Comments on: Baghdad Security Crackdown Begins

Meanwhile, 7 Killed After U.S. Military Helicopter Shot Down Near Capital

[j-whitman]

McCain blames General Casey (Troops) for every one of this administration's FAILURES

[j-whitman]

The Iraq people, don't support us
The Iraq Army 50% show up
The "Hold" part of Bush's plan can't be done, not enough Troops.

BUSH FAILS AGAIN -- McCAIN BLAMES GENERALS

[heetseeker]

notblue

Your post underlines my point. You seem uncertain as to whether the Baghdad operation will work or not. I suspect your wavering is for the same reason that I and many others are pessimistic about success.

The rationale here is simple - evidence. To ignore evidence is to make the most fundamental error of policy making and this administration has made and continues to make this error, over and over again. The evidence suggests that our increased visibility in Iraq only serves to embolden the terrorists and cause them to rally. The evidence suggests that the more we do, the less the Iraqi's need to do and the less the Iraqi's do the less ownership they have of the outcomes. The evidence suggests that promoting and publicising impending operations provides insurgents the opportunity to dissipate, relocate and regroup.

I could go on and on. But what's the point? One of the great tragedy's of Iraq is that many seasoned, rationale, thoughtful and intelligent people have chosen to unburden themselves of good judgement to follow whims and flights of fancy. By itself this is no crime. But keep in mind this type of "scatter gun" thinking has informed policy and that policy has cost over 3,000 US troops in Iraq (seven more allegedy shot down over Fallujah today).

Disagree if you will with the conclusions I draw. I am cool with that, but test the rationale first. Don't let abuse default position or insults be your response to evidence based argument.

[lars008-2009]

she was a not so secret cia..... hubby outed her in who's who..... what an idiot, would you do that to your secret cia wife???

why are only the democrats blocking jessica's law and are not against nambla???

the war is not illegal, they broke the cease fire agreement.... a return to hostilities is a normal consequence....

[stevex47]

ddhinnyc,

Is it anti american to leak the names of secret CIA agents? Is it anti american to be a pedophile congressman, luring young pages while on your dime? And is it anti american for a president to stand in front of the nation and PURPOSELY lie about the reason to invade a sovereign country?
If the answers are yes...shame on you.

[notblue]

What on earth will all the condescending leftwing defeatist do if this latest plan for Iraq starts to work? They will have to head over to Baghdad and help the insurgents cause since any similance of victory via improved security would be disasterous for the leftwing agenda.

[heetseeker]

"Nothing will work, it's too late."

Sadr City resident Hashem al-Moussawi

An overly pessimistic view or one that reflects the reality of Iraq? Only time will tell. What does seem clear is that the Baghdad offensive seems more and more like window dressing to me. Something for the cameras. Good footage for the six o'clock news and nice copy for the high-end and mid market dailies.

So well promoted and previewed has the Baghdad operation been that it strikes me as implausible that any self respecting insurgent would still be in Baghdad today. Most would have decamped and relocated to Ramadi, Mosul, Samarra, to the border regions and elsewhere. There they will perfect their increasingly deadly form of terrorist warfare - which now includes an increasing level of sophistication in anti-aircraft warfare.

This new offensive seems reminiscent of an old one (operation together forward). That intervention proved to be ultimately unsuccessful and my instinct is that this one will be too. Old ideas cannot produce new results.

Is this assessment overly pessimistic? Maybe so, maybe not. One thing for sure is that hoping and believing things will get better has thus proved to be unsuccessful.

[sharncedar]

The Kurds are an extremely violent separatist movement that has been attempting to overthrow various governments such as Turkey and Iraq for decades. Like the Albanians so loved by Bill Clinton, they have reaped a huge benefit with the US going in and doing their ethnic cleansing for them. Like the Albanians, or the Israelis, or any other of our "friends", they will do nothing whatsoever for us in terms of trying to stabilize Iraq, their goal is to ethnic cleanse the Sunnis, grab the oil revenues, and make revolution across the region. As long as we serve their interests, they'll pretend to be "friends" and smile for our cameras, like our "friends" the Israelis or the Saudis, worthless as far as I can tell.

[lars008-2009]

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

i love everybody except the ones that say god told them to kill all that aren't one of them......

that's not hate skippy...... that's just good common sense.....

I DO NOT FEAR GOD......

I FEAR THOSE THAT CLAIM TO SPEAK FOR GOD......

[baldfrog-2009]

One_American

Why don't you go over there report how the war is going and let please let me know as well as the rest of us where all of the Al-Qaeda are so we can get them.
MS. Lara Logan has more courage than most of the Republican War Mongers and defintely more than YOU.

[frankly6]

lars008

You are the equal opposite of that which you hate.

[baldfrog-2009]

Thank you,
Senators Mitch McConnell,Levin,Warner,and the rest of the Republican members using politics on the floor to block resolutions while American Service persons die.
A resolution with no binding circumstances and you can't even pass that,COWARDS.
If the Bush,Gates plan is working so well and is worth the lives why don't you prove it by all of you taking a CHOPPER RIDE over Baghdad to see how WELL we are doing with the SURGE bring your sons and daughters to take a look as well.You might want to take a look at the War Powers Act on the while your at it!

[macusweil]

"He must be a Democrat." --pathetic, are you kidding me? The democrats did not lead the US into this misguided mess of a war or "F" it up beyond recognition, Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld did!!

Anyway I hope this sh*t works but why should it? Everything else Bush has tried has failed in a BIG way, excepted for making billions for Cheney & his Halliburton buddies, hey maybe that was the whole pt of this sad exercise in the 1st place?

[tuckerndfw]

IF George Bush or anyone in his administration or the GOP had a "plan," they have had nearly four years to implement that "plan."

And, that is not counting the nearly 10 years they had before Bozo was appointed to office. They have been "planning" this fiasco since Bozo's daddy was thrown out of office in 1992.

Since they clearly do not have a "plan" for "success" in Iraq, WHY would ANYONE believe anything they claim, or pretend the current "plan" is going to be more effective than their previuos "plans"?

It is troubling that so many otherwise intelligent people are so incredibly stupid and/or gullible that they would agree with anything Bozo Bush claims or does.

[lars008-2009]

let the eradication begin.....

Ali Sina, an ex-Muslim from Iran. He is the creator of Faithfreedom.org.
Yet I know that by eradicating Islam we can save the world from the dangers of a catastrophe that otherwise is looming over our heads and could cause more disaster than the 1st and 2nd World Wars combined. Eradication of Islam means restoring peace among humanity and civility, democracy and prosperity in the Muslim world.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/why_i_left_islam.htm

[one_american]

"Nothing will work, it's too late," said Hashem al-Moussawi, a resident of the Sadr City.

He must be a Democrat.

Funny that he is the only person asked their opinion in the whole story.

If anyone else said different, CBS/AP would be sure NOT to include it.

Must be that terrorist supporter and Al-Qaeda sympathizer, Lara Logan reporting this.

[clestes-2009]

Waste of men and money. It is a case of much toooo little, much toooooo late.

[randalds]

More death, more slaughter and to what end? To change the outcome of this "war"? the war is over and we lost. We lost the day Bush decided to use 9-11 and his whipped up "war on terror" as a fig leaf of cover to go after the neocon fantasy, the overthrow of Iraq. These lunatics actually believed that either democracy would suddenly sprout up throughout the region or that we could use military force to make it happen and then they could control the world's oil market and make obscene amounts of money. What complete and utter lunacy. 3000+ of our troops and countless innocent civilian deaths later the stupidity of their dream is exposed, but still they feed more of our people into the meat grinder in a desperate attempt at denial. This is nothing short of mental illness on their part. Complete madness.

[one_american]

"Nothing will work, it's too late," said Hashem al-Moussawi, a resident of the Sadr City.

He must be a Democrat.

Funny that he is the only person asked their opinion in the whole story.

If anyone else said different, CBS/AP would be sure NOT to include it.

Must be that terrorist supporter and Al-Qaeda sympathizer, Lara Logan reporting this.

[tuckerndfw]

The headline should read, "The GOP is wasting even more lives and money on their failed policies in Iraq."