Updates at End

The fighting in Iraq is definitely entering a much different phase than the one Iraq and America faced around this same time last year. Last year al-Qaeda was on the rise and ramping up a month’s long period of atrocities, carnage and massacres against Iraqi Muslims. It was a deliberate PR effort to demonstrate their power to the Iraqis and to the World. And it backfired. But as things have changed, the demands of the Congressional Democrats have not changed at all – which has created the situation were they now call for a change in course, back to the bloodshed of last year? (Read to the end, I will get to insanity of the Dems current ‘strategy’!)

Today, al-Qaeda’s only reported successes are more of the same that made them the enemy of Iraq – the killing of perceived enemies in the Iraq Muslim community:

Five Sunni Arab tribal leaders have been killed in a suicide attack in Iraq’s Diyala province, police say.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt in the house of Sheikh Faez al-Obeidi, killing him and four of his relatives.

Those killed were members of the Diyala Salvation Council, a group opposed to the presence of al-Qaeda militants in the province, north-east of Baghdad.

This is just the last gasp of a dying al-Qaeda. Once the Muslim street turned on them, and decided to actively hunt al-Qaeda down and destroy them, there was little chance of al-Qaeda turning things around again. Each attack on fellow Muslims solidifies the Muslim forces lining up against al-Qaeda.

And of course the equally destroyed anti-war left in the US is following al-Qaeda’s suicidal behavior and continuing with their own self destructive plans, plans that have only failed over and over again:

Rank-and-file Democrats expressed heartburn on Friday over their party’s latest anti-war strategy, with some members reluctant to coincide a vote to bring troops home with Veterans Day.

The House was on track to consider next week legislation that would give President Bush $50 billion for operations Iraq and Afghanistan but insist that he begin withdrawing troops.

…

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Thursday that Bush would again veto any legislation that sets an “artificial timeline” for troop withdrawals.

“We should be supporting our troops as they are succeeding, not finding ways to undercut their mission,” he said.

The fact is the Dems only notice the occasional bad news in Iraq. They seem blind to all the progress that is being reported. If I left off with the news on Iraq at this point the Dems MIGHT appear to be only a reasoned opposition. But when you add in the rest of the news coming from Iraq this weekend, their position looks to be one that only seriously delusional people would still be grasping at, trying to keep it defeat somehow relevant.

While al-Qaeda gets one punch in, the US and Iraqis are basically tearing al-Qaeda apart. While five leaders in Diyala’s Awakening were killed this weekend (who will be eventually replaced), al-Qaeda lost 18 ‘fighters’ in one clash with Iraqi Muslims who are on their own jihad to rid their country of Bin Laden’s butchers:

Former insurgents who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq launched an attack against the terror group and killed 18 of its members, asking the U.S. military to stay away while the battle raged, an ex-insurgent leader and Iraqi police said Saturday.

…

A top Islamic Army leader, known as Abu Ibrahim, told The Associated Press that his fighters ambushed al-Qaida members near Samarra on Friday, killing 18 people and seizing 16 prisoners.

An Iraqi police officer in the area corroborated Abu Ibrahim’s account. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because of the situation’s sensitivity.

That is not all that happened this weekend. Seems al-Qaeda lost nearly 60 fighters and a key leader in operations in Diyala Province as well:

Iraqi troops have captured more than 59 al-Qaeda suspects including a leader near the town of Baquba in northern Diyala province.

Local al-Qaeda leader Abu Shival was arrested in the operation, said Brigadier General Rageb al-Ameri.

The Iraqi forces were backed by a group of Sunni former rebels who have joined the fight against al-Qaeda.

This excellent news on the battle front is not the only news coming out of Iraq. There are many other signs of change in Iraq that demonstrate how far out of touch the Surrendercrats (a.k.a., Democrats) truly are. To know the depth of their denial simply requires keeping an eye on Iraq as reality drifts further and further from the delusional fantasies of the far left. One such sign of change can be seen in the classrooms of Iraq:

The pupils who had been too scared to attend class are now returning. It’s one small sign that Iraqis are eager for a return to normality – and that the ‘tipping point’ might not be far away

…

It begins and ends with the children. They stayed away from the al- Gazaly school in southern Baghdad when the streets were murderous – their parents moved out and their PE teacher was shot dead during the mundane act of having a haircut. Now, one by one, cautiously, determinedly, noisily, they are returning to their desks, bringing the school back from the brink. Their hopeful faces reflect, perhaps, the new and fragile optimism dawning in Iraq.

It began as a whisper, but every day the voices grow louder, daring to believe that a country which threatened to tear itself apart is coming together. American deaths are down; Iraqi deaths are reported to be down. Refugees are returning home; shops and businesses are reopening. US generals, whose army was said to be ‘broken’, now give upbeat assessments that they are nearing a ‘tipping point’ – not merely the end of the beginning, but the beginning of the end. Could America be about to turn around a disaster?

…

And yet, touring one of Baghdad’s most violent districts last week, The Observer found ordinary Iraqis making a stand against the insurgents and death squads. Exhausted by grief, they appeared to have made the pragmatic choice that, however unwelcome the American occupiers might be, they still offer the least worst option when compared with suicide bombers and nihilism.

Are Democrats planning a future where these children will be given the opportunity to return to a ‘normal’ life and get the education liberals consider to be a right bestowed upon every human being? Well, what is the Democrat plan for Iraq? Here is what the Congressional leadership envisions for Iraq (from the link above):

Pelosi, D-Calif., told members in a private caucus meeting on Thursday that if Bush rejected the measure, she did not intend on sending him another war spending bill for the rest of the year.

“It’s a war without end,” Pelosi, D-Calif., later told reporters. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We must reverse it.”

This line about ‘reversing’ things in Iraq made some partial sense when al-Qaeda was rampaging across the Sunni held areas of Iraq. But with today’s situation, ‘reversing’ course can only mean RETURNING to the days of al-Qaeda’s bloody atrocities. Is Pelosi now saying we should give up on these school children trying to get an education? Is she saying we must reverse the downward trend in the death and carnage in Iraq? To reverse course now is to head away from probable success and back into likely defeat, humiliation and bloodshed. Is Pelosi saying we need to give al-Qaeda back on the areas they once controlled which have been liberated by the Surge and an uprising in the Sunni community? I mean, what else could she mean by ‘reverse’ at this stage of the game?

There are other stories out there this weekend which beg the question – is this what the Surrendercrats want to reverse?

Is Iraq getting better? The statistics say so, across the board.

Over the past three months, there has been a sharp and sustained drop in all forms of violence. The figures for dead and wounded, military and civilian, have also greatly improved.

All across Baghdad, which has seen the worst of the violence, streets are springing back to life. Shops and restaurants which closed down are back in business.

People walk in crowded streets in the evening, when just a few months ago they would have been huddled behind locked doors in their homes.

Everybody agrees that things are much better.

But is the improvement only skin deep? And will it last once the American troops, whose “surge” has clearly made a difference, begin to scale down?

…

On Thursday, in a crowded public hall in the mainly Shia city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, the local police chief, Brig-Gen Ra’id Shaker Jawdat, bitterly denounced the Mehdi Army militia, accusing it of presiding over a four-year reign of terror there.

It was an extraordinary occasion. One by one, men and women stood up and screamed abuse at the militia, blaming it for killing and torturing their loved ones.

…

Now, starting with the western al-Anbar province and spreading east to Baghdad and mainly Sunni areas to the north, there has been a gathering trend whereby Sunni tribes and nationalist groups have turned against al-Qaeda as their primary enemy.

Is this what Pelosi demands we stop before it becomes permanent? Is this what Pelosi wants to defund? Is she still trying to give al-Qaeda one last chance to avoid utter defeat in Iraq? This amazingly positive report is from the BBC – no ally of the Iraq war. But even Euro-liberals understand Iraq has taken step huge step forward and will not follow their American counterparts into delusional fantasies.

So as the BBC reports on the CURRENT state of Iraq, Speaker Pelosi is simultaneously demanding all this be reversed! This is all in the same weekend folks. The delusions of the dems are now so out of step with reality they would be comical – if thousands of lives and the future viability of a;-Qaeda as a threat weren’t also at stake. Pelosi either has no clue what she wants reversed in Iraq or she just doesn’t care what she calls for being reversed.

It is a stunning duplicity between the far left’s fantasies and the reality of Iraq post Surge. It is also headline news, because this has to be the most clueless claim I have ever witnessed outside of a Hollywood Movie. Have the Dems’ delusions made them so confused they don’t even comprehend how incoherent they are right now? As supposed leaders of this country, incoherent confusion would seem to be a big story.

Update: Seems the Surge of good news out of Iraq is not yet over for the day. It seems al-Qaeda has lost another 76 fighters in recent today. For a group which cannot number more than a couple thousand nation-wide these kinds of losses can imply the loss of an entire region for al-Qaeda. But more importantly are the changes being seen across the southern belt of Baghdad, in the latest Provinces to see Iraqis throwing off the brutality of al-Qaeda:

Al-Qaeda is losing ground south of Baghdad but Iranian weapons still “trouble” US forces despite Tehran’s assurance that it has halted the flow of arms into Iraq, a US commander said on Sunday.
Major General Rick Lynch, commander in Baghdad’s southern belts and the Shiite provinces of Babel, Karbala, Najaf and Wasit, said Al-Qaeda fighters were losing local support as thousands of former anti-American insurgents allied themselves with the US military.
Lynch, whose command covers some of Iraq’s most dangerous areas, including the notorious “triangle of death” south of Baghdad, said around 26,000 local Iraqis were now working with the military to help secure the region.

Between the one time allies who have now decided to fight al-Qaeda to the actual casualties and losses al-Qaeda has endured, the actual size and threat of al-Qaeda is shrinking rapidly. And along with it the violence and carnage they wrought.