Daniel Davies’s Blog

Courtesy of the Patriot Post

Troop surge turning the tide

It gives us great pleasure to report that, one month after the commencement of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq and the enactment of a new plan to secure Baghdad, American troop deaths are down by 60 percent. Areas of the city previously controlled by militias and insurgent groups—specifically Sadr City, Al-Azamiyah and Al-Doura—are steadily coming under the control of the U.S.-Iraqi combined force.

Since the launch of the 14 February operation, the number of civilians killed in Baghdad has dropped to 265, compared with 1,440 killings from mid-January to mid-February; a drop of 82 percent. By contrast, terrorist deaths are up in Baghdad: 94 dispatched from mid-February to mid-March, up from 19 killed in the 30 days prior.

Similarly, Baghdad suffered 102 roadside bombings in the February-March period, a 37-percent decline from 163 during the January-February period. Other statistics include: 36 car bombs in February-March to 56 in January-February (down 36 percent); 109 mortar attacks in February-March to 204 in January-February (down 47 percent); ten kidnapping incidents in February-March to 98 in January-February (down 90 percent); and 22 assassination incidents in February-March to 519 in January-February for a staggering drop of 96 percent.

That’s the good news from 14 February to 14 March. This, of course, doesn’t mean that our enemy is on the verge of surrender or that we won’t see troop and civilian casualties in the future, but these numbers are very encouraging—unless you’re a Bush-hating Democrat or a headline writer for The New York Times. What, you ask, was the Gray Lady’s front-page headline for 15 March? Why, “Iraqis’ Progress Lags Behind Pace Set by Bush Plan,” of course.

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China, a supposed ally of the US, has been modernizing and expanding their military for many years, so this shouldn’t come as any surprise, I guess. This report came out today, declaring that the Chinese military has already used lasers to disable some US military satellites while they flew over China. This is serious business- the US Military depends on its technological superiority to overcome numerically superior opponents, but China has been specifically working to counter our technological advantage.

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Yesterday, President Bush rebuked those who continue to undermine our national security by leaking classified information to the liberal press when it serves their political purposes. Afghan President Karzai also spoke out very boldy about the reason we must continue to fight the war against Islamo-Fascists, and the fact that terrorism has been around since long before 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Highlights of the video are here on HotAir

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The mainstream media has been exposed again, as Reuters and other “news” agencies have been outed by the blogosphere after running fabricated and deceptive photos from the Lebanon/ Israel fighting. Unfortunately this kind of deception and manipulation of the media by the Islamo-fascists has been their MO for years. Staged “victims,” fabricated “slaughters:” you name it, they do it. I just can’t believe that so many supposed “professional journalists” fall for this junk.

Here is a documentary slideshow/video that’s worth watching.

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Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev was killed Monday in an explosion in the village of Ekazhevo in Ingushetia, a republic bordering Chechnya. In case you don’t recognize his name, he is the one responsible for hijacking an Aeroflot flight in 1991, the June 1995 hostage taking in Budyonnovsk’s hospital (1,000 hostages, 100 fatalities), the 1999 bombings of Moscow apartments (300 dead), the Moscow theater hostage-taking in October 2002 (129 hostages killed), suicide bombings of two domestic civilian flights in August 2004 (90 dead), as well as various other suicide bombings inside Russia and assassinations, and especially the mass murder of (mostly) children in Beslan (September 2004). In the process, Basayev also significantly modified the very nature of Islam in Chechnya and Northern Caucasus, from a traditional mix of syncretism and Sufism into one strongly influenced by Wahabism and Salafism, especially among the youth.

FrontPageMag.com has a good article by Michael Radu that you should check out.

Last night I found a documentary on Basayev’s hostage-taking terror in Beslan. A word of warning: this video is not for kids- at least not without some good discussion time afterwards. Lots graphic footage of the three-day face-off.

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This is a breaking story that should finally get some attention from the Mainstream Media this week.

The former deputy of the Iraqi air force, General Georges Sada, revealed on Saturday that that former dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, ordered him during the first Gulf War to bomb Israeli population centers with chemical weapons….Sada also claims that Iraq’s chemical weapons were taken to Syria aboard civilian Iraqi “Boeing” airplanes just prior to the US invasion. Full article here

There is also a thread on this, including photos of Iraqi 747s and 727s that fit Sada’s claims, here on Free Republic

Video of Sada’s interview on Hannity and Colmes here 

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