The surge worked; thank you George Bush and General David Patraeus

To The Daily Sun,

"ISIL is a direct outgrowth of al-Qaida in Iraq. They grew out of our invasion which is an example of unintended consequences. Which is why we should generally aim before we shoot." And there you have it ladies and gentleman. Now in his seventh year as our President, Obama saw fit to blame Bush for the rise of ISIL in Iraq. Deception equals progressive/liberalism squared (D = PL2). Obama made this statement while being interviewed on VICE TV. How appropriate since making lies up out of whole cloth is certainly not a virtue.

I was waiting for blood to shoot straight out of my eyeballs when I found out those comments were not from an MSNBC host. Our president apparently has the ability to lie with a straight face just as shamelessly as Hillary "what difference does it make — all my government-owned, security sensitive e-mails have been turned over so move on nothing to see here," Clinton.

Shameless is a great adjective to describe our dear leader. ISIS is a direct result of his ambivalence, lack of bargaining skills or perhaps his intentional lack of will in attempting to hammer out a status of forces agreement that would have kept a residual force in Iraq and the ISIL savages out of power. Or because he planned to pull out all the troops regardless of the consequences.

According to Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker, there apparently was no guidance coming from the White House. American officials said, "We didn't know where the president was. Maliki kept saying, "I don't know what I have to sell." Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament said, "The American attitude was: Let's get out of here as quickly as possible." "After taking office, I announced a new strategy that would end our combat mission in Iraq and remove all of our troops by the end of 2011" said Obama. "So today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year." A rare Obama promise kept. Iraqi citizens became nervous and soon wept.

Yes, it is true that the United States made a mistake by not getting out of Iraq after the initial success of getting the "Bully from Bagdad" out of power. And we should cease and desist from any more "nation building quagmires." Having said that, the surge worked — thank you George Bush and especially General David Patraeus. There was stability and relative calm in Iraq. A residual force would have greatly increased the likelihood that this victory against evil would last in that country. It would have made the rise of ISIL highly unlikely, with fewer viewings of beheadings for you and me.

So yes President Obama, it was your decision to pull troops out of Iraq. It was your decision that caused the rise of ISIL in Iraq. You are not going to get away with a revisionist history victory this time. Have you no shame Mr. President, I ask rhetorically? D = PL2.

Russ Wiles

Tilton