See previous: 2007.04.23 Dem Perfidy // Islamism Delenda Est Roundup

"In less than six months time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops. Indeed last week, he said the war is already lost, and the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat."  -- Vice President Dick Cheney

Below the fold:

• Baghdad Dispatch: The Wall
• 9 KIA and Other Developments -- The Rest of the Story
• Video: Dick Cheney vs. Harry Reid
• Video: Reid sez Bush’s “attack dog” Dick Cheney out to get him, Democratic congress
• Cheney: Democrats Are Defeatists About Iraq
• Reid Has No Honesty at All
• Harry Reid, Please Phone Home
• War Supplemental Now Includes Minimum-Wage Increase?
• Video: Reid vows not to believe Petraeus if he reports progress in Iraq
• Reid's bloody hands
• Mullah Dadullah and hundreds of Taliban 'surrounded in southern Afghanistan'
• We'll only lose in Iraq if the Democrats inflict the defeat
• What Would It Take for Joe Lieberman to Fire Harry Reid?

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Newer items are added at the top. Please treat this post as a blog within a blog, come back often, and scroll down till you see something that was here on your last visit.

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Baghdad Dispatch: The Wall
The decision to build security walls around some Baghdad districts is getting a lot of attention in the local and world media. It’s creating many questions and even more rumors. Here’s some background straight from Baghdad, just as protests may be making both Iraqi and American officials reconsider the plan, according to some press reports.
by Omar Fadhil, PJM Baghdad editor (H/T: Jules Crittenden)

First and foremost, I don’t know why “The Wall” is becoming such an issue now. Work to construct similar walls started weeks ago in the Amiriya and Ghazaliyah districts. The “news” went utterly unnoticed then.

But that’s not what matters. What does matter is effectiveness versus side-effects. Neither should be neglected.

Yesterday leaflets were distributed in the streets of Adhamiya (or Azamiya, English doesn’t have the exact sound anyway). The leaflets — printed and distributed by persons unknown — called on residents to protest the building of the wall. Knowing that the only organized entity capable of such quick response to events in Adhamiya are either the insurgents or al-Qaeda strongly indicates that they were behind the planned protest. More important still is that it indicates they see the wall as a threat to their movement and ability to carry out their actions.

From a tactical point of view these walls can be very useful in reducing the levels of violence in targeted areas. Militants will have to stay in their home areas to avoid passing through the controlled gates. This reduces their ability to transport weapons and munitions for storage or operations in other districts. Failing that they will have to relocate to a district where it would be easier for them to operate. In either case the capacity of the militants to sustain their current level of operations would be impaired. ...

There are definitely downsides that come from surrounding communities with walls, mostly psychological and social. It’s sad to watch the capital of your country become the only city in the world that resembles a compartmentalized fortress where you need tall concrete walls to slightly improve the margin of safety.

But this is war and we can’t afford living in denial of the seriousness of threats. Emotions must not be allowed to disrupt taking practical steps that can save lives. So while I understand where PM Maliki is coming from in his opposition to the wall I have to disagree with him. The other thing I don’t like about Maliki’s move is that he broke the promise he made when he announced the security plan: he said he would not allow political interference in the work of the military. So his opposition to this particular plan is purely political in nature with disregard to the facts on the ground, and an obvious result of pressure from some politicians around him. However from his tone I suspect that he will eventually change his mind and deal practically with the issue.

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9 KIA and Other Developments
Jules Crittenden

Nine from the 82nd killed, 20 wounded in Diyala. Exactly the kinds of news people like Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., are looking for.  In war, people die, and those who don’t think anything is worth fighting for will easily find what they need to declare a war lost and wrong.

Turns out al-Qaeda wanted these soldiers dead for a reason.

The AP’s reporting on Diyala appears to have overlooked other news of the same unit* the day of this attack, instead focusing intensely on other unrelated high casualty days elsehwere. Here’s AP’s background to what’s going on in Diyala:

“… an area that has seen a spike in violence since American troops surged into the capital to halt violence there … Sunni militants are believed to have withdrawn to surrounding areas such as Diyala where they have safe haven.”

Here’s MNF-Iraq’s press release released yesterday prior to the attack, citing progress in Diyala. Locals cooperating with 5th Squadron, 73rd Cav, with payoff: ...

The Rest of the Story 
Lorie Byrd

Read Jules Crittenden on the deaths of the nine members of the 82nd Airborne. (Hat tip to Ace) He has the rest of the story the mainstream media ignored. I seriously wonder how the battles of past wars, battles that we count as major victories, would be reported today. Hundreds, and even thousands, were killed in battles that we count major successes.

The television reports of today consist almost completely of casualty figures, and often soundbites of politicians, with no context of the battle whatsoever. The written press reports are usually somewhat better -- they are longer with more space to fill so they generally provide more context and some information about our military successes, but still are lacking. There is an entire generation of reporters that evidently believe that if anyone is killed in battle, then it by definition cannot be counted a success. I think that some of the problem is that these are not conventional battles with two sides shooting at each other and one side advancing to take territory. Instead, the battles being fought in Iraq are often back and forth action/reaction situations. We round up or kill the enemy, or otherwise disrupt their activities, then some of them come back and attack with a car bomb or other method. Unfortunately one of the ways the enemy fights is by using the media and they know that it doesn't really matter how many of them are caught or killed or how seriously their operations are disrupted, as long as they can shoot or bomb a half dozen or more Americans they know what news the people in the U.S. will hear that evening. ...

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Cheney vs. Harry Reid 
Kathryn Jean Lopez

From earlier today:

Here's the full text:

I usually avoid press comment when I’m up here, but I felt so strongly about what Senator Reid said in the last couple of days, that I thought it was appropriate that I come out today and make a statement that I think needs to be made.

I thought his speech yesterday was unfortunate, that his comments were uninformed and misleading.  Senator Reid has taken many positions on Iraq.  He has threatened that if the President vetoes the current pending supplemental legislation, that he will send up Senator Russ Feingold's bill to de-fund Iraq operations altogether. ... 

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Video: Reid sez Bush’s “attack dog” Dick
Cheney out to get him, Democratic congress
Ian Schwartz

Dingy Harry whined at a press conference today about President Bush’s “attack dog” Dick Cheney, whom the rest of us call “the Vice President.” And he says the President is in a state of denial. This coming from a man who refuses to believe it when the general commanding our troops in Iraq tells him that there’s progress. What a tool.

Transcript:

The President sends out his attack dog often, that’s also known as Dick Cheney and he was here again today. Attacking not only me, but the Democratic congress. The President is in a state of denial.

Who is Reid to call anyone an “attack dog?” He called President Bush a “loser” in front of a bunch of school kids once. And now he’s getting snippy over a little pushback? ...

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Cheney: Democrats Are Defeatists About Iraq

WASHINGTON —  Vice President Dick Cheney, on Capitol Hill Tuesday for a regular Republican leadership meeting, lashed out against Democrats adding a timetable for withdrawal into the Iraq war supplemental spending bill.

Rarely commenting to the press after congressional visits, the vice president came before cameras to call a speech by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "uninformed and misleading." He accused Reid and Democrats of pursuing their Iraq plans for the sake of political advantage, and he criticized Reid over conflicting statements he has made, from pledging not to cut funding to troops in Iraq while pushing for withdrawal to supporting a bill proposed by Sen. Russ Feingold that would defund the war should President Bush veto the withdrawal plan.

"In less than six months time, Senator Reid has gone from pledging full funding for the military, then full funding with conditions, and then a cut-off of funding. Three positions in five months on the most important foreign policy question facing the nation and our troops," Cheney said.

"Indeed last week, he said the war is already lost, and the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat," Cheney said. ...

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Reid Has No Honesty at All
Dan Riehl

This quote is taken from, of all places, Media Matters:

Fox News White House correspondent Wendell Goler: "The president admitted the short-term impact of the troop surge and going after Iraqi militias is likely to be an increase in U.S. casualties."

Now watch Harry Reid basically lie to CNN via this video at Hot Air, using that predicted short-term result to negate the statements from General Patraeus, the commander on the ground in Iraq. ...

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Harry Reid, Please Phone Home
Greyhawk (H/T: Michelle Malkin)

As Harry Reid declares the effort "lost", soldier's in his home state are preparing for Iraq :

Las Vegas reserves disagree with Reid

"We're not losing this war."

That's how a Las Vegas Army Reserve sergeant and Iraq war veteran who is heading out again for Operation Iraqi Freedom reacted Friday to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's assessment that the war in Iraq is "lost."

"I don't believe the war is lost," Sgt. George Turkovich, 24, said as he stood with other soldiers near a shipping container that had been packed for their deployment to Kuwait.

The soldiers leave today for a six-week training stint at Camp Atterbury, Ind., before heading overseas to run a camp in support of the war effort. It is uncertain if their yearlong tour will take them to Iraq.

"Unfortunately, politics has taken a huge role in this war affecting our rules of engagement," said Turkovich, a 2001 Palo Verde High School graduate. "This is a guerrilla war that we're fighting, and they're going to tie our hands.

"So it does make it a lot harder for us to fight the enemy, but we're not losing this war," he said. ...

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War Supplemental Now Includes Minimum-Wage Increase?
Ed Morrissey

House and Senate conferees have reached agreement on the supplemental funding bill for the war in Iraq, the Washington Post reports. It maintains the timetables for withdrawal that could get initiated as early as July 1 and maintains a few of the pork-barrel items that raised such ire during the debates in both chambers. Democrats have also added their minimum-wage increase to the bill, an odd addition to war funding: ...

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Video: Reid vows not to believe Petraeus if he reports progress in Iraq 
Allahpundit

He’s willing to compromise. Unlike some Democrats, he’ll hear Petraeus out; he’ll just simply refuse to believe anything he says that doesn’t fit the left’s narrative. If that “reasoning” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s exactly what Eric Boehlert and various nutroots morons accused the right of doing during the Jamil Hussein episode. Allegedly we couldn’t accept that conditions in Iraq were dire so we concocted a sourcing scandal to explain away a dubious AP report about Shiites lighting Sunnis on fire, which, once discredited, would call into question the totality of reporting from the country. Sheer, unadulterated horseshinola, but that’s What Warbloggers Believe according to non-warbloggers Boehlert et al. Now here’s the Senate majority leader doing precisely the opposite, willfully turning a blind eye to any signs of progress, however “modest,” to protect his own quasi-religious conviction that nothing but nothing good has ever come from the war and nothing ever will. Wouldn’t be the first time the left has done that, either.

I included a bit at the beginning of the clip to show how absurd are the Clintonian semantics he’s resorted to in order to spin his recent declaration of defeat. Petraeus doesn’t believe, as Reid apparently does, that “the war is lost”; he believes that military force alone can’t win it at this point. Reid says he doesn’t grasp the distinction, but of course he does — he’s just worried about losing some of those extra Senate seats he expects to pick up from an American defeat. All other consequences be damned. ...

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Reid's bloody hands
NY Post Editorial. H/T: Michelle Malkin

April 24, 2007 -- Fresh from his declaration that "this war [in Iraq] is lost," Senate Demo cratic leader Harry Reid is moving quickly to hasten America's unilateral surrender.

And to cast the Middle East into murderous chaos.

Reid yesterday promised that the Democratic-controlled Congress will within days pass legislation requiring U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq over the six months starting Oct. 1. ...

From the start, Reid and the Democrats have seen the war in Iraq as a partisan opportunity.

They refuse to present a unified front to the rest of the world - especially to America's enemies - because, in their pinched view, to do so would be to weaken their own prospects for retaking the White House in 2008.

No, Reid didn't repeat his declaration of defeat during yesterday's speech from the Senate floor.

It probably has dawned on him just how big a political blunder he committed - witness Sen. Chuck Schumer's gentle contradiction of the majority leader over the weekend, insisting that "the war is not lost."

Then again, Reid didn't have to repeat his original remarks - because the imposed timetable he announced, if enacted, would bring about precisely the same result.

That is, a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from the region - if Reid thinks the bug-out would stop at Iraq, he's dumber than he sounds - followed by:

* A rapid, al Qaeda/Iranian-driven descent into regional chaos.

* Most likely, a general war.

* And, almost certainly, a Mideast nuclear-arms race as Saudi Arabia, Eygpt and (probably) Turkey rush to arm themselves in anticipation of an Iranian bomb.

At the very least, Reid has to understand that his rhetoric can only encourage short-run insurgent attacks on Americans in Iraq.

Their blood stands to be on his hands. ...

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Mullah Dadullah and hundreds of Taliban 'surrounded in southern Afghanistan'

Initial reports indicate up to 200 Taliban, including top Taliban commanders such as Mullah Dadullah, are surrounded by Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.

On Saturday, the militants arranged a meeting in the village of Keshay* in central Uruzgan province when they were subsequently surrounded by Afghan security personnel. Provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qasim Khan told the AP that top Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah is among those surrounded. There is conflicting reports whether or not ISAF soldiers are currently at the battle site. ...

200 Taliban fighters surrounded
Noor Khan, Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Afghan forces have trapped up to 200 Taliban fighters in a southern village, possibly including the militia's military commander, demanding they surrender or come under attack, Afghan officials said Monday.

Afghan police and government officials said the suspected Taliban fighters were surrounded as they gathered for a meeting in the mountain village of Keshay in Uruzgan province on Saturday.

Provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Qasim Khan said NATO troops were also involved in the siege, but NATO spokeswoman Lt. Col. Angela Billings said she had no such information.

Khan told The Associated Press that Mullah Dadullah, a close aide to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar, and other regional Taliban commanders were at the meeting when the village was surrounded. The security forces were still positioned around the village on Monday, he said.

"We are trying to get him to surrender and to arrest these Taliban without fighting," he said.

Hat tip: Jules Crittenden

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We'll only lose in Iraq if the Democrats inflict the defeat 
Paul Mirengoff

Harry Reid claims that Iraq is lost. If one defines "lost" in terms of failure to achieve a major objective then Reid may be correct. We have thus far failed to bring stability to certain parts of the country, and may not be able to do so. Even using this definition, though, Reid's assessment may be premature. We have significantly increased stability in key neighborhoods in Baghdad without having yet completed the troop surge. A less partisan, more sober Senate Majority Leader might wait for the surge to be completed before declaring defeat.

But the more important point is that Reid's implicit definition of "lost" is misguided. A loss doesn't occur just because you fail to succeed with respect to one important objective -- a loss occurs when the enemy achieves its major objectives. And that clearly hasn't happened it Iraq.

Al-Qaeda's objective is to drive the U.S. out of Iraq in order to gain ascendancy in Anbar province and/or elsewhere. That hasn't happened. Indeed, the best evidence is that Al Qaeda is losing ground in Anbar province, as local tribal chiefs, with our support, turn increasing against the terrorists.

The Baathist objective is to ...

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What Would It Take for Joe Lieberman to Fire Harry Reid?
Lorie Byrd

Townhall has an online petition you can participate in to let Harry Reid know that you don't think the war in Iraq is lost, while others are asking Joe Lieberman to fire Reid. There was a time, not so long ago, that Lieberman expressed concern about the Democrats' position on Iraq. Now that so much has happened, including his majority leader declaring the war lost and congressional threats to defund the mission, what will he do? Is this going to be another case of Lieberman speaking out, but taking no action, as he did in the Clinton impeachment? This is a much more important matter, with not only many lives at stake, but also the security of the country and our place in the world. What would it take for Joe Lieberman to break ranks with the Democrats in the Senate and fire Harry Reid?

Lieberman on Iraq: ...