{"id":4682,"date":"2008-02-11T06:52:05","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T06:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html"},"modified":"2008-02-11T06:52:05","modified_gmt":"2008-02-11T06:52:05","slug":"pelosi-vs-abutariq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html","title":{"rendered":"Pelosi vs. Abu-Tariq"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, who do we believe about the situation in Iraq? Pelosi<\/a>?<\/p>\n

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq \u201cis a failure,\u201d adding that President Bush\u2019s troop surge has \u201cnot produced the desired effect.\u201d
\n\u201cThe purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq,\u201d Pelosi said on CNN\u2019s \u201cLate Edition.\u201d \u201cThey have not done that.\u201d
\nThe speaker hastened to add: \u201cThe troops have succeeded<\/strong>, God bless them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or do we believe this al Qaeda membe<\/a>r:<\/p>\n

Al-Qaeda in Iraq faces an \u201cextraordinary crisis\u201d. Last year’s mass defection of ordinary Sunnis from al-Qaeda to the US military \u201ccreated panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight\u201d. The terrorist group’s security structure suffered \u201ctotal collapse\u201d.
\nThese are the words not of al-Qaeda’s enemies but of one of its own leaders in Anbar province \u2014 once the group’s stronghold. They were set down last summer in a 39-page letter seized during a US raid on an al-Qaeda base near Samarra in November.
\nThe US military released extracts from that letter yesterday along with a second seized in another November raid that is almost as startling.
\nThat second document is a bitter 16-page testament written last October by a local al-Qaeda leader near Balad, north of Baghdad. \u201cI am Abu-Tariq, emir of the al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector,\u201d the author begins. He goes on to describe how his force of 600 shrank to fewer than 20.
\n[…]
\nIn an apparent reference to al-Qaeda’s brutal tactics, he said of the Americans and their Sunni allies: \u201cWe helped them to unite against us . . . The Americans and the apostates launched their campaigns against us and we found ourselves in a circle not being able to move, organise or conduct our operations.\u201d
\nHe said of the loss of Anbar province: \u201cThis created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down . . . There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation.\u201d The emir complained that the supply of foreign fighters had dwindled and that they found it increasingly hard to operate inside Iraq because they could not blend in. Foreign suicide bombers determined to kill \u201cnot less than 20 or 30 infidels\u201d grew disillusioned because they were kept hanging about and only given small operations. Some gave up and went home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How hard is it to be a Democrat right now trying to spin a success into a failure and as news gets out about how the other side is viewing the surge. She looks ignorant of the situation when she says the surge is a failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, who do we believe about the situation in Iraq? Pelosi? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq \u201cis a failure,\u201d adding that President Bush\u2019s troop surge has \u201cnot produced the desired effect.\u201d \u201cThe purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-2"],"yoast_head":"\nPelosi vs. Abu-Tariq - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pelosi vs. Abu-Tariq - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So, who do we believe about the situation in Iraq? Pelosi? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq \u201cis a failure,\u201d adding that President Bush\u2019s troop surge has \u201cnot produced the desired effect.\u201d \u201cThe purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-11T06:52:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Susan Johnson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pelosi vs. Abu-Tariq - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pelosi vs. Abu-Tariq - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"So, who do we believe about the situation in Iraq? Pelosi? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said twice Sunday that Iraq \u201cis a failure,\u201d adding that President Bush\u2019s troop surge has \u201cnot produced the desired effect.\u201d \u201cThe purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2008-02-11T06:52:05+00:00","author":"Susan Johnson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html","name":"Pelosi vs. Abu-Tariq - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-02-11T06:52:05+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-11T06:52:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e41455e911277a4681a65e81271065"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/02\/pelosi-vs-abutariq.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pelosi vs. Abu-Tariq"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e41455e911277a4681a65e81271065","name":"Susan Johnson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/020\/02041661cf28a19369e083191c05c819x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/020\/02041661cf28a19369e083191c05c819x96.jpg","caption":"Susan Johnson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/sjohnson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}