[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

I make contrarian links to sites such as Michael Yon's Online Magazine and Michael Totten's blog. There are numerous other such first hand reports. Go figure.

These don't say anything. Yon's says absolutely nothing. Tottens blog is one incident that doesn't really say anything either just a buddy thing. The 82nd AB troops gave an overall view of the situation as they see it. They could probably even tell you a few feel good stories too but that doesn't change what's happening overall.

Read here and you can see that even the Democrats themselves are toning down their rhetoric in the face of reports coming back from Iraq,

That talks about a fast pullout.

Whats going to happen at the end of the troop surge mission? What have we accomplished? The surge was to give the Iraqi political system a breathing space to get their s#!t together. That hasn't happened has it?
But hey! We have a couple of feel good stories to show for it.

They should have listened to Gen. Petraeus from the get-go instead of ignoring him until it was too late. They shouldn't have put 400,000 ready made insurgents onto the streets.
The Iraqi's need to settle their problems starting with the political side and that ain't gonna happen unless they are made to make it happen themselves which ain't gonna happen with U.S. troops there.