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Iraq War Watch: Memorial Day Messages
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_Michael Yon: A Memorial Day Message
Memorial Day weekend is upon us. I am out here in Anbar Province with Task Force 2-7 Infantry. The area around Hit (pronounced “heatâ€) is so quiet previous units likely would not recognize the still. There was a small IED incident this morning, and the explosion was a direct hit, but the bomb was so small that mechanics had the vehicle back in shape by late afternoon. Calm truly has fallen on this city.
Dishes are appearing on rooftops and people are communicating more freely. During today’s prayers, one mosque announced that divorce is bad and that parents should take care of their children. One mosque cried about Christians and Jews, while yet another announced that Al-Jazeera is lying and people should not watch it.
Long-time readers know that I deliver bad news with the good. I was first to write that parts of Iraq were in civil war back in February 2005, well over a year before mainstream outlets started reporting the same. I was also the first to report, back in 2005, that Mosul was making a turn for the better. Mainstream outlets hardly picked up on that story, however, although the turn was easy to see for anyone who was there. When I returned from Afghanistan in the spring of 2006, after writing about the growing threat of a resurgent Taliban, bankrolled with profits from the heroin trade, I wrote that parts of our own military were censoring media in Iraq. The recent skirmishing over blogging from Iraq supports that contention. These reminders are for new readers who do not believe that a province that most media outlets had put at the top of the “hopelessly lost†column is actually turning a corner for the better.
Although there is sharp fighting in Diyala Province, and Baghdad remains a battleground, and the enemy is trying to undermine security in areas they’d lost interest in, the fact is that the security plan, or so-called “surge,†is showing clear signs of progress. The city of Hit, for instance. Only about a hundred days ago, Hit was a city at war. Today, the buildings are still riddled with bullet holes, but the Iraqi people are opening shops and painting over the scars. They are waving and smiling while hundreds of men are volunteering to join the police. I saw a “policeman†on duty today whose “weapon†was a plastic pistol. I photographed the toy. And so this man was on “duty†with a toy pistol, though he has not yet attended the police academy and is not even being paid. A writer could probably squeeze bad news from that story, but I won’t try. In fact, Hit is a place where writers who wish to escape combat and bad news should visit. Emphasis mine
Contrast this piece written by Michael Yon who is embedded in Iraq living with American troops with the New York Times Lede for the Memorial Day morning edition (from Drudge):
NYT LEAD MONDAY: A dozen soldiers interviewed over one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by conflict they considered civil war, one they had no ability to stop…
Update: Here is the link to the NYT piece.
Happy Memorial Day indeed…….
Update #2:
Michelle has a round-up of reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan:
Counterterrorism analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is embedded in Iraq. Read his latest dispatch from outside the wire: Patrolling Yarmouk.
Outside the Wire’s J.D. Johannes, embedded with the Black Lions of Task Force 1-28 in Baghdad, reports on the “cellular battlespace.”
Miblogs reporting…
Desert Flier, a flight/trauma nurse in Anbar province, blogs about Ramadi all-nighters.
Stimp at My Desert Adventure blogs about soldiers pimping their rides.
Jules Crittenden takes note of the Associated Press’s holiday grim death toll notice and spots a telling omission…..
Here are the names of the fallen who have died serving in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Now this is better……more fair and balanced.
Technorati Tags: Iraq War, Michael Yon, New York Times
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Mark Steyn Watch: So Much News, So Little Sense
Mark and Claremont Institute President and ballistic missile expert, Brian T. Kennedy, December 2005. Photograph by Flap.
Mark Steyn’s latest: So Much News, So Little Sense
And the GOP really thinks the Senate Immigration bill will HELP their electoral prospects?
They think unwisely…….
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Technorati Tags: Mark Steyn, Illegal Immigration
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Cindy Sheehan Watch: Sheehan Quits Democrat Party Over Iraq War Funding
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan takes part in an anti-war rally in front of the White House in Washington May 14, 2007.
Newbusters has the story (Via Hot Air) about Sheehan quiting the Democrat Party over the Iraq War funding bill.
Cindy, Hillary and Obama voted with the Iraqi War Democrats.
What is the problem?
Yet, Cindy Sheehan is not the only LEFT WING MORON who is unhappy with the Democrats.
Here is video of potty-mouthed Ben Affleck:
They both don’t understand that the Democrats in Congress do NOT care about Iraq, the Iraqi people, the Iraq War or our American troops fighting in Iraq.
These “SURRENDER MONKEY DEMOCRATS” only care about taking political advantage and making political gains.
And, they do NOT care whether Cindy Sheehan belongs to the Democrat Party or not.
Understand?
Technorati Tags: Cindy Sheehan, Ben Affleck, Iraq, Iraq War, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
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Day By Day by Chris Muir May 27, 2007
But, Chris, the MSM want to portray America as the aggressor here. President Bush has done NOTHING correct in Iraq – this is their story meme.
Here is a little remembrance of Saddam and terrorism.
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Technorati Tags: Day By Day, Chris Muir
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Iraq War Watch: Remembering Saddam Hussein
And a 1999 ABC News Documentary: Bin Laden ties to Saddam Hussein
A non-revisionist view of why the United States is fighting in Iraq.
Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Iraq, Iraq War, Al Qaeda
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Michael Ramirez on Michael Moore’s SICKO
For Michael Moore, Controversy Is Marketing
Filmmaker Michael Moore says on his Web site that his new documentary, “SiCKO,” “will expose the health-care industry’s greed and control over America’s political processes.”
Controversy has become a key ingredient of marketing Mr. Moore’s work, and the backers of “SiCKO” hope that the new movie will stir up emotions and help generate the kind of buzz that made his last movie, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” both a topic of national debate and an unprecedented blockbuster in the documentary genre. “Fahrenheit 9/11” had a budget of $6 million and grossed more than $100 million in the U.S. alone.
Mr. Moore’s formula is simple: Pick a divisive topic and goad opponents into a public debate before the movie opens. The question is whether his new film’s subject material — health care and insurance — will deliver the kind of heat that he generated for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” a movie about the Bush administration’s actions before and after the Sept. 11th attacks. “SiCKO” makes its debut at the Cannes Film Festival this weekend and opens in U.S. theaters June 29.
Who cares?
Moore just wants to make money.
A phony and moron rolled into one fat package……
Update:
And to think that Sicko might win at Cannes.
But didn’t…
Update #2:
What a surprise! A challenge to Sicko’s stats.
Update #3
More on Cuba’s healthcare system here and here.
Technorati Tags: Michael Moore, Sicko
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Glenn McCoy on Jimmy Carter
Now, former President Jimmy Carter is showing remorse for calling the Bush Administration “the worst in history.”
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Technorati Tags: Jimmy Carter, George W Bush, Glenn McCoy
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Condoleezza Rice Watch: Condi for California Governor?
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shake hands with students at the Peninsula Boys and Girls Club in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, May 24, 2007. Rice visited with students at the Center for a New Generation, an after school program, which she help start.
Flap says she is IN……..
Technorati Tags: Condoleezza Rice
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Day By Day by Chris Muir May 26, 2007
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Michael Ramirez on Harry Reid’s Surrender on Iraq War Funding
Reuters: Bush signs $100 billion Iraq war funding bill
U.S. President George W. Bush signed a bill on Friday providing $100 billion to pay for the
Iraq war but congressional Democrats who failed to impose a troop withdrawal deadline said their fight was far from over.Passage of the emergency spending legislation capped a four-month struggle between Bush and a new Democratic-controlled Congress determined to force him to shift course in the unpopular war.
Bush had vetoed an earlier bill that would have required him to begin withdrawing soldiers from Iraq by October 1, and he had vowed to kill any legislation carrying restrictions on troop deployments.
With Democrats lacking the votes to override the president and the war funds running out, a divided Congress passed a compromise measure on Thursday.
Harry Reid WIMPED OUT.
Now, Drudge is reporting that President Bush will be pulling troops out of Iraq next year in any case.
Bush wins…….
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Technorati Tags: Michael RamirezHarry Reid, Iraq War