How Freedom for Iraq Pains the Left

Op-Ed -- Ever since the start of the Iraq war the leftists have done nothing but throw monkey wrenches and hatred towards the American men and women who have volunteered to put their lives on the line to fight the savage enemy of radical Islam. The Left called American soldiers mercenaries, murderers, stupid, terrorists, you name it and the Left insulted it. They covered the carnage by the radical Islamic terror masters with a sick glee with network anchors salivating about the impending Bush defeat in Iraq. Now that the left has failed to deliver America a defeat in Iraq they are all worried about Afghanistan.

Barack Obama still can not come to grips that Iraq is turning out to be a great victory for America over the radicals who were trying to take power away from the Iraqi people. He still says he would have been against the surge! How can that make sense? What is it about Iraq that has the Left so pained? The fact that it has taken the Americans 4 years to train 500,000 Iraqi soldiers to defend themselves is amazing, but more amazing is the sabotage perpetrated by those on the left during this whole period desperate for Bush to be declared a failure. It proves that the Left was more interested in the defeat of Bush than the lives of the Iraqi people who were dying along with Americans to defeat the scum that was infesting the streets of Iraq. If Obama does win the election it will be so much fun to see the same people who trashed Americas military all of a sudden become hawks and back Obama on the use of American power...mpress

You think the Iraq war was bad?  It could have been worse.  In fact, let’s look at how much was accomplished before the surge.

• Saddam’s regime was ousted in about one month, with relatively few US fatalities and limited Iraqi civilian fatalities.  Since April of 2003, the operation has been one of countering the ruthless insurgents, often foreign and al-qaida, while assisting the greater Iraqi population to be self-governing.
• Israel, Saudi Arabia and other countries were not drawn into the conflict.  The war did not spread throughout the region.  In fact, the conflict was largely confined to five provinces within Iraq.
• The two months of highest US troop fatalities occurred in 2004 and the rate appeared to be falling until about 2006 (an election year — coincidence?).
• Multiple Iraqi elections were held by the end of 2005.  The transitional authority was replaced with an Iraqi-run government elected by the Iraqi people under an Iraqi-written constitution.
• Iraq’s GDP grew from $20.5B (US dollars) in 2002 to $34.5B in 2005, an increase of 68% in those first three years of US presence, despite the setback of the initial war itself.
• Crude oil production was back above 2 million barrels per day by October 2003, or at least 80% of the pre-war peak, and would remain at or above that level for most months thereafter.
• Electricity generation exceeded pre-war levels by 2004.  Nationwide, the average hours of electricity available per day would be higher than the pre-war level by early 2004.
• The number of registered cars more than doubled from pre-war to October 2005.  Telephone subscribers went from 833,000 pre-war to over 4 million in 2005.  Internet subscribers went from 4,500 pre-war to over 147,000 by March 2005.
• Commercial TV, radio and independent newspapers and magazines went from zero pre-war to 44, 91, and 294, respectively, by December 2005.
• The number of children enrolled in middle and high schools increased by 27% from 2002 to 2005.
• The number of Iraqi security troops went from under 9,000 in May 2003 to over 200,000 by the end of 2005, and in increasing states of readiness. source