Yeah, Right, Whatever

"Who is this 'Malik Daoud'?" I hear you ask. None other than Lt. General David Patraeus. You see, "Malik Daoud", the name given to him by the Kurds, means "King David" and is a sign of respect. And it's not just in the Kurdish areas that General Patraeus is popular. 

Hundreds of men and women, many of them armed, line up in a marble hall inside one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces, waiting patiently for more than half an hour for their hero to turn up.

The object of so much adulation is General David Petraeus, the 55-year-old commander of US and allied forces in Iraq. General Petraeus, widely credited with the military strategy that has clawed Iraq back from civil war to a semblance of stability, is in such demand for photographs that his aides have had to organise special mass photo-ops every six weeks inside the Green Zone and at the other huge US base at Baghdad airport.

...Salaam described the occasion as a great honour. “I just want to say, ‘Thank you.' This man has done great things for my country,” he said.

And, evidently, all of General Patraeus' leadership just might have paid off.

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. 

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. 

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism. 

“They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.”

I'm glad that General Patraeus is finally getting the credit, respect and gratitude that he deserves. And I'm also happy that a vets' group has his back.

Do you know what bugs me, even though I know I shouldn't let it get to me? Near the beginning of this post, there are 3 links to news articles. Two are from a British newspaper, and the other one references a NY Post op-ed piece. I guess the American MSM is too busy reporting on the obvious quagmire to report on this kind of stuff.