The Blog of War

Not only was this war pre-emptive and poorly planned and event then poorly executed but your statement is based on the faulty premise that the surge was some sort of miracle cure that was successful. You can have "disgust" for those who don't share in your opinion...but your opinions aren't based in fact, and *in truth* ignore fact. Just not an effective way to engage in productive conversation...

I was part of the surge, and that was my second tour. But you've misread me if you believe I'm claiming the surge was a miracle cure.

"Disgust" is too strong a word, disappointment too weak. Something in between.

As for mission planning and execution, such things never survive first contact. There's no news there. The surge was one of many adjustments made on a hell of a long road.

your opinions aren't based in fact, and *in truth* ignore fact.

some sort of miracle cure that was successful.

what fact -- or truth -- have you ignored, Greyhawk? it is momoftwo that ignores the fact that the Surge has been successful (maybe not a miracle, but certainly successful) in stemming the violence and cementing the victory in Iraq... and that must just frost those that had or so badly wanted (maybe still want) to declare the Iraq as lost.

and if disgust and disappointment don't cut it, I'd say that those people irritate the hell out of me.

Hmmmm, momoftwo must be a faithful Reid groupie. Her tripe sounds so familiar

If you're at a computer that doesn't allow streaming video here's the gist, On Meet the Press:

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about the war in Iraq. In April of 2007, this is what you said: "I believe myself that ... this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything." Were you wrong?

SEN. REID: David, I first met General David Petraeus in Iraq. He was training the Iraqi forces at that time. At that time, he knew it wasn't working. After he became the commander in Iraq, he and I sat down and talked. He said to me, and he said within the sound of everyone's voice, "The war cannot be won militarily." I said it differently than he did. But it needed a change in direction. Petraeus brought that about. He brought it about—the surge helped, of course it helped. But in addition to that, the urging of me and other people in Congress and the country dictated a change, and that took place. So...

Harry Reid says the Iraq War is still lost and that there is civil war in Iraq.

Apparently Da Nile isn't only a river in Egypt.

1. Nothing which occurred before the surge was wasted, inept, or improperly authorized, planned, or executed. The plan was followed to the limits of its premises, and to the troops finest abilities. Until doctrine changed (and I remind you GreyHawk, of your own posts pointing to all the gnashing of teeth and insistence from Dhimmicrats that the Iraqis do more of their own fighting in 2004 AND 2005 from these same idiots who now say doing so was a mistake .... as if fully capable, professional, and competent military forces of any stripe rose within weeks from the ashes of a destroyed civilization), the plan was followed, and would have worked given another ten years for Iraqis to finally grow tired enough of killing each other and tougher Americans than they had ever dreamed of, instead of living for themselves.

momoftwo has short term and long term memory loss.... but I don't.

Our leaders did what they could with a recalcitrant and obstinate insurgent ideology, which insisted that Arabs are incapable of making anything good occur unless Allah magically willed it so, and that the use of Reason and Kindness towards their fellow Man was not to be trusted because infidels and apostates were inferior to Islamic ideals and deserved beheading, homicide bombing, murder and rape as answers to Peace.

Even without the Surge, Iraq would eventually have been pacified, even if only by their own exhaustion from slaughtering their neighbors. All we had to do was hang on.

momoftwo wouldn't understand History, Truth or Facts, even if she was bitten by them on the ass, they developed lockjaw, and were dragged to death behind her, because all she has is the certitude that Bush is evil, and War is perpetually wrong.

I suffer from no such illusions. And all I ever need to assure my certitude is to reread the stories of the Mumbai, London, Borneo, Madrid, Algeria, Kenya, Tanzanian, Morrocco, Istanbul, Iraq, Aden, Yemen, Saudi, Afghan, Pakistani, and 9-11 killers of innocents, and watch the beheading videos so vaunted by the press for recruiting Islamic terrorists worldwide, and yet, somehow, lacking in stiffening the resolve and disgust Westerners feel towards such a religion and ideology that massacres little girls going to school, rapes young women for sport, beheads their enemies to strike fear, and yet hides under a woman's burkha when confronted by Men who are only marginally more well armed than they are, except with the presence of Right and Goodness on their side.

The terrorist is a coward who chooses only innocent and weaker targets as victims because they cannot face Men who stand for Peace and Justice, wherever, and whomever they may be. Until Iraqis saw with their own eyes that American soldiers were morally and physically superior to anything a Koranic zealot could provide, they would always choose Islam over Infidel. Now, their choice is cloudy, and their experiences belie the usual propaganda they hear about American injustice.

A pox on momoftwo. The Truth, as unpleasant as it usually is, doesn't support her contention of anything in her statements. And you, and I, both know that is so.

Subsunk

I don't recall any milblogs claiming to be neutral observers of war they had a life-and-death stake in, nor should they. Of course they have a "viewpoint", an angle, on the war -- they're living and fighting it. Who would expect otherwise? But it's precisely that "viewpoint" you're looking for when you go to milblogs, to check their stories against what you're getting from elsewhere in the media, and thereby get a little closer to the truth.

There was plenty of internecine milblog flamethrowing over how the war was going during 2004-2007. It wasn't all sweetness, light and cheerleading. Milblogs and readership just usually didn't cross the line between reasonably criticizing various aspects of the war and recklessly endangering the lives of friends and family in the fight with politically-driven agitprop against the war, which accomplishes nothing but weaken the mission and make soldiers' lives more dangerous.

If you have some command of the English language, you can register displeasure with the things that aren't going right without betraying or pulling the rug out from under the people who are still in harm's way. Alot of people crossed that line -- alot -- between 2004 and 2007, but you'd be hard pressed to find them on military blogs. The milbloggers still displayed as wide an ideological or political range as you'd find in the general population.

I don't see it so much as a "right wing narrative" as I do people trying to strengthen resolve here at home, and pushing back against the efforts to criminalize or condemn what the troops were doing over there, in accordance with their duly elected leaders' orders. That intent was usually openly announced up front by milbloggers, i.e., "this is the viewpoint you're going to get when you come here". You didn't see any sweeping claims to broad neutrality or objectivity disguising prejudiced reporting, a deception the mainstream media engaged in. These were, after all, people who wanted to win, not politically subvert the president.

Railing against supportive commentary for the Iraq mission with 20/20 hindsight now that time has given us a sense of how the fighting evolved is ludicrous. For those engaged in the war at one level or another, that's how things looked at the time. In the long run, it will be those who reported on the war under the guise of objective journalism and denied the surge's indisputable success until it could no longer be credibly denied that will have to answer for their biases.

In the Left's world of soon to be utopia, of course your plan survives contact with the enemy. That is what utopia is for, is it not.