Medary.com

Courtesy Ralph Peters, of the New York Post:

So, let's bring those quit-Iraq time-travelers back to mid-2008 and fill them in on what's happened since they were ideologically stranded five years ago:

* After our troops reached Baghdad, al Qaeda's leaders made a colossal strategic miscalculation and publicly declared that Iraq was now the central front in their jihad against us. Matter of record, in the enemy's own words.

* Some Iraqi Sunni Arabs, lamenting the national pre-eminence they'd lost, rallied to the terrorists.

* Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliates then embarked on a campaign of widespread atrocities: videotaped beheadings, mass bombings of civilians, assassinations, widespread rape (of boys and girls, as well as of women), kidnappings and brutal efforts to dictate the intimate details of Iraqi lives.

* Al Qaeda's savagery alienated the Sunni Arab masses in record time. Suddenly, those American "occupiers" looked like saviors.

* By the millions, Sunni Muslims turned against al Qaeda and turned to the US military, inflicting a catastrophic propaganda defeat on the terrorists.

* Supported by the population, US and Iraqi forces inflicted a massive military defeat on al Qaeda. At present, the terror organization's own Web masters admit that al Qaeda is nearing final collapse in Iraq.

Those are facts.

Facts.  Gee, what a concept.