Fallujah Twice
Decline and Fall reports from Fallujah. In contradistinction from Michael F. Totten’s report, D&F says the hardened perimeter is manned by US Marines rather than Iraqi police, but allows that “I have no idea what Totten was shown when he was here.” Noah Schachtman writes about the biometric security. All three writers agree that Fallujah is much quieter than it used to be. None of them has tried to pass off current conditions in Fallujah as “normal.”
I should state that I did not expect violence in Iraq to drop this year the way it has – and it clearly has dropped. I was on record predicting that the seasonal violence ratchet would continue through 2008 and that hasn’t happened. (Damned if I can find the entry. Suffice to say I was . . . confident.) There are a lot of reasons why violence has dropped, and a few reasons why I didn’t predict it. The drop doesn’t mean Iraq is in good shape; nor does it justify the decision to conquer Iraq by force in the first place. It doesn’t even mean the current relative calm will sustain itself. But it’s not the way I expected Iraq to look at the end of this year.
Comment by Blar —
December 14, 2007 @ 1:37 am
Whatever your failings as a pundit foreseeing the future, they are easily overshadowed by your success as a prophet foreseeing the future.
HUCKABEE: There’s only one explanation for [my surge in the polls], and it’s not a human one. It’s the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of five thousand people. (Applause) That’s the only way that our campaign can be doing what it’s doing. And I’m not being facetious nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much, and it has. And it defies all explanation, it has confounded the pundits. And I’m enjoying every minute of them trying to figure it out, and until they look at it, from a, just experience beyond human, they’ll never figure it out. And it’s probably just as well. That’s honestly why it’s happening.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
December 14, 2007 @ 1:56 am
Jim, this could just be me, but in some ways I feel significantly less informed about a lot of Iraq stuff right now. I have some great snapshots but big pictures seem harder to find. This makes me reluctant to have any reaction to a lot of news.
Comment by Angry Girl —
December 14, 2007 @ 4:49 am
I have to say that I have been very displeased with the entire decision and outcome of having gone into Iraq. To this day it seems we have no business being there, but we can’t really leave gracefully. It has come to the point that even having an educated opinion has become difficult. Rarely does one see anything in the readily available media that is of any use. To find anything requires seeking it out…which just leads to more people being uninformed and ignorant about what it is that is going on.
Comment by mds —
December 14, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Yeah, yeah, never mind all those pesky facts. It worked; we won. “Let freedom reign!” All the troops can come home by Easter, right?
Comment by Derek Copold —
December 14, 2007 @ 11:52 am
It’d be nice if the Bush Administration had the good sense to declare victory and get out while the getting’s good, but they don’t.
Comment by joe —
December 14, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
Wow, sounds pretty free over there.
Violence dropped after the capture of Falluja, too – for a time. Then, with no political follow-through allowing the Iraqis themselves to achieve a functioning, peace-keeping state, the bad guys (some of whom are now our Anbar allies) regrouped and it went back up. Sort of like how it’s starting to go back up now.
It’s not too suprising, our military really does kick ass. They can make the enemy put his head down, no question. But if a good outcome could be accomplished through military means, we would have seen it by now.
Comment by Barry —
December 14, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
Comment by Derek Copold —
“It’d be nice if the Bush Administration had the good sense to declare victory and get out while the getting’s good, but they don’t.”
Heck, all the more reason not to leave. Hand your political opponents a temporary low tide of sh*t.
Comment by Doug —
December 14, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
Jim, et al., I am always leery when I don’t know why a graph’s author selected the time period to define a trend. In this case the source had stats going back to Jan 05, so why start the time line in May-05? Maybe there is a good reason but I didn’t come across it. If you didn’t click through to the original source of the casualty stats, this is the site. It is good for tracking casualty figures and events and includes the ability to break out details. For casualty counts back to 2003 there is always IBC.
If you want to put some historical context to the statistics (for US casualties in Wars) try this report.
Comment by ran —
December 14, 2007 @ 6:23 pm
I’m gonna paraphrase Bush senior: this illegal aggression against iraq will not stand. The iraqis are not gonna let us squat forever on their land and steal their oil. eventually they will kick our sorry goldbricking asses out. the Iraqis despise us and they won’t accept a permanent murderous Israeli-style occupation.
Comment by Doug —
December 14, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
Ran, entertaining yes, coherent no. You might want to add a “T” to your screen name.
Trackback by 'Aqoul —
December 16, 2007 @ 1:21 am
Competent Adults in Charge? The Iraq Surge’s Non-Failure…
Not often do I get to be more-right-than-Henley, but here I claim. The last time he was wrong, which goes back years, so was I, as when he predicted that Ariel Sharon would not go through with the Gaza withdrawal…….
Comment by matthew hogan —
December 16, 2007 @ 9:28 am
Me on this issue here.