One of the crowning arguments that Republicans like to use when debating Iraq is that Democrats *LOVE* bad news. No argument has ever made me more sick in my entire life. I mean seriously... how do you even argue with such a ridiculous statement?
I have ALWAYS said that I hope I'm wrong about Iraq. I hope it can stabalize and I hope we can leave without a big power vacuum or some calamotous implosion.
Well, crow never tasted so good:
Baghdad Starts to Exhale as Security Improves BAGHDAD, Nov. 19 — Five months ago, Suhaila al-Aasan lived in an oxygen tank factory with her husband and two sons, convinced that they would never go back to their apartment in Dora, a middle-class neighborhood in southern Baghdad.
Today she is home again, cooking by a sunlit window, sleeping beneath her favorite wedding picture. And yet, she and her family are remarkably alone. The half-dozen other apartments in her building echo with emptiness and, on most days, Iraqi soldiers are the only neighbors she sees.
“I feel happy,” she said, standing in her bedroom, between a flowered bedspread and a bullet hole in the wall. “But my happiness is not complete. We need more people to come back. We need more people to feel safe.”
Mrs. Aasan, 45, a Shiite librarian with an easy laugh, is living at the far end of Baghdad’s tentative recovery. She is one of many Iraqis who in recent weeks have begun to test where they can go and what they can do when fear no longer controls their every move.
The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.
LINK for more And it's from the NYT, no less.
You sound just like Lush Limbagh.
Any time the slightest trend toward improvement occurs, this is what we hear. But then a month later, and it is far worse than it was.
Okay Iraq is better because fewer troops were killed? Is that the good news? Yea, troops are dying at a slower rate than last month or the month before. Exxon couldn't break their record this quarter for record quarter profits, does that mean they are losing money? NO.
Just because violence in some parts of the country are down, indicate ABSOLUTELY nothing. Maybe weather was bad. Maybe they are planning something big. aybe they are just waiting you out, like you argue they will do if we set a time table. Who knows?
But what about dissentary? Is that down? Running water? Do more homes have it? Electricity? It is at pre-war levels yet? Do they get more than 8 hours a day of it? What about political progress? Any made at all? Did one of the many issues the Iraqi government disagree on get solved in the last 8 months?
I remember hearing Lush say when the price of gas went from $2.50 to $2.25 a gallon, "See the price of gas is getting better, it's turning around." YEA, RIGHT!!!!
One month of lowered violence, and all of the sudden, "THINGS ARE WORKING IN IRAQ." B-LLSH-T!!!!! And compared to 8 months ago? It was horrible then, so what if its a bit better than horrible. What is that terrible? Tragic? 16 suicide bombings and that is improved security? Give me a break. How about a month without a bombing? How far away are we from that? Current trends tend to indicate what, the end of time?
Do you see us leaving Iraq in the next 6 months?
That's what they said when we went in. Less than 6 months. Less than a BILLION dollars. Greated as LIBERATORS. Cake-walk. So are we back to that, yet? 6 more months? About a BILLION more dollars? Are we liked by the average Iraqi, yet? Is it easy now?
PLEASE.
Hey gas dropped a penny, I guess that back on the decline again, right? We should see $20 a barrel oil again any day now, right? Get back to $40 a barrel being the "ceiling" like it was in 2002?
FreeinTX
