Am I dreaming or did the Washington Post just saw we are WINNING in Iraq.

The Iraqi Upturn
Don't look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war.
http://tinyurl.com/58vafv

Given that the WaPo is going to be supporting Obama, what purpose does this Editorial serve for his campaign? My guess is that this is part of an effort to give Obama "permission" to change his position on Iraq since this rhetoric no longer matches the reality on the ground.

The Post begins by noting the LACK of MSM coverage of Iraq...

"THERE'S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks -- which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war."

recent weeks? How about since after Petreus testified in Sept 2007.

Which explains another of their observations:

"Iraq passed a turning point last fall when the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign launched in early 2007 produced a dramatic drop in violence and quelled the incipient sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites."

a turning point that the MSM ignored then and - except for this WaPo editorial has been ignored by the MSM. Now comes another major advance in the Iraq War story that will likely be ignored.

"Now, another tipping point may be near, one that sees the Iraqi government and army restoring order in almost all of the country, dispersing both rival militias and the Iranian-trained "special groups" that have used them as cover to wage war against Americans"

So then we get to the real point of the piece - it is a memo from the WaPo to the Obama campaign:

"Still, the rapidly improving conditions should allow U.S. commanders to make some welcome adjustments -- and it ought to mandate an already-overdue rethinking by the "this-war-is-lost" caucus in Washington, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)."

Why?

" the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki now has "unparalleled" public support, as Gen. Petraeus put it, and U.S. casualties are dropping sharply. "

So, what is WaPo warning Obama about? That if continues with his doom and gloom scenario he will allow McCain to paint him as a defeatist to committed to defeat that he will ignore ANY evidence that the U.S. policy is succeeding. The Wapo's advice?

"...the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable; Iraq's 2009 elections will be crucial. It also should mean providing enough troops and air power to continue backing up Iraqi army operations such as those in Basra and Sadr City.

They close by basically saying that Obama's plan for Iraq no longer applies.

"When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success."

This Editorial strikes me as a MAJOR event. It is very likely to lead to a rethinking of the Iraq coverage by the MSM. We could well then see a meme develop across the MSM that we are winning in Iraq. Given this, the editorial can then be seen as a WARNING to Obama that they and other MSM outlets are about to get behind the Maliki government and that Obama needs to come up with a new line of argument that somehow accounts for the notion that the plan McCain was arguing for all along - the surge - worked. Since Obama likes to claim that he has superior judgement because he opposed the war in 2002 he needs to "realign" his statements since the campaign began that the U.S. war in Iraq was unwinnable. Apparently the war WAS winnable which was and is the McCain position.

Do I hear crickets chirping?

Nope, that's just MikeH and his fellow OlbyLoons scratching their heads in puzzlement.

On Fox election coverage, Roger Stone just mentioned the existence of a tape Miserable Marxist Michelle Obama railing about "whitey" or using some other racist slur. First mention of this I have heard outside of the blogosphere. I think Geraldo just wet his pants.

Stone also said a network had the tape, but he did not identify the network. He said "the network", so maybe he means Fox. As I have said before, I will believe it when I see it.

This os off topic but I hope I'll be excused b/c it is one of the finer examples of deranged lunacy I've seen at Koz lately. Vincent Bucliosa has written "How To" manual for prosecuters of virtually any US jurisdiction to arrest, try and convict GWB et al of second degree murder

Manning memo proves Bush is guilty of murder

The diary ends with this poll:

Poll
After reading this, do you feel George Bush should be prosecuted for murder?

Yes
91% 103 votes
No
6% 7 votes
Don't know

http://tinyurl.com/6lvptk

Just a few tidbits from the crazed commenters:

" We need an Iraqi Eli Wiesenthal (4+ / 0-)

to hunt down all the Bushi war criminals, preferably before they all move to Paraguay and Dubai."

This loon has obviously put a lot of thought into this and the best way to do it:

"The numerous attempts to bring forward procedings to remove Bush and his cronies from power have been frustrated by the Democratic leadership, and for a good reason: There is no telling what a war criminal and fascist traitor will do with the power he still has if he is threatened with impeachment. Bush is literally holding the whole country hostage.

For political purposes, and for our best interest as a nation, the best avenue is to prosecute these criminals domestically. We have enough evidence to convict at least 33 of them on death penalty charges.

We must not give apologists for the neocon cabal any propaganda points to use against us as we prosecute them. We must not lose control of prosecutorial power, either. I favor domestic prosecution first, and then international prosecution to suit the demands that international law be restored.

Let international prosecution wait until we have secured death penalties under domestic law. There will be plenty of time to give credence to international law, as these criminals will be sitting on death row for a long time while they exhaust appeals.

We must also prosecute the lessor crimes of racketeering and bribery, once convictions for war crimes and treason are secured. We must prosecute all offenders, including protegees who aided and abetted. We must brush aside charges of "piling on." This criminal administration abused power in every conceivable way, and each affront must be answered.

It will take us YEARS to prosecute all of the cases, and we may even need to set up a special court just to hear the cases.

Very important: We must have a care how we go about arresting them, detaining them and interrogating them for intelligence debriefing purposes. Doubtless, we must carefully interrogate them to gain as full a picture as possible, of the crimes and the consequences of the crimes, even present consequences."

> He said "the network", so maybe he means Fox.

If any network has it, it's probably ABC. They broke the Wright tapes, and then broke the Pfleger tape. So either they are super-diligent at digging this stuff up, or they have a pipeline to Hillary's secret police.

Geraldo told Stone he'd give him $100 if that tape actually turned up. I don't think he'll have to pay that off. It sounds like blogosphere wishful thinking.

I have my doubts that a tape exists; this sounds like a classic Clintonista dirty trick. That said, if a tape did surface, things would get even more interesting. I cannot believe how incompetent the Dems are for not investigating B. Hussein before treating him as the second coming. You would think they'd learn by now.

"or they have a pipeline to Hillary's secret police." J$

ABC has been the least critical of Hillary in my opinion. Connect the dots. Anything left should be saved for October.

Olbermann is under pressure now!

If a network actually does have it, why would they be sitting on it at this point? Surely, this is the type of story that would lead the network news programs for days, especially with the ratings explosion that it would create. CBS desperatly needs the ratings, and NBC and ABC are so close, it would be a huge boon to either. That leaves Fox and CNN as the only major players without an over-the-air broadcast.

Seems, then, that (if it exists) a network in possession of that tape would have aired it by now, or at least leaks would be coming out that one of those "are working on a story..."

The only entity in the world that benefits from keeping this under-wraps is the Hopenchange Campaign.

NBC has already proven capable of keeping a tape secret for their own gain (VA Tech killer) and I doubt even the DNC is as in the tank for Obammesiah as NBC News.

Just a thought.

I think these posts with the links from the mini-blog are the perfect place for any off-topic posts (Grammie)- they will appear once a day automatically and never have any specific topic, just a random set of of links from the Delicious feed. So, I would encourage folks to use these threads as our version of a daily open thread where folks can add links or raise ANY topic even having nothing to do with Olby.

As to Bob's fist post, I wonder if Olby will honor our troops by mentioning the WaPo article, or the Reuters article on Iraq?

http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSL01687040

Both are great articles showing how much the US soldier matters in Iraq.

Or will Olby do the usual? Spike worthy news that has to do with our, "mindless killers."