Yes, Iraq is on the right trajectory... not according to the Left but in historical terms Iraq is on the right path. This next month will be crucial as Iraq looks at forming a government. But, it looks like Iraq made it through a very difficult time since the tragic bombing of the Golden Mosque. Anyway, you got me thinking of these last three years and I put togehter a list of a few of their failed predictions from the Left during this difficult period, including:

*German politicians predicted: "Millions of people in Baghdad will be victims of bombs and rockets."
What happened: The antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.

*Ted Kennedy predicted:"A war on Saddam might also cause an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with an estimated 900,000 refugees, a pandemic and an environmental disaster as Saddam lit the oilfields on fire."
Actual Result: The oil fields were not set ablaze, no pandemic.

* Ted Kennedy also predicted: "The U.S. could run through "battalions a day at a time" and that the fighting would look like "the last fifteen minutes of 'Private Ryan.'"

Actual Results: Although each hero lost in this war is tragic, this is still one of America's most successful military campaigns ever.

* Medact Global Health: "A more contained conflict could cause half a million deaths and have a devastating impact on the lives, health and environment of the combatants, Iraqi civilians, and people in neighbouring countries and beyond."
Actual Results: Antiwar Iraqi Body Count says that 35-37 thousand deaths including bank robbers.

* Hans Blix argued: The Iraqis were better off before the war.

The harsh truth: Before the War in Iraq, Saddam was filling his mass graves and keeping state hired rapists on his payroll. In those 20 years about 5% of the people of Iraq were killed or mysteriously disappeared. The red area in the graph above shows the estimated average deaths in Iraq under Saddam Hussein from 36 average deaths per day from mass grave discoveries, to 137 deaths per day from a different source. The yellow area shows estimated total fatalities since the beginning of the War in Iraq from Iraq Body Count, an antiwar website.

* The UN predicted... It is also likely that in the early stages there will be a large segment of the population requiring treatment for traumatic injuries, either directly conflict-induced or from the resulting devastation. Given the population outlined earlier, as many as 500,000 could require treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries.
What happened: Again, the antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.
* John Kerry insisted... "There are no-go zones in Iraq today (September 2004). You can't hold an election in a no-go zone."
Results: Iraq held a very successful democratic election in January 2005.

* Jimmy Carter predicted... "The Carter Center did, our 52nd election. All of our elections have been in troubled countries where the outcome was doubtful. But in every case there has to be a central government that can set up the constitution and bylaws and rules so that an election can be held peacefully. I don't see that happening as long as the terrible violence continues in Iraq."
About those election results: Former President Jimmy Carter, who predicted that elections in Iraq would fail and in the past year described the Bush administration's policy there as a quagmire, this week ended 10 days of silence to declare the historic Iraqi vote "a very successful effort." (February 11, 2005)

* Madeleine Albright observed... "It has long been obvious that the Bush administration lacks a viable plan for success in Iraq. The hardest political job — drafting a constitution acceptable to all factions — has not even begun..."
Results: Iraqi Constitution drafted and accepted by 78% of the voters.

* Madeleine Albright accused... The "coalition," never robust, is shrinking.
Reality: The Iraqi Allied Coalition consists of 30 nations. The Afghanistan Coalition consists of 35 nations.
Bulgaria announced that it will be sending troops back to Iraq. (February 24, 2006)

* John Murtha exaggerated... "Many say that the Army is broken. (Murtha did later, actually!) Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards."
Reality: The Army Guard is surpassing its goals and growing in strength despite Rep. Murtha's campaign against military recruitment.

You could certainly add much more to this list, but it shows is how difficult it has been to fight a war in Iraq and one back here against the savage Left. The Administration has certainly had its hands full! There is certainly not a Civil War going on in Iraq today. And, let's hope we can start bringing home some of the troops soon. We are all for that.

As we remember the start of this war I just want to add, God bless our troops in harm's way today. God bless our country, our leaders, and the people of Iraq.

Oh, ... Walk the Line was good."

"Topic 1: I object to the idea that Iraq is heading towards – or is already engaged in – civil war. The Shiites don’t want it because as the majority faction in Iraq they can wield power through democracy in the Shia-dominant government. By the same coin, the Sunnis shouldn’t invite sectarian violence because the Shiites could overrun them. And the Kurds just want to be left alone.

The difficulty for the U.S. position is that Americans are getting increasingly impatient with the pace of transition. My feeling is that it’s time to throw this baby out of the nest and see if it will fly. The United States has now sacrificed over 2,000 troops and billions of dollars trying to set up a democratic state in the heart of the Middle East. It’s time we know the answer to the question of whether freedom and moderation can take root or whether Islam is incompatible with democracy.

Topic 2: There’s only one movie that accurately represents the everyday drudgery for millions of Americans: 'Office Space'."

"The troops should not come home yet; it is not only undesirable, but impossible. There may be room for a limited drawdown (politically, it would be nice to have something to announce before the November elections), but General Abizaid needs to make that determination, with the success of the mission and the safety of the troops the paramount concerns. However, we simply cannot afford a pullout at this time; the stakes are as high as ever, and the signs are more encouraging than they have been in a while.

That may sound paradoxical, given the spate of bad news lately, and indeed, even a diehard supporter of the war such as I finds myself more and more frequently depressed and disheartened. The signs of hope are tangible, however: (1) We are succeeding in the ‘Iraqification’ of the armed forces. More and more Iraqi troops are capable of fighting at a competent level. This not only lowers the ‘American occupation’ profile, but it sets the stage for the day when real, substantive withdrawals can occur.

(2) The Sunnis are drawing a clear distinction between ‘rejectionists’ and terrorists, and making the latter more and more unwelcome. There is always hope for bringing in former Baathists and other disillusioned Sunni parties into the emerging political system; there is no hope for anything constructive with the terrorists. They must be rooted out and eliminated, and the Sunnis are increasingly taking on that task themselves.

(3) The prospects of a civil war have actually decreased since the bombing of the shrine. The Iraqi people went to the brink, peered into the abyss, and said that’s a place they don’t want to go. What we are seeing is a power struggle, to be sure, and oil wealth complicates it, but there are ways to clamp down on the violence and move forward constructively.

First, reconstruction is woefully inadequate, too much money is wasted, and too little benefit is seen. I’ve advocated elsewhere for a ‘reconstruction czar’ of considerable stature to be appointed to gain control of the spending and introduce accountability for the results.

Second, the battle at home is actually more precarious than the battle in the field. The court of public opinion has a better chance of killing our success than anything on the battlefield. We have the ablity to stay in Iraq for years and wear down the enemy, but we don’t have the political support we need. The Bush administration has faced numerous challenges in staying on message, but they must do better. A staff shakeup in the White House would be helpful, and a full-court press on selling the war must be unending.

Third, we must deal with Iran and Syria harshly and cut out the foreign support for the chaos. It’s high past time that we deliver ultimatums to these two countries, up to and including air strikes, if they don’t cease and desist their financial support, their refuge for terrorists, and their provision of weapons. We can’t let Iran’s considerable oil production hold us hostage when our troops’ lives are on the lines.

The most likely outcome for Iraq is that it will be considered a partial victory and a partial failure. Certainly, we removed the tyrant Saddam, an unequivocal plus, and we killed his maniacal sons, perhaps an even bigger plus. We shook up the status quo, and brought the wind of liberalization into political institutions throughout the Middle East. We failed to bring to bear the force, harsh policies, and sheer willpower to crush the insurgency early, and as a result, we allowed it to grow in numbers and tenacity. We failed to deliver infrastructure improvements at an acceptable rate, despite the expenditure of countless billions.

I still feel the opportunity is there to lay the foundation for a stable, democratic Iraq - but I can’t say with any certainty that we’ll have the political will to stay there long enough to achieve it.

The second question was far simpler:

Topic 2: Hmmmm…regular readers know I’m a bit of a movie buff, to be sure…I could pick a personal favorite (Memento, say, or The Usual Suspects), or an old classic that everyone should see (such as The Philadelphia Story).

Let me get obscure, instead, though, and suggest a movie that you may have to search for (I found a copy on E-Bay). Louis Malle’s Au Revoir, Les Enfants is the story of a boarding school in Vichy France that is in the business of sheltering Jewish children from the Nazi occupiers. Though the film is entirely in French with English subtitles, the story is so absorbing that you soon forget to notice. It is at once a moving portrait of childhood, a study of the barbarity of war, and a stirring defense of the human spirit (during one scene, the children are allowed to view a Charlie Chaplin movie, one of the ‘Little Tramp’ series. The Chaplin character is an immigrant coming to America, and when the boat he’s on comes in view of the Statue of Liberty, the look of longing, awe, and respect on the face of Chaplin, the monks who run the school, and the children watching him on the screen, is an image I’ve never forgotten, one that says more about the American dream than a thousand novels ever could)."

"Absolutely, the U.S. is on the right trajectory in Iraq. The policy for success (a series of democratic elections; building a functional infrastructure; training Iraqi security forces to take over) isn't that complicated, but it takes time to implement.

The "civil war" notion, meanwhile, has been around since the very beginning, coming and going occasionally. It's been wrong each time. It seems that the latest civil war prophesies were merely another example of wishful thinking on the part of naysayers. Sporadic sectarian violence a civil war does not make.

And the troops have come home already. They come home all the time, often returning enthusiastically. In terms of troop levels, we can probably begin drawing down troop levels as Iraqi security forces gain the necessary experience and competence. We should never succumb to the temptation to cut and run, however. A dramatic and abrupt exit, a la Saigon, would undermine the war on terror as nothing else could.

Topic 2:

Waiting For Guffman or Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie or The Jerk if you want a comedy.
Friday Night Lights if you want a red state movie.
City of God if you want a foreign movie.
The Incredibles if you want an animated family type of flick."

Iva Toguri D'Aquino, aka Tokyo Rose, axis propagandist during World War II. Oddly enough, born on the Fourth of July, 1916 in Los Angeles, California.