EFL, much, much more at link
We won. The Iraq War is over.
I declare November 22, 2008 to be "Victory in Iraq Day." (Hereafter known as "VI Day.")
By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic goverment, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.
What more indication do you need? An announcement from the outgoing Bush administration? It's not gonna happen. An annoucement from the incoming Obama administration? That's really not gonna happen. A declaration of victory by the media? Please. Don't make me laugh. A concession of surrender by what few remaining insurgents remain in hiding? Forget about it.
The moment has come to acknowledge the obvious. To overtly declare a fact that has already been true for quite some time now. Let me repeat:
WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ
And since there will never be a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue in New York for our troops, it's up to us, the people, to arrange a virtual ticker-tape parade. An online victory celebration.
Saturday, November 22, 2008 is the day of that celebration: Victory in Iraq Day.
What do you need to do to participate? Simple. Just make a post on your blog on Saturday, November 22, announcing that the war is over, and declaring that day to be Victory in Iraq Day. That's it.
If you want to write a short post (or a long essay) analyzing the nature of our victory or cheering the troops for a job well done, great; but if you just want to make a simple announcement of the victory, that's fine as well. Anything will do. Just come and join the celebration to mark the day.
Keep reading below to find: evidence that the war is over (for the doubters); an historical discussion of previous postwar occupations and guerrilla violence; a list of blogs which have already joined the VI Day movement; free banners and graphics for you to download and put on your blog, if you so choose; and an invitation to submit your own "victory graphics" for posting here.
If you would like to comment on VI Day, you can do so here.
Observations and statistics agree: The fighting has ceased, the war is over
I have felt for many months that we had already won the war, but I was spurred to action by this report from Michael Yon:
"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."
This post at the Mudville Gazette confirmed my conclusions.
If you don't want to go by anecdotal evidence, carefully study the official casualty statistics for U.S. troops in Iraq and you will see that they have reached extremely low levels, so low that they no longer even come close to rising to the level of "war"; it is now more dangerous to walk the streets of most major American cities than it is to be stationed in Iraq. For example, Chicago, just a single city in the United States, all by itself experienced twice as many shootings and killings of Americans as did the entire nation of Iraq over recent months:
125 Shot Dead In Chicago Over Summer
Total Is About Double The U.S. Troop Death Toll In Iraq
CHICAGO (CBS) -- An estimated 125 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.
What more need be said? Whatever lingering violence still exists is Iraq is now nothing more than a series of minor disconnected terrorist attacks, which have become completely ineffectual in changing the hearts and minds of the populace, or re-igniting another civil war.