Story here.
ht: Small Dead Animals
Emphasis mine
"THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON:" Michael Yon just phoned from Baghdad, and reports that things are much better than he had expected, and he had expected things to be good. "There's nothing going on. I'm with the 10th Mountain Division, and about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months. And the place we're at, South Baghdad, used to be one of the worst places in Iraq. And now there's nothing going on. I've been walking my feet off and haven't seen anything. I've been asking Iraqis, 'do you think the violence will kick up again,' but even the Iraqi journalists are sounding optimistic now and they're usually dour." There's a little bit of violence here and there, but nothing that's a threat to the general situation. Plus, not only the Iraqi Army, but even the National Police are well thought of by the populace. Training from U.S. toops has paid off, he says, in building a rapport.
(...)
He thinks that Obama will be able to pull troops out, and send some to Afghanistan, without creating problems in Iraq. Michael will be reporting from Afghanistan soon, and sending back video, so stay tuned. Things aren't going swimmingly there.
Well, Iraq and Afghanistan are different. Not so sure we'll eliminate all Taliban or make them abandon their hellbent ideology and lay down arms, anytime soon. I say, if we're not going to colonize Afghanistan, seeing the billions and billions, plus many, many lives, we've paid into that nation, we have a moral right to colonize Afghanistan. But we certainly won't, and the question is: How much longer is America willing to stay to see if they can finally destroy the Taliban? I cannot say, but for Canada's part, we're done in 2011, having done our part well above our means. Now we need to rebuild our military, and sinking billions more into Afghanistan will make this freakin' difficult to do, especially now that we're looking at tightening spending across the board to keep the budget balanced.
Should America stay in Afghanistan longer than we, I'll wish them godspeed and speedy victory. Sure, it looks like the Taliban won't be defeated, but folks said the "insurgency" in Iraq wouldn't be defeated, either. Signals from President Karzai, however, make me think that the Free World might now as well actually go home. Karzai says to Canada, "Don't take any more Taliban prisoners". He indicates he wants to deal with the Taliban, possibly allowing them to be part of government again. Well, it's now obvious that he doesn't want us there anymore, though he says, stay anyway... what are we to think, given his mixed messages? Is he too cheap to build his own security force properly, preferring to use the Free World to protect him?
I guess "Balbulican" and his deranged "progressive" propaganda-and-psychops-running ilk will call both me and Yon "nuts" or something, denying we won anything, denying that there's hardly any enemy opposition happening anymore at all in Iraq. The Left doesn't want us to have won, for it's inconvenient to their agenda for the Free World to achieve war victory over an Axis nation.
Obviously, the baddies are pretty much finished in Iraq. Remember when they were all over the place, all the time, killing, killing, killing? No more. How can we, therefore, not consider it a victory? It's almost like our victory over Germany and Japan, after all...
And bear in mind that there was a greater force in Iraq, particularly after the surge, and that the force in Afghanistan is inadequate. If the Afghanistan thing will continue, then they might as well be like, ok, it's time to get serious... let's get it together and blow away the Taliban everywhere they are... no more pussying around... kill the Taliban for once and for all! And then go home!
