My Leftie commentator, DA, continues to provide eye popping excuses for the actions of the uber Left’s hand maidens, aka Demo Congress critters… I had posted:
“Citing General Petraeus by name, the resolution, which is sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Republican Lindsey Graham, "commends and expresses the gratitude to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces for the service, sacrifices, and heroism that made the success of the troop surge in Iraq possible."
The Senators -- allies of John McCain -- had hoped to attach the resolution to a defense bill under consideration this week. But Mr. Reid wouldn't allow it. Democrats have often claimed that while they may oppose the war in Iraq, they wholeheartedly support the troops. That's a defensible position, and this resolution honoring our soldiers and Marines for a job well done gave them a chance to back up their rhetoric. Yet they still balked
I wonder why Hussein didn't reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to get this resolution attached.”
DA wrote:
You might try a less biased news source:
Democrats, however, say multiple factors in addition to the surge have led to less violence in Iraq -- such as the formation of Sunni Awakening Councils opposed to al Qaeda; Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's call to his militias to obey a cease-fire, and the rising competency of the Iraqi security forces. The Democratic leadership also is loath to bring anything to the Senate floor that could help McCain.
Democratic leaders had been working on an alternative to Lieberman's non-binding resolution in hopes of giving rank-and-file members something to vote for without contradicting Obama. They would not allow Lieberman's resolution to come to the floor because it was not related to a defense bill being debated.
Liebermann presumably has been in the Senate long enough to know the right time to present a resolution.
Sounds like Liebermann is trying to get attention for himself, especially since he didn't qualify for the VP role.
Some new facts about the surge:
A new study released today by the University of California, Los Angeles concludes that ethnic violence — not the Bush administration’s surge — was the primary factor in reducing violence in Iraq. As FP Passport notes, researchers used satellite imagery from the Pentagon to track “electricity use in Iraq before, during, and after the surge took place”:
“If the surge had truly ‘worked,’ we would expect to see a steady increase in night-light output over time,” says Thomas Gillespie, one of the co-authors, in a press release. “Instead, we found that the night-light signature diminished in only certain neighborhoods, and the pattern appears to be associated with ethno-sectarian violence and neighborhood ethnic cleansing.”
from the report:
'Night light in neighborhoods populated primarily by embattled Sunni residents declined dramatically just before the February 2007 surge and never returned, suggesting that ethnic cleansing by rival Shiites may have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence for which the U.S. military has claimed credit, the team reports in a new study based on publicly available satellite imagery. "Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said lead author John Agnew, a UCLA professor of geography and authority on ethnic conflict. "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left." The night-light signature in four other large Iraqi cities — Kirkuk, Mosul, Tikrit and Karbala — held steady or increased between the spring of 2006 and the winter of 2007, the UCLA team found. None of these cities were targets of the surge. Baghdad's decreases were centered in the southwestern Sunni strongholds of East and West Rashid, where the light signature dropped 57 percent and 80 percent, respectively, during the same period.'
and, from Global Guerrillas:
The REAL reason that the US threw out COIN and adopted open source counter-insurgency (the 'IBM strategy' I mention in this 2005 article in the NYTimes). We embraced the insurgents. We gave them autonomy (based on primary loyalties to tribe/sect) from the government. Gave them protection from the Mahdi army, weapons, training, and jobs. Once we did this, the civil war collapsed. This was the social systempunkt that produced the network effects needed -- nothing else explains the speed of the switch.
What's interesting is that this result wasn't the result of planning at the White House or by Petraeus. As is almost always the case (when network effects are involved), innovation on the ground produced the formula necessary for the social systempunkt and the success was reinforced by command (after the fact). We are particularly lucky since the US military doesn't often support the "Open Decision Making" process that produced this result.
So, I should believe you, or my lying eyes...............
I responded:
Global Guerrillas? Non-biased?
hahahaha
The bill "not related...?
hehehe
How many times do you think non-related amendments have been attached???
Besides, who would vote against a bill honoring the troops?
hahahahahaha... I guess we know. Harry "We surrender" Reid..and other Leftie Demos..
The Demos gonna have their own "resolution?"
Okay.... You got any problems with TWO resolutions??
DA, the actions of Reid are driven by a desire to not admit that the surge has worked and the war is being won.
That's politics. Nothing more, nothing less.
It is also despicable. Shame on you and shame on the uber Left and their hand maidens in Congress.
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