Great article.

Articles like this need to see even more exposure. The work that our government and troops have done in that theatre are absolutely phenomenal! Hard to imagine this level of success IN SPITE of all the drive-by media's negative coverage!
Well done!

I have to say Mr Ibrahim that your article is in very poor taste. Just today 18 people have been killed by suicide bombers in Baghdad. There is still no peace in Iraq, just lop-sided reporting by those who wear the Iraq war like a death shroud. There are no America friendly Iraqi's in Iraq, just US military propaganda. There is no justification of the war, just Republican lies that killed not only hundreds of thousands of iraqi's but thousands of Americans. And now the US President departs in utter disgrace having been laid low by those Americans that have rejected the organised lawlessness that has infested the US political system.

You are a relic Mr Ibrahim, and your time is up.

Re last comment:

Some people can't handle facts. Especially when it's not spoonfed to them by the MSM.

Here's a fact:

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/24-Nov-2008/Iraq-bombings-kill-18

and here's lots of facts:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2842

To write that the Iraq war has been won by America is very offensive. Not only to Americans but to Iraqi's too. If you are dead of course then who won is meaningless. The United States has not won the war in Iraq, nobody has won. Iraq is now just a tragedy and those left to pick up the pieces will have a lifetime of grief to contend with.

It will take an awful lot longer for Iraqi's to come to terms with what has been done to them...a lot longer than the financial implications the warmongerers leave behind them in the US and around the world as a result of losing control of things so early on.

I would suggest, Mr Ibrahim, that you concentrate your efforts in cleaning up the mess that the Republicans have left behind them. You should not allow yourself to believe that you are simply able to walk away from this. If you supported this disastrous enterprise then the mess is yours to clean up...and clean it up you will.

Sir,

18 people dead is a tragedy, but it does not mean that a) things aren't going better in Iraq b) the surge hasn't worked c) al qaeda is out and running scared and almost completely destroyed.

All of the above things are true. We did win in Iraq, or at least we ARE winning now.

Wanting to lose is often a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm sure you're mad about the lack of complete civil war over there in Iraq, and will try your best to help the violence escalate by inadvertently being a PR machine for the terrorists. I hope you fail.

For my own part I never wanted war to begin with. For me there is only tragedy...there are no winners, either in the US or Iraq. But if you want me to say you won because that's what floats your boat then here...you won dear boy. It was all worth it and the Iraqi people can now look forward to democracy. It really is such a shame that so many of them have had their appreciation of such a complex notion tarnished by the fact that they will never see their loved ones again. And to have had all this visited upon them by those who knew better from half a world away is quite the cherry on the cake isn't it. Perhaps one day Americans will have the pleasure of having there own destiny decided for them...from a foreign field.

For the average Iraqi the question has gone thus..."Would I like my family back and alive or would I like Democracy?"

Not much of a choice is it!

I cannot, in all honesty, say that I would like to see civil war in Iraq. For the same reason I would not like to see civil war anywhere. Its violent, squalid, pathetic and demeaning for those involved. Usually, it is those who cannot defend themselves that end up losing their lives. For any antagonist to claim, after a war as sordid as this, that they have won beggars belief.

Of course it hardly matters now of course. History has turned so they say. America is now far weaker than it was before this tragedy was unfurled. Its 'authority' on the world stage is now gone. The rest of the world is now looking in a different direction.

I believe they call this new direction..."A Project for a New Non-American Century."

What I am wondering is: do you even WANT us to win in Iraq? In other words, if the Iraqi gov't works more or less how it is supposed to, if the people exercise their right to vote, and there is wide-spread rejection of al-qaeda's tactics...and thus Iraqis live in a very young and frail, but growing, democracy...would you consider that a success? A victory? Not just for America, indeed, MOSTLY for Iraq?

You thought the war was a bad idea. But we are down the road a LONG ways from 2003. There are a million different events that have happened to make Iraq the way it is now.

You shouldn't be wishing defeat in Iraq for the U.S. just because you object to war in general, and to the Iraq war specifically. First of all, it is too late for you to decide. Secondly, the most positive thing you can do to support 'peace' in general is to support the growing peace in Iraq.

Thirdly, America is weaker when it loses a war, not when it wins one.

Lastly, I don't know what material you read for convincing yourself that Iraq is on downward track. I will tell you this though: everyone from the The Surge's architects to the New York Times has noticed the difference. Eighteen people died two days ago. But that is the exception the rule rather than the reverse from two years ago.

You can argue "every lose life is a tragedy" and who am I to argue with you? I agree. But in the practical Machievellan scheme of things, it is better that carbombs kill 18 rather than multiple carbombs killing hundreds.

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