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Chertoff. AllCIAduh is now a World Power. Which deserves a rep in the United Nations Corporation.
Quote:
"By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all!"
-Sir George Bush Sr Knight of the British Empire, 1991 at "end" of Iraq War #1
"We will stay the course. We will complete the job in Iraq."
-George DWI Bush Jr, convicted draft deserter, www.AWOLbush.com, October 2006
"It’s never been a 'stay-the-course' strategy. Strategically, we think it’s very important that we stay in Iraq and we win in Iraq. And if we were to cut and run and go and leave that country too early it would be a disaster for American policy."
-Dan Bartlett, Jr Bush White House advisor, CBS News, October 2006, video:
www.thinkprogress.org/2006/10/23/bartlett-stay-the-course/
"The notion that we ought to now go to Baghdad, and uh, somehow take control of the country strikes me as, as, and extremely, uh, serious one, in terms of what we'd have to do when we got there. You'd probably have to put some new government in place. It's not clear what kind of government that would be --how long you'd have to stay. For the U.S. to get involved militarily, in determining the outcome of, uh, the struggle over whose going to govern in Iraq, strikes me as the classic definition of a QUAGMIRE."
-Secretary of War Dick DWI Cheney, 1991, Audio:
www.drinkingliberally.org/blogs/oakland/archives/2005/10/cheney_iraq_q
ua.html
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. (US Secretary of State) James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction."
-April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Iraq, videotaped meeting with Saddam Hussein on 7/25/90, New York Times, 9/23/90 (Iraq invaded on Kuwait 2 weeks later on August 2, 1990)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie
"Two words I never want to hear again in a sentence are Flash and Drive!"
-Nathan Fillion, Drive
DRIVE VS POLICE STATE: FREE TV EPISODES ONLINE
OOPS! CANCELLED!!! FINAL EPPS ON JULY 4 8PM EST
WTF?! FINAL EPPS FRIDAY 13 JULY 8PM EST!!! FOX SUX!
NOW FOX KILLED FINAL EPPS - ONLINE ONLY!!!
www.myspace.com/driveonfox
FOX, MYSPACE & FIREFLY OWNED BY COMMUNIST CHINA!
www.piratenews.org/pntv-schedule.html
FIREFLY SERENITY PILOT MUSIC VIDEO
Tangerine Dream - Thief Soundtrack: Confrontation
www.myspace.com/piratenewsctv
Does that seem right to you?
www.scifi.com/onair/
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Looks like the 'pirate' clowns have made it back from summer camp. There goes RWED, right into the garbage.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME