where have you been for the last 10 or 15 years? Oh....I forgot...the fog of too many meds has you "mis-remembering" the past, does it?
the whys and wherefores have been discussed and vetted to death on these threads...those of you with severe BDS just cannot accept it.
Oh, BTW, I think MORE than a few million Iraqis know they are better off:
Despite how they have been portrayed, today’s all-volunteer U.S. military is the brightest, best educated, trained and equipped armed force ever fielded by any nation. More than 1.6 million American military personnel have served in Iraq. Notwithstanding the perception that our armed forces are stretched beyond the breaking point, reenlistments have never been higher and every service is exceeding its recruiting goals.
- Iraq’s police, military and security forces, widely depicted as ineffective or worse, have grown by more than 100,000 in the past year and have assumed responsibility for 9 of 18 provinces.
- In the last 12 months the Interior Ministry has opened 13 new training facilities, the Iraqi military now has 134 active combat, infrastructure and Special Operations battalions with a total of nearly 647,000 Iraqis who have volunteered to serve in uniform.
- After we first reported on the “Al-Anbar Awakening” in December, 2006, the “Sons of Iraq” movement has crossed the Sunni-Shia sectarian divide and now has 91,000 members. In the same time-frame, attacks against Iraqi civilians and coalition forces have dropped by more than 70 percent.
- Since 2004, more than 4,000 civil reconstruction projects -- including 325 for electrical distribution and 320 water treatment facilities have been completed. More than 3,000 schools and 75 hospitals, clinics and health care facilities have been renovated or built from the ground up while nearly 3,200 primary health care providers and physicians were being trained.
- There are now more than 100 privately owned radio stations, 31 television stations and 600 newspapers published in Iraq -- a nation just slightly larger than California.
- In February, crude oil production exceeded 2.4 million barrels per day and this year the Iraqi economy is projected to grow by 7 percent.
humanevents.com |
