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POPSGeneral: Timeline is most secure Iraq strategy "Brigadier Gen. Sean McFarland…credited the ‘growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias …’ as the main reason for the turn around in Al Anbar"
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POPSAmerica Finally Getting Sick and Tired of Hearing About Barack Obama
They aren’t talking about the fact that it was Obama who first trotted out the race card by suggesting we’d all be scared into submission by Republican assertions that Obama didn’t “look like all those other guys on the dollar bills.” As even more complete picture of the candidate begins to emerge, the number of Americans expressing doubt about Obama increases. In the Illinois State Senate Obama sponsored bills to provide universal health care coverage, drastically increase welfare, handcuff the police and burden them with administrative overhead, make it more difficult and time consuming for law-abiding citizens to purchase lawfully-regulated firearms for self-defense and generally expand government, welfare, affirmative action and other entitlement programs. By all accounts, Ms. Hilton’s energy policy, is in fact, more comprehensive than Obama’s, which focuses almost exclusively on the development of petroleum alternatives, tune-ups and tire pressure checks.
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POPS"Put a Kibosh to this Insane Plan" Ominously, these “ideas” hark back to Operation Northwoods, the JSC plan to stage a false flag terror event — or a number of events — designed to provide a pretext to invade Cuba and take out Fidel Castro. Such “ideas” included “friendly Cubans” attacking the U.S. base at Guantanamo, shooting down a drone disguised as a chartered civil airliner and blaming it on Cuba, inciting riots and staging terror attacks in Miami, and other terrorist acts. Fortunately, then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, put a kibosh to this insane plan. More recently, in January, 2003, in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion George Bush and Tony Blair discussed painting planes in United Nations colors “in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach” and thus set in motion an invasion, according to Philippe Sands, a leading British human rights lawyer.
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POPSDoD Can't Find Troops for Afghanistan; Institutes Catch-22 as Official TACSOP WASHINGTON, July 29, 2008 - Defense Department planners continue to look for capabilities to send to Afghanistan, a senior Pentagon spokesman said today. ... ?Efforts to identify additional assets for Afghanistan continue, Morrell said. "Progress is being made toward that end, but I don't have anything definitive to stand here before you today and relay," he said.
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POPSDon't Look Now--but the Surge is About to Backfire as Iraq poised to Explode
The first is the brewing crisis over Kirkuk, where the pushy Kurds are demanding control and Iraq’s Arabs are resisting. The second is in the west, and Anbar, where the US-backed Sons of Iraq sahwa (”Awakening”) movement is moving to take power against the Iraqi Islamic Party, a fundamentalist Sunni bloc. And third is the restive Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is chafing at gains made by its Iranian-backed rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) The final crisis-to-be is the Sadr vs. Badr one. The Times today suggests that Sadr is weakening: The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq. Don’t believe it. Sadr’s rivals, ISCI, don’t have anything like the popular base that Sadr has. And underneath Sadr is a volatile mix of neighborhood, local and regional militias, mosques, and econom
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POPSMichael Yon on the Iraq War If you don't follow Michael Yon you should. He goes to the rough areas and reports as HE sees it. No agenda, no adherence to any party.
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POPSThe Democrats' Fairy Tale And the improvements in Anbar could never have been sustained without aggressive American military efforts — efforts that were more effective in 2007 than they had been in 2006, due in part to the addition of the surge forces. Last year’s success, in Anbar and elsewhere, was made possible by confidence among Iraqis that U.S. troops would stay and help protect them, that the U.S. would not abandon them to their enemies. Because the U.S. sent more troops instead of withdrawing — because, in other words, President Bush won his battles in 2007 with the Democratic Congress — we have been able to turn around the situation in Iraq. And now Iraq’s Parliament has passed a de-Baathification law — one of the so-called benchmarks Congress established for political reconciliation. For much of 2007, Democrats were able to deprecate the military progress and political reconciliation taking place on the ground by harping on the failure of the Iraqi government to pass the benchmark legislation
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POPSObama: 'There's no doubt that Gen. Petraeus does not want a timetable' Of course Gen. Petraeus is only concerned about financing his pet war in Iraq. s/off. Petraeus doesn't want *artificial* timetables that would undermine the progress that's been made. Maybe if the Senator would come back to the US, assume the job he's being paid to do (deal with legislation in the Senate), learn a little and not sound so stupid then he might be better able to help the US economy which HE claims is really hurting.
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POPSText of McCain Editorial rejected by the NY Times This editorial was a written response to Obama's editorial. It was rejected. continuing.. "Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism."
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POPSWhat he really said Maliki: There are many factors, but I see them in the following order. First, there is the political rapprochement we have managed to achieve in central Iraq. This has enabled us, above all, to pull the plug on al-Qaida. Second, there is the progress being made by our security forces. Third, there is the deep sense of abhorrence with which the population has reacted to the atrocities of al-Qaida and the militias. Finally, of course, there is the economic recovery. Maliki: The casualties have been and continue to be enormous. But anyone who was familiar with the dictator’s nature and his intentions knows what could have been in store for us instead of this war. Saddam waged wars against Iran and Kuwait, and against Iraqis in the north and south of his own country, wars in which hundreds of thousands died. And he was capable of instigating even more wars. Yes, the casualties are great, but I see our struggle as an enormous effort to avoid other such wars in the future.
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POPSObama Lays Out Plans for Continued War I am posting this as a perspective. I truly and very unsure of how I feel about Obama. I have seen too many broken campaign promises in my life I have never found an unbroken one that I can think of.
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POPSMcCain Hits Obama On Iraq, Outlines Afghanistan Plan some of whose members have national restrictions on where their troops can go and what they can do. This is no way to run a war.” The Arizona senator touted the Afghan army as a “great success story” and said it needs to be expanded. He added that the global community should share the cost of doubling the size of the Afghan army. “We must convince Pakistanis that this is their war as much as it is ours. And we must empower the new civilian government of Pakistan to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health and education,” McCain said. “Sen. Obama has spoken in public about taking unilateral military action in Pakistan. In trying to sound tough, he has made it harder for the people whose support we most need to provide it,” he added. “I will not bluster, and I will not make idle threats. But understand this: When I am commander in chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run, and nowhere they can hide.”
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POPSObama Scrubs website of surge criticism Yes, I'm always supportive of something that has been proven successful too. A little late though. Nice try Obama. After you trounced the efforts, the policy, the military...now that the surge has made significant progress, you want to slap them on the back and join the chorus of "Good job, guy!"
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POPSFacts matter The Iraqis most enthusiastic about Obama’s plan surely are al-Qaeda members, Sadrists, Iranian agents and sectarian killers of every stripe. The prospect of an American president suddenly letting up on them has to be the best cause for hope they’ve had in months. Obama’s withdrawal would immediately embolden every malign actor in Iraq, and increase their sway in Iraqi politics. In his oped, Obama sticks to the badly dated contention that Iraqis “have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.” In fact, roughly 15 of 18 political benchmarks have been met by the Iraqis — progress Obama threatens to reverse.
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POPSAmara; The Case Of The Invisible American War Machine; And What, We Used To Call "Censorship" Cont... Gone is all that nasty documentation of American soldiers imposing themselves on either innocent or opposition-sympathizing Iraqi civilians as embedded photographers were known to relay two or three years back. (In a particularly egregious example, you might even recall the raid in February '07 where the Iraqis -- who were supposed to lead the mission by barely showed up -- caused American Staff Sgt. Hector Leija to pay with his life ... further leading the military to flip out that the NYT dared even document the whole obscene mess.)
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POPSIraqi oil The no-bid contracts are a stopgap until an oil law passes and more extensive contracts can be bid for Iraq’s undeveloped fields. Iraq’s oil ministry is hardly a model of efficiency. The contracts to which Schumer so objects are still hung up in negotiations. But Iraq is headed in the right direction. One could be forgiven for getting the sense sometimes that it is that progress that bothers Democrats most.
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POPSU.S. Ambassador Cites Positive Changes In Iraq The enemy may be pushing back, the Iraqi government’s response displays intolerance for these acts and a determination to reclaim their neighborhoods from the perpetrators, the ambassador said. Leadership response to a June 24 attack in Sadr City aimed at district council members is a prime example. On June 26, the council reconvened to hold the election that had been scheduled for the day of the attack and elected one of the members who had been wounded as its new chairman. It then denounced the attackers, publicly thanked the United States for its support, and extended sympathy to those affected by the attack, Crocker said. “We’ve got more hard work in front of us,” he said. “The fighting is by no means over, but clearly we are in a different and better place than we were even six months ago.” Though work remains to be completed in Iraq, Crocker said, he is certain the climate is in place for Iraqis to build their country on all fronts -- security, political and economic.
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