Have we won in Iraq?

This is a picture of Children playing at an Al-Anbar school. One of the many the United States military as built. This project was completed on Oct 15th 2008.

Hat tip: Common Cents



"THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON:" Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. troops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.

He says the big problem everybody is talking about now is corruption. But hey, we have that here, too. He'll be heading to Afghanistan next week. "Afghanistan is a bad situation, but on Iraq I can't believe things have turned out so well."

He thinks that Obama will be able to pull troops out, and send some to Afghanistan, without creating problems in Iraq. Michael will be reporting from Afghanistan soon, and sending back video, so stay tuned. Things aren't going swimmingly there.

It's ironic that we will be able to pull out some troops out of Iraq precisely due to the fact that we did not follow the democrats advice and retreat in the face of adversity. American forces have already started to pull out of many Iraqi cities and let the Iraqi millitary and police handle most of the problems. None of this is possible without the surge that Senator McCain began calling for long before anyone else even knew it was necessary. I suspect we will leave Iraq by the end of Obama's first term. Not because it is his policy but because the Iraqi's will be trained and ready to defend their country from all enemies foreign and domestic. It might not go down that way in the history books, but I will tell the next generation this is the way it was.