Liberal "new york times" is changing it opinion of the war, are democrats changing their mind too?

Liberal "new york times" is changing it opinion of the war, are democrats changing their mind too?

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1. what, MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK had an opinion on the iraq war for the newspaper article that they get paid for? that's insane.
2. VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.
   
3. I hope they'll soon wake up!!
4. In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.
   
5. In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.
   
6. check this link its good
   
   
   
   http://workathomedetailss.blogspot.com/...
   
   
   
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7. Outside Baghdad, one of the biggest factors in the progress so far has been the efforts to decentralize power to the provinces and local governments. But more must be done. For example, the Iraqi National Police, which are controlled by the Interior Ministry, remain mostly a disaster. In response, many towns and neighborhoods are standing up local police forces, which generally prove more effective, less corrupt and less sectarian. The coalition has to force the warlords in Baghdad to allow the creation of neutral security forces beyond their control.
   
8. They fail to distinguish between a statistical fluke and a trend. Typical.
   
   Oh, btw, they were pro pro Republican till they found americans would buy more copies of their paper when they switched. If you thing they are a democratic paper now, you are simply forecasting the defeat of the republicans in the next election.
   
   Thanks
9. In some places where we have failed to provide the civilian manpower to fill out the reconstruction teams, the surge has still allowed the military to fashion its own advisory groups from battalion, brigade and division staffs. We talked to dozens of military officers who before the war had known little about governance or business but were now ably immersing themselves in projects to provide the average Iraqi with a decent life.
   
10. In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.
    
11. 1. The Iraqi parliment recessed without passing the majority of legislation deemed essential by critics and supporters of the Bush administration.
    2. The surge is unsustainable past April-May of next year according to the pentagon itself, regardless of the situation on the ground.
    3. Gen Petreas has himself said there is no military solution to the conflict.
    
    So excuse me if I don't start doing a little victory jig. Hell, even this very op-ed doesn't propose anythng like "victory" is around the corner.
    
    They always need "just a few more months..."
12. This is an Op-ed contributed piece accepted by the NYTimes to publish.
    
    The NYTimes was allowed to edit the content and it was the NYTimes that entitled the piece. A War That We Might Just Win, the words chosen by the NY Times editors, would not have been the choice of the writers, who admitted this on a national news broadcast this evening.
    
    Regardless, we all should recognize the validity of the significant successes in Iraq that were reported.
    
    That Anbar province is now the most secure and stable area after the Kurdish controlled region is a major reversal.
    
    That Sharia law is gaining wider exposure as a blasphemous and inhumane system that is forcefully rejected by most Iraqis especially those capable of resisting is exemplary for oppressed peoples in the greater middle east.
    
    cf. ("Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists.")
    
    It seems incredibly irrational and impugns the motives of leading Democrats who orate against the stand up efforts of our military in Iraq by glibly and irresponsibly calling for the unconditional abandonment of the mission asap.
13. I dont trust ANY politicians, Republican or Democratic, anyone who actually TRUSTS a politician to tell the truth is a fool.
14. so how much advertising do you have to buy in the paper in order to change their mind?The ** CHICKENHAWKS **
    [ "Chicken Hawks" are people who are enthused about their country engaging WAR -- which is why they are called "hawks", -- but who make sure that their own butts are nowhere near the fighting -- which makes them "Chicken Hawks" .-- ]
    "I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. . . Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
    (Colin Powell's autobiography, My American Journey, p. 148)
15. Op-Ed Contributor
    
16. Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.
    
17. I will never agree the war in Iraq was the right thing to do; did not from the begining. However I do want to see things turn out for the best. I feel we should work with other nations to help secure Iraq so that it's citizens may live in peace.
    
    Then could we focus on finding those behind 911? Was that not the original goal?
    
    Just another crazy liberal.
18. In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.
    
19. As the truth comes out, more people will learn of the severe media bias against the current administration and the war. The truth is that we are experiencing success, coupled with problems that ANY military would face in a war such as this. Our congress and presidential candidates should be the first to get the facts straight and provide answers to the American people. Instead it seems that they are more focused on scoring short-term political points with no regard to the future of this nation or the people they serve.
    
    It is a good thing that even the liberal media can see past the spin politics has put on this whole ordeal.
20. Flip flop flip flop flip flop the fish out of water party
21. Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.
    
22. These are two columnists that write for the NY Times not the paper itself. This is just proof that labeling a paper like the NY Times as "liberal" or the "liberal press" is a myth. On any given day reputable papers like the NY Times will print articles that represent more than one side of an issue on the op-ed page. There are conservative as well as liberal columnists writing for reputable news media.
23. The Democrats change their mind everytime the wind blows, so what does this really matter?
24. Leave the Times alone..they have their audience
    
    the NY Times has screwed themselves..they were taught in journalism that Journalists don't create the news..what do they do?they have a Pulitzer prize winner proven to have lied about his work..then they submit op-ed as news..just like the piece posted..so they throw a Black Man to the wolves for doing what they engage in on a daily basis..
    
    all they have done is limit their audience to the exact converse of the group they advocate the limitation of access..
    
    ..Talk Radio..the Times can have their crummy domain..
    and talk radio should be left alone to reciprocate the Times
    audacity.... in calling themselves newsworthy and full of integrity
25. By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK
    
26. In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.
    
27. The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.
    
28. Read closer, it's an op-ed contributor, not the newspaper.
    The New York Times, in the editorials written by the staff and editors of the newspaper, are still against the mismanaged and failing war, as well as the Bush Administration's lies and innuendo.
29. We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.
    
30. Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.
    
31. These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.
    
32. Washington
    
33. How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.
34. A War We Just Might Win
    
35. In the end, the situation in Iraq remains grave. In particular, we still face huge hurdles on the political front. Iraqi politicians of all stripes continue to dawdle and maneuver for position against one another when major steps towards reconciliation — or at least accommodation — are needed. This cannot continue indefinitely. Otherwise, once we begin to downsize, important communities may not feel committed to the status quo, and Iraqi security forces may splinter along ethnic and religious lines.
    
36. President Bush says it will take many years and we are willing to sacrifice everything for his legacy.
37. July 30, 2007
    
38. But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).
    
39. Another surprise was how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working. Wherever we found a fully staffed team, we also found local Iraqi leaders and businessmen cooperating with it to revive the local economy and build new political structures. Although much more needs to be done to create jobs, a new emphasis on microloans and small-scale projects was having some success where the previous aid programs often built white elephants.
    
40. No, we're not.
41. That is an op ed essay somebody else already posted -- it is not a New York Times Editorial. The Times prints op eds form all over the poitical spectrum -- this is just the opinion of the authors. It is not the position of the New York Times.
42. After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.