Success in Iraq?

[azdave]

Housing bubble, tech bubble I can only hope that there is a crude oil bubble. One of the happiest moments in my life would be to see those Saudi's crying about the price of crude and these CEOs of big oil getting the boot because their record profits have fallen.

Gas is 56cents per gallon in Saudi Arabia Hot chicks and cheap gas, can it get any better?

[biguglygoalie]

Originally Posted by azdave

Gas is 56cents per gallon in Saudi Arabia Hot chicks and cheap gas, can it get any better?

sure can, you can hold man hand in the rose garden too

[azdave]

Can I kiss him too? Against gay marriage but holding hands and smooching in the rose garden with Princeigotyoubytheballsmohmamed is pretty sweet. Of course it has to be on the weekends

[biguglygoalie]

Originally Posted by azdave

Can I kiss him too? Against gay marriage but holding hands and smooching in the rose garden with Princeigotyoubytheballsmohmamed is pretty sweet. Of course it has to be on the weekends

as long as he still respects him in the morning...

[azdave]

I had a couple of crude, oil jokes but I felt I may go toooo far.

[Bones343]

Originally Posted by azdave

Gas is 56cents per gallon in Saudi Arabia Hot chicks and cheap gas, can it get any better?

Isn't Saudi a dry country?

[biguglygoalie]

Originally Posted by Bones343

Isn't Saudi a dry country?

duh, its the desert

[Bones343]

Originally Posted by biguglygoalie

duh, its the desert

Har har, I didn't know that. I just figured Qatar was Saudi's big sandbox.

Is Saudi a dry country though?

[Goalies29]

Yes it is a dry country, that is why they drive over the bridge to Bahrain to drink.

[azdave]

What, they can't drink their oil?? Good thing I am not king as we would suffer for awhile but Saudi Arabia would have a tough time defending themselves, eating sand and oil and drinking oil. After a few months I think they would come around.

[Flagg3139]

Thought this was a pretty good article:

Washington Post Sees Success in Iraq
2 June 2008 @ 8:29AM >> When a blue-blooded old media outlet like the Washington Post raises the possibility of victory in Iraq on its editorial pages, it’s news:


THERE’S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks — which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington’s attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have “never been closer to defeat than they are now.”

Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained “special groups” that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans. It is — of course — too early to celebrate; though now in disarray, the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr could still regroup, and Iran will almost certainly seek to stir up new violence before the U.S. and Iraqi elections this fall. Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments — and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the “this-war-is-lost” caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

It is funny to see the editors say it’s “odd” that the stunning turnaround in Iraq isn’t getting more press coverage. If they think it’s under-reported, isn’t a rather simple solution to report it more? In fact, wouldn’t that be the only journalistically responsible thing to do?

After all, it’s not as though the Washington Post exists in a vacuum; if the paper decided to cover success in Iraq as vigorously as it covered failure, other media outlets would have a harder time continuing to peddle a storyline of defeat.

Eventually, politicians would even have to acknowledge the emerging reality. But as the Post notes, that might be problematic for certain candidates.

Perhaps that’s why these improvements aren’t being reported more.

Still, it’s refreshing to see the Post acknowledge the very real successes of the past year. Will other outlets follow suit?

By Evan Coyne Maloney

>bt: Brain Terminal

[biguglygoalie]

[RyJ Maduro]

Barack Obama cannot even manage to be less defeatist than the French.

AFP: French FM says security improving in Iraq

[sloth2946]

They've been talking about progress for near 5 years. How many more people need to die for this progress and how long is it going to take?

[home0006]

My feeling is regardless of what actually happens in Iraq peoples minds are already made up as to whether or not it's a success or not. There are people who till the day they die will say Iraq was a complete failure regardless of what happens to the country. They could find the cure for cancer, AIDS and diabetes and they'll say it is a failure.

The same token there will be people regardless of what happened who say it is was necessary.

Realistically this is probably the one war where the benefits may not be seen in our life time. We can never go back and reverse time to see what would have happened if we did not go there. Maybe there was a real and immediate threat that never saw the light of day due to the war, maybe there wasn't. Regardless of any anecdotal evidence that people will bring up no one will ever know. There is no way anyone can say with 100% certainty that Sadam would never have tried to attack us in some way shape or form.

Also in talking with the military service men that I know who are over there, they believe 100% whole heartedly in the mission and that what they're doing is for the greater good of the world. On top of that they feel like they are acheiving progress. Personally I believe the friends I know who are fighting it over some media coverage that only reports death tolls, and ingores any progress that is made.