Big Sky Cairn

Wondering how liberals handle good news out of Iraq? Selective reading. For example, take a look at this story from the Bush Propaganda Machine (you know, the British Times) - Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda. To read this like a liberal, just read the parts in bold.

Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda
Marie Colvin in Mosul

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.

A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.

The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.

Last Friday I joined the 2nd Iraqi Division as it supported local police in a house-to-house search for one such bomb after intelligence pointed to a large explosion today.

Even in the district of Zanjali, previously a hotbed of the insurgency, it was possible to accompany an Iraqi colonel on foot through streets of breeze-block houses studded with bullet holes. Hundreds of houses were searched without resistance but no bomb was found, only 60kg of explosives.

American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south.

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism.

“They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.”

The number of foreign fighters coming over the border from Syria to bolster Al-Qaeda’s numbers is thought to have declined to as few as 20 a month, compared with 120 a month at its peak.

Brigadier General Abdullah Abdul, a senior Iraqi commander, said: “We’ve limited their movements with check-points. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they’re mostly not succeeding.”

Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: “I think we’re at the irreversible point.”

Wouldn’t you deem it polite (or even within the bounds of anything approaching reason) to actually show examples of DemonLibs arguing in a manner that resembles your StrawMan?

Sorry; I guess I expect too much of you …

No problem Wulfgar.

Fine, a context less statement from Harry Reid, said in April. Wouldn’t that have been appropriate to address in your post? And precisely what did that have to do with what you just wrote? Your assumptions are overwhelming. Reid is a liberal? No. Al Qaeda is the only enemy we face in Iraq? No.

Yeah, you got a problem. You’re trying to paint a scarecrow with a white-wash brush. But keep it up. It’s kinda amusing.

John Cole is about as far from a liberal as you can get, without being a wingnut. He was one of the Iraqi debacle’s prime cheerleaders. He wrote this today:

While it is true that violence rates are down in Iraq, it is worth remembering that on an almost daily basis, shitty, awful, terrible, horrible things are still happening in Iraq, years after we invaded, years after we pronounced mission accomplished, and almost a year and a half after the surge. Keep that in mind during the next round of blogger triumphalism about our impending victory in Iraq and how Obama wants to squander it.

Um, Wulfgar… Did you just breath life into the scarecrow you were accusing Cody of constructing?

Looks to me like you fancy yourself a straw man since you embody in that last post exactly what Cody was cleverly alluding to in his post! Well done, sir.

I seem to remember a few months back a Democrat congressman actually said in an interview that victory in Iraq would be very problematic for the Democrats… Talk about betting againt the home team; no wonder they are so threatened by good news and progress.

Harry Reid isn’t a liberal? On its last four ratings, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action give Reid scores of 85, 90, 95 and 100. Maybe not the “perfect” liberal, but no one else in the Senate got 100 percent ratings all four years, and he was in some pretty hard-core lefty company.

Wiley - you don’t actually go out and engage liberals on liberal turf, so it is no surprise that you offer up this distorted view of how we think. This self-imposed isolation is not unique with you - I see it in most right wing bloggers. I honestly think it’s because you get your fingers burned.

Mark, I live in Missoula. I assure you, I “engage” liberals on liberal turf every single day…

As I’ve said, I frequently link to and comment on left-wing blogs, and if you feel left out it’s because I haven’t ever actually made it all the way through one of your rambling diatribes without getting bored or distracted by your belief that all conservatives are racist.

Time to declare victory and come home.

Wiley- That’s the first time I’ve ever seen the combination of a run-on sentence and a sentence fragment at once. Well done!

And as for these liberals that you “engage” every day… are they the same ones who revealed our secret agenda to you? You know, the ones that told you we don’t really care about the poor and we’re just jealous of those who are doing better than us?

Yes Steve. Those are the same ones. I’m actually related to some of them.

By the way, ruggedman, the Democrat you are thinking of is #3 ranked James Clyburn. The clip is here.

And by the way, Wiley - the most impressive thing about your writing and commenting in the past has been that you don’t get rankled easily. You tend to keep your cool (and then stop responding). But that was lost in this comment thread. It’s rather hilarious.

Oh, and as for your relatives who revealed the secret agenda to you, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say:

You’re a liar.

So, instead of engaging your own lies and made up liberal positions, you should try to take us on once in a while as opposed to running and hiding every time the going gets tough.

Just sayin’.

I don’t think I got too rankled, but I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder. My blood pressure never really went up as I was writing. But then, maybe I’m lying :).

Of course, you have some evidence that I’m a liar right? I’ve got a pretty big family - blood siblings, step siblings, and two sets of parents. Or do I?. Maybe I don’t actually have any family at all… maybe I’m a cyborg!

Wiley - I wasn’t suggesting that you link to us. You have no idea how little I care about that. I write longer pieces than most - it’s not your typical blog cut and run stuff. It’s not for short attention spans. As I have said many times, I blog because I like to write and I like to argue. It’s a perfect fit.

No, what I’m saying is that you don’t leave here, and Steve is right - you do put up strawmen and cut and run when it gets tough. I think this is why we don’t see you out there commenting on liberal blogs.

What does it say that we come here, engage you, beat up on you regularly? That you don’t intimidate? That we have the courage of our convictions? That we think and reason and stand on our feet and don’t need to approbation of our peers to take the heat? This is what I notice about righties - you tend to be groupies - the RWCJ I call it.

Anyway, the racist thing is a rhetorical device that you use to avoid engaging me. That was long ago set straight.

[…] The most ardent practitioner of this habit is Dave Rye (followed closely by Wiley Cody - read this for a classic example), who is perpetually framing his argument with the preface […]