Momtezuma Tuatara
03-02-09, 03:56 PM
In the New Zealand Herald lately, there have been articles about Basra and other towns where women are back out on the streets, and there is a new hope around Iraq. I wondered about this, and thought, there is something we are not being told here.
Then a friend sent me this:
Winning Isn't News
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Iraq : What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq ..
London 's Sunday Times called it 'the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.' A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces the re instead of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military
in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America
was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province , which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored
Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More
than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times ( London ) reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul , found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that
were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have
lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki's government has achieved 'satisfactory' progress on 15 of the 18
political benchmarks 'a big change for the better from a year ago.'
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the
idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while
visiting the United Arab Emirates , which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad , an impressive vote
of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq .
But where are the headlines and the front-page st ories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center point ed out last week, 'the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks 'that signaled political progress.'
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the U..S. Media is not regarding this as an historic event because it has happened BEFORE Obama has officially taken over the office as President.
Copyright 2008 Investor's Business
Daily. All Rights Reserved.
Then a friend sent me this:
Winning Isn't News
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Iraq : What would happen if the U.S. won a war but the media didn't tell the American public? Apparently, we have to rely on a British newspaper for the news that we've defeated the last remnants of al-Qaida in Iraq ..
London 's Sunday Times called it 'the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.' A terrorist force that once numbered more than 12,000, with strongholds in the west and central regions of Iraq, has over two years been reduced to a mere 1,200 fighters, backed against the wall in the northern city of Mosul.
The destruction of al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) is one of the most unlikely and unforeseen events in the long history of American warfare. We can thank President Bush's surge strategy, in which he bucked both Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington by increasing our forces the re instead of surrendering.
We can also thank the leadership of the new general he placed in charge there, David Petraeus, who may be the foremost expert in the world on counter-insurgency warfare. And we can thank those serving in our military
in Iraq who engaged local Iraqi tribal leaders and convinced them America
was their friend and AQI their enemy.
Al-Qaida's loss of the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis began in Anbar Province , which had been written off as a basket case, and spread out from there.
Now, in Operation Lion's Roar the Iraqi army and the U.S. 3rd Armored
Cavalry Regiment is destroying the fraction of terrorists who are left. More
than 1,000 AQI operatives have already been apprehended.
Sunday Times ( London ) reporter Marie Colvin, traveling with Iraqi forces in Mosul , found little AQI presence even in bullet-ridden residential areas that
were once insurgency strongholds, and reported that the terrorists have
lost control of its Mosul urban base, with what is left of the organization having fled south into the countryside.
Meanwhile, the State Department reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki's government has achieved 'satisfactory' progress on 15 of the 18
political benchmarks 'a big change for the better from a year ago.'
Things are going so well that Maliki has even for the first time floated the
idea of a timetable for withdrawal of American forces. He did so while
visiting the United Arab Emirates , which over the weekend announced that it was forgiving almost $7 billion of debt owed by Baghdad , an impressive vote
of confidence from a fellow Arab state in the future of a free Iraq .
But where are the headlines and the front-page st ories about all this good news? As the Media Research Center point ed out last week, 'the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360were silent Tuesday night about the benchmarks 'that signaled political progress.'
The war in Iraq has been turned around 180 degrees both militarily and politically because the president stuck to his guns. Yet apart from IBD, Fox News Channel and parts of the foreign press, the U..S. Media is not regarding this as an historic event because it has happened BEFORE Obama has officially taken over the office as President.
Copyright 2008 Investor's Business
Daily. All Rights Reserved.