Iraq is a success, no thanks to Obama

Yesterday, Iraqis flocked to the polls to democratically elect a new parliament. Turnout was high at the more than 50,000 voting booths, with some voters waiting in line for hours to exercise their freedom. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis risked their lives to serve as poll workers. There were a few attacks as was to expected, but for the most part the election went incredibly smoothly. Iraq, after decades of rule by brutal tyrants, has finally embraced democracy.

No thanks to Barack Obama.

The president gave a brief statement today in which he congratulated Iraqis on their "courage." It's a shame Obama didn't have that same courage three years ago. The only reason Iraq is a peaceful democratic haven today is President Bush's surge of more than 20,000 troops in 2007. Obama opposed that surge and spent most of the Democratic political primary railing against it.

From a CBS News article in January 2007:

Another probable presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), said rather than increasing troops, the governemnt should be bringing them home in a phased withdrawal.

"Senator McCain and the president seem to believe that only a military solution can accomplish our goals there," he said. "And every objective observer that I've talked to believes that in fact what we have is a political problem between Shia and Sunni, and it's important for us to get that political track moving. That was absent from the president's speech."

Obama said Congress needs to find options to constrain the president, but also needs to make sure that the troops have all the supplies and equipment they needs. He said he wasn't ready to support the resolution proposed by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to cut funding for the war.

"I personally think that, if there are ways that we can constrain and condition what the president is doing so that, four to six months from now, we are beginning a phased withdrawal while making sure that the troops on the ground have the equipment that they need to succeed, then that is going to be the area that I'm most interested in supporting," he said.

And from a New York Times article in August 2007:

“No matter how brilliantly and bravely our troops and their commanders perform — and they have performed brilliantly and bravely — they cannot and should not bear the responsibility of resolving grievances at the heart of Iraq’s civil war,” Mr. Obama said. “No military surge, no matter how brilliantly performed, can succeed without political reconciliation and a surge of diplomacy in Iraq and the region.”

And then from the AP:

"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was," Obama said in excerpts of the speech provided to The Associated Press.

"The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now," the Illinois senator said."

As we now know, Obama was spectacularly wrong. The only solution in Iraq was the military solution and its effects have been dramatic. Attacks of any sort in Iraq have plummeted to less than twenty per day. You now have a greater chance of being injured in Southeast Washington, DC than in Baghdad. Joe Biden has said that he thinks Iraq will be one of the Obama Administration's greatest successes. But the tranquility there was only possible by doing the exact opposite of everything Obama wanted.

Van Jones thinks treasonous Iraq war traitors are "heroes"

Van Jones is on a roll. He's already started a group hell-bent on overthrowing the United States government, declared himself to be a communist, befriended a former Weatherman terrorist, called Republicans ass****s, and accused the Bush administration of perpetrating 9/11. Now we've learned he cast his lot in with traitors during the Iraq war.

In 2003, a band of left-wing nuts headed to Iraq to be "human shields" -- place themselves in front of Iraqi schools and hospitals so the United States would think twice about bombing. They introduced themselves to Saddam Hussein's government which took them in. Van Jones went on MSNBC (where else?) to discuss the problem with Dan Abrams.

DAN ABRAMS: If Saddam Hussein uses human shields and he’s captured alive, he’s going to be tried as a war criminal, as will anyone who works with him in that effort. The question we’re asking here is, what about these Americans, these Europeans who are sending over these American and European human shields?

VAN JONES: They’re heroes.

DAN ABRAMS: Could that — well, all right.

VAN JONES: They’re not criminals, they’re heroes.

DAN ABRAMS: All right, Van, before I even get to the intro, Van Jones is jumping in, describing them as heroes.

VAN JONES: They’re not criminals, they’re heroes.

DAN ABRAMS: All right, Van, before I even get to the intro, Van Jones is jumping in, describing them as heroes.

No they were traitors, quite literally giving "aid and comfort to the enemy." This is the man Barack Obama hired as his green jobs czar, the Center for American Progress hired after that didn't work out, and the NAACP called "an American treasure."

In the end, even the human shield losers were smarter than Van Jones. After meeting with the Iraqi government, the group bolted for the border, complaining that Iraqi officials wanted to post them at strategic targets, such as power plans and oil refineries, instead of more humanitarian locations. What a surprise. These are Obama's and Jones' true heroes: those who talk big about humanitarianism and then cut and run.