Crossposted from Flopping Aces

The new tactics put into place by General Petraeus have bourne fruit once again, this time in the form of a large reduction in troop deaths:

Sixty-three U.S. military deaths were reported in September, the lowest monthly toll since July 2006, according to U.S. forces and a preliminary count by The Associated Press.

A U.S. soldier was killed Sunday in a small-arms attack during combat operations in eastern Baghdad, the military said Monday. The soldier, whose name was withheld pending notification of relatives, was assigned to the Multi-National Division-Baghdad. In July 2006, 43 American soldiers were killed, according to an AP count.

"It’s still too high," military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox said of the deaths during a news conference. "But the trend is in the right direction."

A reduction in civilian deaths:

The number of Iraqi civilians killed per month in bombings and shootings has fallen to the lowest level this year, the Iraqi government says.

In September, 884 civilians were killed by violence, less than half the figure for August, the government said. The BBC’s Jon Brain in Baghdad says the figures suggest the so-called surge involving 30,000 extra US troops is having some success. …

Additional figures released by the government indicated that the death toll had fallen by 38% compared with last year’s Ramadan, according to the Muslim calendar.

And many more of the enemy have gone to visit their virgins:

U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 60 insurgent and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend, with most of the casualties believed to have been al-Qaida fighters, officials said Sunday.

So less American deaths, less civilian deaths, and more enemy deaths.  That equation would seem to signal success right?  Big news right? 

Nope.

The MSM and the left are ignoring it.  They put a little blurb in their articles while the lefty blogs write that they don’t believe it:

Right now the news is announcing that the USA killed 60 insurgents in Iraq. Something similar is announced every few days. But they never once explain how they determined that each and every one of the 60 was an ‘enemy’ during their post-mortem. It seems very odd that the media takes the military’s word characterizating these body counts

Quite different from the reporting done 11 months ago when a US Central Command briefing showed that Iraq was slipping into chaos.  Back then every lefty blog was raising their hands in glee at the prospect that the US is close to losing Iraq.  Most of our newspapers put it on the front page.  But not the opposite signs of success coming out of Iraq now. 

What a shocker.

Meanwhile another Democrat is getting his "ideas" for a peaceful Iraq shot down, this time by the Iraqi’s themselves:

Shiite and Sunni figures in Iraq dismissed Saturday a US Senate plan to split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines, while the Kurds welcomed it as the "only viable solution" to the present chaos.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said upon his return from the United States that the idea being floated there by a US senator and presidential hopeful would "be a catastrophe not only in Iraq but also on the region."

"It is Iraqis who decide and they are keen to maintain the unity of their country," Maliki told state-run Al-Iraqiya television.

The Senate’s non-binding resolution, which is opposed by President George W. Bush, would provide for decentralising Iraq in a federal system as permitted by Iraq’s constitution to stop the country from becoming a failed state.

and:

The U.S. Embassy, meanwhile, joined a broad swath of Iraqi politicians — both Shiite and Sunni — in criticizing a nonbinding U.S. Senate resolution seen here as a recipe for splitting the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.

~~~

In a highly unusual statement, the U.S. Embassy said resolution would seriously hamper Iraq’s future stability.

"Our goal in Iraq remains the same: a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself," the unsigned statement said.

"Iraq’s leaders must and will take the lead in determining how to achieve these national aspirations. … attempts to partition or divide Iraq by intimidation, force or other means into three separate states would produce extraordinary suffering and bloodshed," it said.

The statement came just hours after representatives of Iraq’s major political parties denounced the Senate proposal.

The Kurds in three northern Iraqi provinces are running a virtually independent country within Iraq while nominally maintaining relations with Baghdad. They support a formal division, but both Sunni and Shiite Muslims have denounced the proposal.

At a news conference earlier in the day, at least nine Iraqi political parties and party blocs — both Shiite and Sunni — said the Senate resolution would diminish Iraq’s sovereignty and said they would try to pass a law to ban any division of the country.

"This proposal was based on the incorrect reading and unrealistic estimations of Iraq’s past, present and future," according to a statement read at a news conference by Izzat al-Shahbandar, a representative of the secular Iraqi National List.

This once again proves that no matter what success we achieve in Iraq the Democrats and their cohorts inside the MSM will seek to undermine it any way possible.  Either by ignoring the successes or by seeking to pass silly ignorant bills which they have no business passing in the first place.

But as a few commenters to this site have pointed out recently, if a Democrat gets into the Oval Office this narrative will change dramatically. 

I guarantee that IF a leftist is elected in 08 that there will be a 180 degree change is what criticisms and protests against a leftist president are "acceptable".

Todays criticisms of the President and the war will change to accolades about what a bang up job she is doing.  This happened with Perjurer Bill, it will happen with his wife also.