But then again, that might just be one more sign that the Surge is working, and they certainly couldn't let the American people start to believe that victory is possible.

US military losses in Iraq for September stood at 70 on Sunday, the lowest monthly figure since July last year, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

The figure also marks the fourth consecutive drop in the monthly death toll following a high of 121 in May. June saw 93 deaths, July 82 and August 79. The monthly toll in July 2006 was 53.

Two US soldiers were killed on Saturday in separate incidents, pushing the overall toll of American losses since the March 2003 invasion to 3,801.

A US military "surge" strategy saw an extra 28,500 US troops being deployed from mid-February, mainly in Baghdad and the neighbouring province of Anbar, although commanders said most were not in combat positions until May.

US commanders say the strategy is starting to work and that levels of violence are dropping, allowing for a possible drawdown of the 160,000 or so troops currently deployed across war-torn Iraq.

So let's make this clear --more troops in Iraq, fewer deaths. the Surge is working -- even though the Democrats don't want you to know that.

Posted by: Greg at 02:30 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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But even as the percentage of the federal spending sits at about half of what it was 50 years ago, some want to cut it even further.

For Ben Cohen, the politically active half of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, life's not all about ice cream anymore. Since he and Jerry Greenfield sold their Burlington, Vt., company in 2000 to Unilever, the politically conscious cofounder Cohen has turned his attention entirely to making Americans more aware of what percentage of their tax dollars goes toward funding the Pentagon's budget. His latest efforts include hitting up the early primary states and finding Democratic caucus attendees who will pledge to only vote for a candidate who promises to slice the defense budget and put that money toward social needs programs.

* * *

From what I understand, you're trying to persuade the presidential candidates to commit part of the federal budget away from the Pentagon. How are you doing this?

About two years ago we started a grassroots campaign working with "Iowans for Sensible Priorities" and "Priorities New Hampshire" to educate people as to how the federal budget is currently sliced up. We knew from surveys that once people found out about it, people were incredulous and wanted to shift twice as much money as we're talking about.

What percent are you trying to get sliced away from the Pentagon?

It's about 13 percent. That's $60 billion and it's amazing what you can do with $60 billion. It's enough money to rebuild all our schools, provide healthcare for every kid who doesn't have it, provide food self-sufficiency for all 6 million starving kids a year in the world, and reduce our need for oil, increasing energy independence—a lot of stuff.

Cohen, of course, fudges the numbers in this project. What he shows is the proportions of government DISCRETIONARY spending. He ignores those expenditures that are not discretionary, which is about half the budget. Many of those expenditures that deal with the very social issues he wants to address – expenditures on programs that grow every year and have generally been ineffective.

But then why would we expect a super-rich socialist like Cohen to be honest? It simply is not in the nature of the Left to do so.

And I'm curious -- any American with common sense knows the War on Poverty was lost a generation ago. How many more lives and how much more treasure must be wasted on it before liberals will admit that their war policies have been a failure and devise a plan for surrender retreat redeployment of our nation's social workers and anti-poverty activists?

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Posted by: Greg at 01:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Military conditions might allow for even greater reductions in the number of troops in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday raised the possibility of cutting U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 100,000 by the end of next year, well beyond the cuts President Bush has approved.

Stressing that he was expressing his hope, not an administration plan, Gates said it was possible conditions in Iraq could improve enough to merit much deeper troop cuts than are currently scheduled for 2008.

Asked at a news conference whether he was referring to going from today's level of about 169,000 to about 100,000 U.S. troops by the end of next year, Gates replied, "That would be the math."

It was the first time a member of Bush's war cabinet had publicly suggested such deep reductions, although many in Congress have pushed hard for big cuts to begin bringing the war to a conclusion.

You see, the determining factor will be the situation on the ground and military necessity, not politics and pandering like this proposal from the Democrats.

Now that President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus have charted their course for the Iraq war, Democrats in the Senate say one of their proposals aimed at shifting the presidentÂ’s strategy is finally close to winning enough Republican support for a real chance at being approved. It would require that troops spend as much time at home as on their most recent tours overseas before being redeployed.

The proposal, by Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, has strong support from top Democrats, who say that the practical effect would be to add time between deployments and force General Petraeus to withdraw troops on a substantially swifter timeline than the one he laid out before Congress this week, and that it would protect troops from serving protracted and debilitating deployments.

In other words, the Democrats are offering yet another plan to undermine the ability of the military to conduct operations during time of war. They seem to have forgotten, for example, that troops during WWII were not rotated home -- indeed, many remained deployed for the duration of the war, and didn't see loved ones from the time they shipped out until late 1945 or early 1946. But then again, these weak-kneed, limp-wristed liberals would have swooned as they read casualty reports from Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, and Normandy -- each of which cost the United states more troops in a matter of weeks (or, in the case of D-Day, hours) than Iraq has in four years.

In 1943 or 1944, proposals like the one offered by James Webb and promoted by Joe Biden and the Democrat leadership would have been promptly labeled what they are -- seditious capitulation to the enemy. It is disheartening to see that the party of Roosevelt has become the party of Benedict Arnold.

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For all the partisan spin placed on the poll numbers, that is what these polling numbers really come down to.

And when asked what they think is the most acceptable outcome to the war in Iraq, 24 percent say that American troops should remain in Iraq until it becomes a stable democracy. Twenty-six percent want them to begin the process of leaving now, and 37 percent want them to leave within the next year — but still keep some of them in the region.

In other words, only a small minority insist upon the "get out now" strategy advocated by the militant cut-and-run crowd. However, the media is loathe to present those numbers that way, for fear that its template might have to be changed.

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I don't usually pass on the content of emails, but I received this last night and feel it is worth sending on, even though the interview quote is about two years old. After all, there are still Marines from this unit in Iraq.

The CO of USMC Regimental Combat Team (RCT) 6 in Iraq, is asking for e-mails - Undisclosed Recipients

US Marine Colonel Simcock, the commander of USMC Regimental Combat Team (RCT) 6 in Iraq, is asking for 6,000 positive emails to his Marines. That's one email for each Marine in his RCT command. COL Simcock is concerned about the effect of the negative barrage that those Marines are getting through the electronic media. So far, they've only mustered 2,000 emails. That's a crying shame compared to the amount of crap I get daily in email. This is a legitimate request. It's not one of the "little Johnny wants to break the world's record in Christmas cards" situations. It takes only 30 seconds of your time. Here's the email address:

RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil

If you're reading this email, then you can probably click on the address, type a few words, and then hit "send" to be all done. It doesn't have to be the Gettysburg Address. Something as simple as "Hello, Marine. We thank you for what you're doing. You are in a noble task. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Best wishes & get home soon" is more than sufficient.
An excerpt from an interview with the Colonel:

GRIM: Is there anything that you and your Marines need that we could send you?

COL. SIMCOCK: (Chuckles.) I'll tell you what, the one thing that all Marines want to know about -- and that includes me and everyone within Regimental Combat Team 6 -- we want to know that the American public are behind us. We believe that the actions that we're taking over here are very, very important to America. We're fighting a group of people that, if they could, would take away the freedoms that America enjoys.

If anyone -- you know, just sit down, jot us -- throw us an e- mail, write us a letter, let us know that the American public are behind us. Because we watch the news just like everyone else. It's broadcast over here in our chow halls and the weight rooms, and we watch that stuff, and we're a little bit concerned sometimes that America really doesn't know what's going on over here, and we get sometimes concerns that the American public isn't behind us and doesn't see the importance of what's going on. So that's something I think that all Marines, soldiers and sailors would like to hear from back home, that in fact, yes, they think what we're doing over here is important and they are in fact behind us.

So, friends -- send your support to those fighting for us.

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Posted by: Greg at 05:59 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Now, will all those cut-and-runners who worship at the altar of the Iraq Study Group fall in line with the proposal they outline? Somehow I doubt it.

n a report to be released today, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years.

"The United States faces too many challenges around the world to continue its current level of effort in Iraq, or even the deployment that was in place before the surge," the report says. "It is time to chart a clearer path forward."

Got that -- three years to cut troops by 50% and five years to get them out entirely. The Democrats are all talking about an immediate withdrawal. Will they now admit their error? Or will they play politics and dismiss any proposal that calls for any withdrawal timetable the extends past next year?

Posted by: Greg at 09:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The slogan of the cut-and-runners used to be "listen to the generals". Now the NY Times is shouting the exact opposite -- Ignore Petraeus and the generals in Iraq who are saying there is progress.

We hope that General Petraeus can resist the political pressure and provide an unvarnished assessment of the military situation in Iraq. He is an important source of information, of course, but he is only one source — and he is not the man who sets American policy. If Mr. Bush insists on listening only to those who agree with him, Congress and the public must weigh General Petraeus’s report against all data, including two new independent evaluations sharply at odds with the Pentagon’s claim that things in Iraq are substantially better.

In other words, we want Congress to listen to those who are not on the ground in Iraq rather than those who are.

Oh, and by the way, I love this little jab at the President.

Mr. Bush, deeply unpopular with the American people, is counting on the general to restore credibility to his discredited Iraq policy.

Let's see here -- what are the polls saying about the views of the American people towards Congress? Somewhere around 18% approve of the job being done by Congress, which is about half of the president's job approval rating. On the other hand, General Petraeus has an approval rating nearly 4 times higher than that of Congress. So perhaps it is time the anti-war, anti-troop Democrats listen to someone who the American people do believe is doing a good job.

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And their attempt to hamstring recruiting and cut of information about this important form of service to one's nation can only be described as unpatriotic.

Military recruiters are frequently given free reign in New York City public schools and allowed into classes in violation of the school systemÂ’s regulations, according to a report released yesterday by the Manhattan borough president and the New York Civil Liberties Union

The report, based on surveys of nearly 1,000 students at 45 high schools citywide last spring, said the cityÂ’s Department of Education exercised almost no oversight over how much access recruiters had to students at high schools.

“There were recruiters who were in the classroom not to talk to students about reading, writing and arithmetic, but to talk to them about how to get a one-way ticket to Iraq and all the benefits you will accrue by that process,” Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, said at a news conference. “This is something that must be stopped. It’s outrageous, and it gives recruiters a captive audience.”

Wanna bet that the NYACLU wouldn't have a problem with homosexual activists in the classroom explaing the joys of sodomy and the evils of those who have moral objections to homosexual conduct?

No -- they and their coalition of anti-war folks just want to make America (and the world) safe for jihadis -- just like they have here.

After all -- terrorists have rights, but patriots don't, and schools should teach kids to love and embrace Islam and fear and loathe the military.

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Posted by: Greg at 10:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Over at the Cloaca Maxima of the internet, KOSsacks wail and gnash their teeth about the President's visit to Iraq.

I was particularly shocked by this comment, who clearly suffers from both BDS and Mother Sheehan's Disease.

My son will be leaving for Iraq in December. He actually believes that he is doing a good thing. It not only saddens me what is happening to so many people, but to also watch my son change overnight from intelligent to indoctrinated.

This craziness has gone on too long!

Supporting the troops my ass!

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