The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five people and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala south of the Iraqi capital.

Okay, this is great news, but does anyone find the boldface type funny?

TexasDan on October 23, 2007 at 1:38 PM

You must remember that Pelosi et al are good people with good intentions, and Bush is a fascist pig, who only knows evil.

What pre-invasion steps should we have taken regarding the PKK?

Buy Danish on October 23, 2007 at 10:13 AM

It’s the counter-insurgency by Pelosi et al, emboldening the PKK by shredding our relations with Turkey, that wasn’t taken into account.

Cut and Paste to Dkos and be one of the lemmings.

I hope the trend continues that way I can gloat right through Christmas.

Other than that, good post.

With so many other problems in Iraq, the Bush administration apparently thought it could ignore this one. It can’t. If it doesn’t now move quickly, Iraq’s disastrous civil war could spiral into an even bigger disaster — a regional war

Yep – the biggest problem being referred to in the Times article is that “violence in Iraq down 70%” – how will they report that? What to do when facing such a problem? Point out another disaster waiting to happen (as a result of Bush’s lies).

They think we lost in Vietnam when militarily we won.

Militarily we won the battles but didn’t win the war, and Nixon left the South in a position where it would be overrun. Could we have remained committed after Tet and maybe partitioned the country? Perhaps, but we’d might still be there today.

William Amos on October 23, 2007 at 10:09 AM

That link put a smile on my face. Thanks.

“AQI had pretty much lost” – Taznar

No no, they’re just strategically redeploying to Pakistan. If these jihadi a$$holes (the few still breathin’) had any brains, (nuclear armed) Pakistan would be their main focus, not Iraq. They’re dumb enough to think we’re gonna lose in Iraq like the Soviets did in Afghanistan, that didn’t work out as planned, despite the Dhemm’s best efforts to help ‘em out. They think we lost in Vietnam when militarily we won. Thank God our enemies are so damn stupid.

I coulda swore I heard someone say “The war is lost.”

That’s true, depending on which side of the war you’re on. Last I heard, AQI had pretty much lost.

However, in the northern province of Nineveh, where many al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants fled to escape the crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding region, there had been a 129 percent rise in car bombings and a corresponding 114 percent increase in the number of people killed in violence.

I’m sensing a trend here. We may need more data to confirm it though.

Tony737 on October 23, 2007 at 10:39 AM

A little history here, if you care for a look:

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/07/24/video-power-plant-start-up-in-doura/

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Along with many others there, I just did a small part.

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

What pre-invasion steps should we have taken regarding the PKK?

President Bush allowed a fracture between his Defense and State Departments that made it difficult for State to work through the political ramifications of the invasion. Rumsfeld fought Franks for too small a force and then fought Garner over some key State department appointees. There was too little attention paid by Rumsfeld to the professionals in the military and in the State Department who had relevant expertise.

The PKK is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and have been involved in the deaths of tens of thousands of people during the past 20 years. Perhaps structuring the power sharing in Iraq to incentivize Talabani and Barzani to crack down on the PKK, or keeping Turkey actively involved in the reconstruction even after they voted against the invasion route, or not turning over security in the Kurd areas to the Peshmerga while this problem was unresolved would have helped.

Fundamentally, though, evaluating the impact on Turkey should have been an important part of the calculus in weighing “invasion” against “containment”. The breakdown between Defense and State made this difficult.