When President Bush announced the surge of troops in support of a new counterinsurgency strategy a year ago, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Democratic Congressional leaders predicted failure. Obama, for example, told Larry King that he didn’t believe additional U.S. troops would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.” Then in April, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, asserted that “this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything.” In September, Clinton told Gen. David Petraeus that his claims of progress in Iraq required a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

The Democrats were wrong in their assessments of the surge. Attacks per week on American troops are now down about 60 percent from June. Civilian deaths are down approximately 75 percent from a year ago. December 2007 saw the second-lowest number of U.S. troops killed in action since March 2003. And according to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of day-to-day military operations in Iraq, last month’s overall number of deaths, which includes Iraqi security forces and civilian casualties as well as U.S. and coalition losses, may well have been the lowest since the war began.

Do Obama and Clinton and Reid now acknowledge that they were wrong? Are they willing to say the surge worked?
...
It’s apparently impermissible for leading Democrats to acknowledge — let alone celebrate — progress in Iraq.
...
it is driven by a refusal to admit real success because that success has been achieved under the leadership of ... George W. Bush. The horror!

i hate to say I agree however the hypocrisy here is that the writer doesn't also point out that likewise there is a complete refusal by Republicans to acknowledge that the whole fiasco could have been avoided in the first place and that the invasion should never have happened in the first place. And was fundamentally immoral and that the US and co launched a war of aggression. A crime for which individuals were prosecuted at Nuremburg. A plague on both your houses.

PS Is George W Bush really to be commended for successfully scrabbling himself out of the mess he created. After costing the lives of several thousand American lives, several tens of thousand Iraqi lives, and upteen billion dollars.

I admit to being wrong about the surge and I want George and all those with blood on their hands to admit they were wrong for starting the war in the first place.

The Democrats’ Fairy Tale - New York Times

While the United States has long imported oil and other raw materials from the third world, we used to import manufactured goods mainly from other rich countries like Canada, European nations and Japan.

But recently we crossed an important watershed: we now import more manufactured goods from the third world than from other advanced economies. That is, a majority of our industrial trade is now with countries that are much poorer than we are and that pay their workers much lower wages.

For the world economy as a whole — and especially for poorer nations — growing trade between high-wage and low-wage countries is a very good thing. Above all, it offers backward economies their best hope of moving up the income ladder.

But for American workers the story is much less positive. In fact, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that growing U.S. trade with third world countries reduces the real wages of many and perhaps most workers in this country. And that reality makes the politics of trade very difficult.

Trouble With Trade - New York Times

Belgium’s favorite Surrealist son, René Magritte, is famous for his painting of an apple on which he wrote: “This is not an apple.” He did the same for a pipe. Today he might aptly produce a rendering of his native land and inscribe on it: “This is not a country.”

It looks like a prosperous one, with its lace and chocolate stores, and beautiful Bruges, and its glassy sprawl of European Union institutions, and its very own tennis champion, Justine Henin. But for more than a half-year Belgium has been unable to form a government because its 10.4 million citizens can’t decide what the state is for.

A Surreal State - New York Times

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes.

Voters rejected the raft of reforms by a margin of 51% to 49%, the chief of the National Electoral Council said.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Chavez defeated over reform vote

Jobless men pay $500 bribes to join the police force. Families build houses illegally on government land, car washes steal water from public pipes and nearly everything the government buys or sells can now be found on the black market.

Painkillers for cancer (from the Health Ministry) cost $80 for a few capsules; electricity meters (from the Electricity Ministry) go for $200 each and even third-grade textbooks (stolen from the Education Ministry) must be bought at bookstores for three times what schools once charged.

"Everyone is stealing from the state," said Adel al-Subihawi, a prominent Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, throwing up his hands in disgust. "It's a very large meal and everyone wants to eat."

Corruption and theft are not new to Iraq, and government officials have promised to address the problem. But as Iraqis and U.S. officials assess the effects of this year's U.S. troop increase, there is a growing sense that, even as security has improved, Iraq has slipped to new depths of lawlessness.

One recent independent analysis ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Out of 163 countries surveyed, only Somalia and Myanmar were worse, according to Transparency International, a group based in Berlin that publishes the index annually.

Corruption and theft soar in Iraq - International Herald Tribune

The case of a 20-year-old woman who was sentenced to be lashed after pressing charges against seven men who raped her and a male companion has provoked a rare and angry public debate in Saudi Arabia, leading to renewed calls for reform of the Saudi judicial system.

this is how i would define obsenity

In Saudi Arabia, a rape victim's sentence spurs calls for reform - International Herald Tribune

This war-battered city, according to U.S. statistics, now receives an average of 11.9 hours of electricity a day, far more than earlier this year. But don't tell that to Ghaida al-Banna.

reasons to be cheerful about Iraq

Iraqis' Quality of Life Marked By Slow Gains, Many Setbacks - washingtonpost.com

In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.
...
“When he talks about New York, people see it,” Mr. Luntz said of Mr. Giuliani, “and they feel it, and if a number isn’t quite right, or is off by a small amount, nobody will care, because it rings true to them.”

politics in the age of truthiness

Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and Again - New York Times

There always seems to be a good reason to support a dictator. In the late 1970s, Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that it was better to support a "right-wing" dictator lest he be replaced by communists. Right-wing dictatorship -- today some call it "liberal autocracy" -- was in any case a necessary way station on the road to democracy. Communist totalitarians would never give up power and stifled any hope for freedom, but our friendly dictators would eventually give way to liberal politics.

Robert Kagan - Musharraf and the Con Game - washingtonpost.com

Hundreds of thousands of public employees, joined by students and striking railway workers, took part in raucous demonstrations across France yesterday to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for state sector job cuts and other economic reforms.

fasinating to watch another country go through the political contest Britain went through in the early/mid eighties - specifics aside - this is about who runs the country, the unions or the elected government

Sarkozy: strikers are taking France hostage - Independent Online Edition - Europe