'The Audacity of Victory'

Now that the war in Iraq is won, (though sensitivity for world feelings forbids us from ever declaring it), I wonder how long it will take before the media transmogrifies the universally-hated “Bush’s war” into “Obama’s victorious strategy in Iraq”?

Steve Schippert at The Tank at National Review Online (archived on November 14) has this to say about “The Audacity of Victory: How To End a War”:

Let's get right to the heart of the matter. Barack Obama said famously, "I am the only major candidate who has opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it." What he really meant was "I will disengage U.S. forces from it." An enemy not yet defeated will have decidedly chosen not to "end it," and therefore likely claimed an abandoned victory for their own.

In 2004, President Bush was the only major candidate who supported the war. And as president, he won it. He might get a footnote in the immediate contemporary history to be written in the coming months and years, while Obama will be awarded full credit for withdrawing U.S. forces — now that, as Michael Yon describes to Glenn Reynolds via phone from Iraq, in "the 10th Mountain Division . . . about half of the guys I'm with haven't fired their weapons on this tour and they've been here eight months."

Please read the rest of it here.

What If They Won a War and Nobody Knew It?

The slow dismantling of the concrete walls is the most visible sign of a fundamental change here in the Iraqi capital. The American surge strategy, which increased the number of United States troops and contributed to stability here, is drawing to a close. And a transition is under way to the almost inevitable American drawdown in 2009. (“As Fears Ease, Baghdad Sees Walls Tumble”)
--The New York Times, October 10, 2008.



Here's a bit of news to think over during the current national crisis over an Alaskan governor firing her Commissioner of Public Safety.

From the October 10, 2008 American Thinker:

Not just good news - really good news from Iraq

Rick Moran

One of the reasons for the success of the surge in Baghdad was the construction of blast walls that separated Sunni and Shia neighborhoods. These walls gave a certain level of security to both sides who had been ravaged by sectarian violence for months.

The walls come a tumblin' down. ..

Market by market, square by square, the walls are beginning to come down. The miles of hulking blast walls, ugly but effective, were installed as a central feature of the surge of American troops to stop neighbors from killing one another.

"They protected against car bombs and drive-by attacks," said Adnan, 39, a vegetable seller in the once violent neighborhood of Dora, who argues that the walls now block the markets and the commerce that Baghdad needs to thrive. "Now it is safe."

Slowly, and not without some fear, the Iraqis are beginning the process of taking responsibility for their own internal security:

On Oct. 1, the Sunni-dominated Awakening movement, widely credited with helping restore order to neighborhoods that were among the most deadly, passed from the American to the Iraqi government payroll in Baghdad. There is deep mutual mistrust between the new employer and many of its new employees, many of whom are former insurgents.

Another element of the transition, which has attracted far less notice than the Awakening transfer, is the effort by the Iraqi Army to begin turning over neighborhoods to the paramilitary National Police. In the future, its officers, too, will leave and be replaced by regular police officers.

All three moves mark a transition to an era in which Iraq's Shiite-dominated government seeks more control over its own military and sway over America's.

"The Iraqi security forces are now able to protect Iraq," said Joaidi Nahim Mahmoud Arif, a National Police sergeant in Dora, in southern Baghdad. "They will depend on themselves above all."

It really is just about over. There may be some backsliding as the bitter enders seek to make a statement thinking they can affect the American election. And there is still a very long way to go to build a society where the past is forgotten and forgiven so that Sunnis and Shias can live together in peace.

But it is the Iraqi's problem now. There is very little the American military can do from here on out. They've done quite enough, thank you. They've won the war.
#

The Great Blackout of 2007

“The steady falloff in Iraq coverage isn’t happenstance. It’s a barometer of the scope of the tragedy. For reporters, the already apocalyptic security situation in Baghdad keeps getting worse, simply making the war more difficult to cover than ever.”

Thus the New York Times’s Frank Rich in July 2006, in an op-ed column with the handy recyclable title of “The Peculiar Disappearance of the War in Iraq.”

Though I avoid the overused term, “irony,” I do really find Rich’s complaint about a “steady falloff in Iraq coverage” ironic, because we’re in the middle of a much more substantial falloff in coverage right now. Who knows but that it may be studied years hence as the Great Blackout of 2007, ranking in enormity, perhaps even surpassing, the phantom “blacklisting” of Hollywood Reds during the McCarthy era.

Rich’s thesis in July 2006 was that the Iraq war was getting less and less news coverage because the American people were tired of watching it, suggesting, illogically, that news coverage decisions instantly track audience demand, nor even reflect it.

The truth is, and it's remained the case especially when it comes to trumpeting bad news from Iraq, that the news media shows their public exactly what they want them to see, for exactly the reasons they want them to see it, regardless of audience demand. No one ever asked for a year of coverage of Abu Ghraib. No one will ever learn about Medal of Honor winners nor stories of battlefield heroism from the nightly news.

And contrary to what Rich was griping about last summer, the falloff on coverage isn’t a “barometer of the scope of the tragedy” of the Iraq war, (nor was it last year--Rich’s Bush-hatred has made him a lunatic; compare his analysis of Iraq just this September). The present falloff is a barometer of the media’s embarrassment and chagrin at the strategic turnaround, and approaching triumph in Iraq, the good outcome the media had gambled everything on being utterly impossible.

As the Left never tires of saying about the Bush administration, the media has no Plan B if the quagmire/endless war/failed strategy version of events turned out to be, well--so WRONG.

The press’s response to this unexpected turn of events, (though it may slowly be giving way now), has been to emphasize the most negative stories they can find, and carefully avoid reporting the blaring good news of progress.

A case in point. Where we live in southeastern Michigan, the formerly great daily, The Detroit News, has done everything it could since early November to avoid reporting the dramatic improvement in Iraq, and especially in Baghdad.

On November 7, The Detroit News ran a prominent story headlined, “U.S. troop deaths set record in Iraq/Six fatalities push the total for 2007 to 853, making this the bloodiest year of the war.”

By the date it ran this story, The Detroit News already knew that there was a trend in Iraq of steadily decreasing fatalities, because it was reported in this very same article, far below the lead:

“The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, said last week that there had been a sharp decline in the number of explosively formed projectiles found in Iraq over the past three months. At the time, he and Gates said it was too early to tell whether the trend would hold.

“The noticeable drop in U.S. and Iraqi deaths in recent months follows a 30,000-strong U.S. force buildup, along with a six-month cease-fire order by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, among other factors. There were 39 deaths in October, compared with 65 in September and 84 in August.”

Even this story outlined an unmistakeable downward tredn in violence and fatalities. But the News instead chose to lead with the “grim milestone” angle, even though, in this context, it was meaningless--in fact, misleading. They liked these numbers so much they ran them again the next Saturday, with no explanatory context whatever:

Quick Read

Numbers in the news

853: Number of U.S. troops killed so far this year in Iraq, making 2007 the deadliest year of the war for American forces since combat began in March 2003. A total of 3,858 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began.

On November 8, the day after the prominent "grim milestone" article, The Detroit News did actually report the profoundly historic announcement that U.S. forces had all but driven the last vestiges of al Qaeda from Baghdad. By "reporting" it, I mean they buried it in a 65-word News Brief paragraph, which I quote in its entirety:

Baghdad free of al-Qaida, U.S. says

BAGHDAD -- American forces have routed al-Qaida of Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, allowing American troops involved in the "surge" to depart as planned, Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said Wednesday. "Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak," and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.

That's it. And to immunize their readers against even this small germ of good news, they ran a prominent 585-word piece, with a photo, a smooshy soft-news thing proclaiming, as the “Toll of War”: “Advocates fear surge of homeless veterans”). You can decide for yourself if the article makes the case that the Iraq War is a shortcut to homelessness for returning veterans.

Since then, as the news from Iraq has only gotten better, (or the information, anyway, as the news media won’t cover it), The Detroit News’s own stubborn emphasis in its Iraq coverage is revealed in these headlines of related Iraq-articles:

More on this topic

Pakistan rebuffs U.S.
Blast kills Iraqi children, U.S. soldiers
Senate blocks measures to fund Iraq, Afghanistan wars
Roadside blasts decline
Peace group to award anti-war activist Sheehan at Cobo
Report: 14 of 17 Blackwater shootings unjustified
Dems: U.S. wars cost family of 4 $20,900
Guards kill Iraqi taxi driver
Iraq soldier's wife turns her worries into comedy
Peace returns to Baghdad district
Mich. native Woodruff, Springsteen honor military wounded
Easing unrest renews Iraq's taste for booze
U.S. troop deaths set record in Iraq
Bombs kill five U.S. soldiers in Iraq
Ranks of people displaced in Iraq swell, relief group says

Another clearly negative story not in this list included, on November 17, “Stressed GIs desert posts.”

So, out of 16 stories, 13 emphasize bad news from Iraq, and even the favorable ones have misleading headlines. For instance, “Roadside blasts decline: Military says explosive devices down by more than half from March high, but still considered significant.” Of course any roadside bombs are significant. But not as significant, at this point, as the dramatic decline. News people are supposed to be able to recognize the real story out of jumbles of facts.

In fairness, I note that last Tuesday, the News did run a prominent AP story, “U.S. begins troop reductions”, fairly huge news, I’d say, considering that troop reductions are the only thing the Left has left to scream about.

But then again today’s big Iraq story, “U.S. agrees to further talks with Iran about security in Iraq,” is another red herring, an insubstantial piece reporting talks about talks, none of which is relevant to coalition progress in Iraq right now. Rather, it only reflect the nostalgia of the editors for the days when the Left still thought they could browbeat the administration into seeking peace terms on Iranian terms.

And look over today’s Iraq-related headlines from the News:

More on this topic

Stressed GIs desert posts
Dems tie Iraq funds, withdrawals
U.S. begins troop reductions
Levin says wars will tax future generations
State Dept. may phase out use of Blackwater
Blackwater scrutinized
Firms in Iraq face court jurisdiction
Congress grills Blackwater CEO
Dems push tax to pay for Iraq war
Report: Blackwater out of control
Levin keeps pushing Iraq policy changes
Iraq shootings scrutinized
War funds fight looms
Al-Maliki: Shooting tests Iraq autonomy
Iraq: U.S. company 'guilty' in shootings

One favorable story out of 15.

If I were a casual reader of the News, I guess I'd conclude that today, November 21st, all that's going on in Iraq is that soldiers are deserting their posts by the thousands, Blackwater is still running daily shoot-em-up tours through Iraqi villages, a brave Congress is valiantly trying to curb overspending on the war, and Carl Levin is still relevant. Oh, and I might notice that maybe a few troops are coming home.

The Detroit News has plainly decided that, if they can’t find bad war news, they'll report on Blackwater, the war tax on “future generations,” and alleged war crimes.

No question these profesional journalists are working very hard at all this. But are they doing their jobs?

'Good news leaks past the embargo on good news…'

By now the media blackout on good news from Iraq, or from any other quarter in which the Bush administration is working, is beginning to give way. Better writers than me have been able to condense what is actually quite a large story into a manageable size. On Friday The Anchoress summed up good news from Iraq, the media’s reluctance to report on it, and the effect on news watchers hammered nightly with doom-and-gloom stories meant to shield positive developments:

Good news leaks past the embargo on good news…

‘Bout a year and a half ago [1] I wrote:

Nothing good [2] will show up in the news until Bushitler is out of office and the Dems are back in. Nothing. Good news has been disallowed. If you want to [3] find good news, you will have to [4] look for it yourself.

Bad news, though, is so welcome [5] it even gets made up.

Last week, [6] Muslims and Christians raised a cross together to help re-open a church in Baghdad.

This week, [7] Muslims and Christians gathered together for Holy Mass in a Baghdad church. Yes, in Baghdad. And the mainstream press has - not surprisingly - missed the story. Michael Yon, the independent journalist who [8] covers the war in Iraq without filters, writes:

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”

and - of interest, perhaps, to those who don’t care about the [9] free practice of religion in that very religion-minded culture:

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any fighting. I can’t remember my last shootout: it’s been months. The nightmare is ending. Al Qaeda is being crushed. The Sunni tribes are awakening all across Iraq and foreswearing violence for negotiation. Many of the Shia are ready to stop the fighting that undermines their ability to forge and manage a new government. This is a complex and still delicate denouement, and the war may not be over yet. But the Muslims are saying it’s time to come home. And the Christians are saying it’s time to come home. They are weary, and there is much work to be done.

It’s not victory - not yet - but every day it seems we get [10] a little closer to [11] victory. These might be called little [12] hopeful signs - [13] little victories. People are starting to realize that [14] the surge is working, but they’re figuring it out [15] almost by accident. If the press cannot [16] recognize and report on [17] these little victories, how will they recognize, or be able to credibly report on the big ones? And why shouldn’t they want to? Why should the press not want to cover [18] good news from Iraq?

Unfortunately, it is still true that until a new president is installed in the WH, preferably one with a D after the name, [19] only the downsides are newsworthy, and that holds true in every subject. Every subject. My elderly family members are convinced that everything, everywhere, is [20] going to hell, and they are fretful and terrified. They think everyone is out of work, the [21] economy is in a recession, the war in Iraq is lost and there are [22] no real terrorist threats - that’s just made-up stuff. They’re sure America is dying. They are sure the world is headed for famine. They are depressed and do not want to send out Christmas cards, because how can you do that when [23] so much is bad in the world?

If you ask them to look around and wonder how people are buying tiny houses in Queens for a million dollars - while everyone is working, their neighbors are expanding their homes, new businesses are being constructed - if you point out that the the stores and restaurants are crowded - if you ask them how it is that [24] France and [25] Germany have elected America-friendly leaders who are [26] making it a point to work with [27] the unanimously hated President Bush…it does not compute; everything is bad. “All I know,” they say, “is what I hear, and it sounds like the world is going to come to an end soon, because how can it keep going? There is going to be a depression and nuclear war! The oceans are going to cover the whole coast! Everything is going to be lost! Little children are being allowed to get sick and die! Here! In America!” And of course, “everything about Iraq is bad. [28] There is nothing good.”

All they know, you see, is what they hear.

Now, I grant you, it is the nature of the news business to feature the sensational stuff; “if it bleeds it leads” is a real philosophy. If a thousand NYC taxicabs get through a day without an accident, that’s not news; if one jumps the curb and kills 8 bystanders - yes, it’s news. But if a hundred bystanders are killed a month - for several months - and then that stopped happening, it seems like [29] that would be newsworthy, particularly if the good citizens of NYC had been fretting and worrying about such events.

Likewise, when the press has done its job to keep Americans informed on the deaths, setbacks and problems endured by her sons and daughters in the military, should they not also keep Americans informed of the [30] successes of those same sons and daughters? Seems to me, that’s not asking very much. Seems sensible, in fact, particularly when you think of the press as a vanguard of the public trust.

I must ask, if the President of the United States had had a D after his name when he deposed Saddam Hussein and liberated a few million people and tried to establish a Democracy in the midsts of tyranny and tribal skirmishes - and if it looked like he was, after a very difficult time and some serious missteps - succeeding, do you really think you wouldn’t be hearing about it?

Come on - the last president who had a “D” after his name saw the 5.6% unemployment rates trumpeted as “essentially full employment” with no “ifs, ands or buts” about it. Every day [31] was a rainbow day when the last “D” President was in office, and most of the news was good news. If the stock market went up - you heard about it. If it went down, that was just a correction and some profit-taking; no big whoop. And even if American [32] interests and vessels were being blown up here, or overseas, there [33] was no terrorism. The only real terrorist was the homegrown one, and I think he was the only one put to death for it, too, if I recall. When the American president had a D after his name, the troops that were deployed were never in harm’s way, and they [34] were all going to be “home by Christmas.”

If the American President had a D after his name, do you think you would have to [35] be your own news service in order to get some relief from the unendingly bleak-everything-everywhere-is-bad-and-the-world-will-continue-to-spin-into darkness and all-nations-will-[36] continue to-hate the USA until-W-is-out-of-office and -our-guy-presumably-Hillary is-in-the- White House?

It’s going to take getting another D into the White House for good news [37] to be allowed out to play in the [38] American psyche, again. It may well take getting another D into the White House for our troops to be able to [39] rely upon their funding, for their heroism to be [40] noted and applauded with appropriate fanfare.

Voters are going to have to decide whether it’s worth it to put [41] Hillary Clinton and her husband back into the White House just to be able to hear a little good news and to feel the multi-layered, seven-year gloom, lift. I suspect that for many Americans who just want to hear that “everything is okay again today” - people like some of my elderly family members, and some of the younger ones, too - if that’s what it takes to be allowed to smile again, or to be allowed to feel good about America, once more - they’ll go for it.

Will anyone notice that we’ve [42] completely lost a [43] free and [44] independent press in the bargain? Perhaps [45] concerns for the [46] health and welfare of our [47] vital free press should [48] trump ideologies.

Some news you may not have read or heard elsewhere:

[49] British Military in Iraq reports dramatic drop in violence
Times of London: [50] Serious success in Iraq is not being recognized as it should be
[51] Treasury’s Income Mobility Report Blows Away ‘Mediocre Bush Economy’ and Other Myths
[52] Our Alliances are NOT in Disarray
[53] Tony Blair: Iraq War was Right Thing to Do
[54] Did CBS News Cook the Books on Vet Suicide Numbers?
[55] Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming Greatest Scam in History
[56] Ozone Hole is Shrinking

That's Our Congressman!

Here's one from our What’s Wrong with Michigan’s Congressmen? Department:

Today the Detroit News has belatedly found space to run an AP article about how well things have been going in Iraq. (“Military, civilian deaths fall in Iraq”):

BAGHDAD -- October is on course to record the second consecutive decline in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths and American commanders say they know why: the U.S. troop increase and an Iraqi groundswell against al-Qaida and Shiite militia extremists.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch points to what the military calls "Concerned Citizens" -- Shiites and Sunnis who have joined the American fight. He says he's signed up 20,000 of them in the past four months.

"I've never been more optimistic than I am right now with the progress we've made in Iraq. The only people who are going to win this counterinsurgency project are the people of Iraq. We've said that all along. And now they're coming forward in masses," Lynch said in a recent interview at a U.S. base deep in hostile territory south of Baghdad.

By the way, I think it’s fair to point out that when “concerned citizens,” from both sides of the Shia-Sunni divide in Iraq join up to cooperate with US forces, it qualifies as a form of political progress. But I digress. The AP story also reports:

As of Tuesday, the Pentagon reported 28 U.S. military deaths in October. That's an average of about 1.2 deaths a day. The toll on U.S troops hasn't been this low since March 2006, when 31 soldiers died -- an average of one death a day.

While U.S. death figures appear to be in sharp decline, the number of Iraqi civilians and security forces show a less dramatic drop.

The current pace of civilian deaths would put October at less than 900. The figure last month was 1,023 and for August, 1,956, according to figures compiled by the Associated Press.

I love the way the AP tries to minimize a dramatic plunge in civilian deaths from 1,956 to “less than 900,” (or, by at least more than one-half in only two months), as somehow not dramatic, because it's "not as dramatic" as the plunge in military deaths.

In spite of the AP's efforts to make great news into just barely OK news, the point is clear enough, in spite of all the two-stepping. We’re winning, both militarily and politically, as a direct result of this summer's surge in forces.

Yet, immediately below this optimistic story on the National/World section of the Detroit News, is this “Iraq Update,”about Michigan’s own Rep. John Dingell, (Democrat of Dearborn),

Dingell wants troops out by '09 U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, introduced legislation

Tuesday requiring President Bush to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by Jan. 20, 2009 -- the day his successor is sworn in -- and to start the withdrawal in the next 30 days. "(A)s the war drags on I am increasingly concerned that the president is hoping to leave this mess for the next president to fix," he said.

In yesterday’s news release, posted on Rep. Dingell's website, he twice refers, in error, to President Bush’s “failed policies in Iraq,” and to the President's refusal [sic] “to take responsibility for his failed strategy.” Says Dingell:

For years now, the American people have been told that progress in Iraq is just around the next corner. Over and over again, the President has told us that we need to be patient, to allow him more time to show results. The sad reality is that President Bush has no strategy for Iraq, and has instead adopted a policy of running out the clock so that he can lay the blame for his failures on the next President.

According to the AP story, and to the growing mountain of good reports coming out of Iraq, there's been so much progress there lately that by next summer there isn't going to be enough of a "mess" left in Iraq for Democrats to run against.

Someone should tell Rep. Dingell.

We know Congressman Dingell has been frantically working to keep his own Congressional majority from legislating the utter destruction of the Michigan auto industry, so he most likely hasn’t had time to read any current news reports about Iraq.

Perhaps when his staff clips this news brief for his political scrapbook, they can include the good-news article above it from the AP.

More Good News from the 'Nightmare Without an End'

In spite of General Sanchez's gloomy account of the situation in Iraq as a "nightmare with no end in sight," even critics of the war seem to be coming around to the point of view that we are winning there.

In today's New York Post, John Podhoretz takes note of the significance of two of the Washington Post's staunchest critics of the war, collaborating on an article reporting encouraging signs that Al Qaeda in Iraq may really be on its last legs:

THE CRITICS RELENT
By JOHN PODHORETZ

October 16, 2007 -- TO the extent it can be said that news from an active war zone can be good, we're now into the third month of good news from Iraq.

It's not just that violence has receded in the most dangerous places both for American soldiers and Iraqis, though it has by every measure.

It is that the good guys are making genuine advances for the first time against the enemy in a war zone where there is no conventional battlefield - a war in which it is, by definition, difficult to measure gains as we're used to measuring them, by the amount of territory captured or controlled.

A report in yesterday's Washington Post says flatly: "The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al Qaeda in Iraq in recent months."

This sentence is significant for two reasons.

First, it has not been the habit of the U.S. military to offer happy-talk assessments of our strategic position in Iraq - certainly not since 2003. Politicians, yes. Washington officials, yes. Conservative journalists and pundits (alas), yes. But not the U.S. military itself.

Second, the sentence was written by Thomas Ricks and Karen De Young.

They are, respectively, the lead military correspondent and the lead foreign-affairs correspondent for The Washington Post - and they have been the most pointedly pessimistic and negative voices among the informed U.S. media on the subject of the war in Iraq.

Both occupy a vaunted position - though not officially opinion writers, they plainly have wide latitude to write "news" stories that openly reflect their own views as much as they do the views of those they quote.

Ricks is the author of "Fiasco," a powerful and sobering book on the failures of the first two years of the war. De Young's view of the changing U.S. strategy in Iraq has been relentlessly downbeat.

Read the rest of Podhoretz's article here.

View of Situation From Iraq the Model

Al-Qaeda's War of Villages

Apparently this is the latest chapter in al-Qaeda's war manual in their war against the Iraqi people and the coalition; raiding remote peaceful villages, burning down homes and slaughtering both man and beast.

This campaign I will call a campaign of self-destruction. For probably a year al-Qaeda was trying to build their so called Islamic State in Iraq and several times they declared parts of Baghdad or other provinces as the capital of that state.But now that they have been losing one base after another their objective changed from adding more towns and villages to the "state" to destroying the very same towns and villages! Obviously it's all about making headlines regardless of the means to do that!

This change in plans began to take face with the battle between al-Qaeda and the joint forces on September 6-7 in Hor Rijab and then the massacre that followed in the same spot a week later and finally the attacks on other villages north, south and east of Baghdad in the last week or so.

Actually first I'd like to recommend reading a good post by Jules Crittenden about the flawed timing of this Little Tet.

Anyway, our interest today is more about the field situation and strategy than about timing since the latter seems to be not so friendly to al-Qaeda. Well, actually timing is very important here too but at a rather different level.

In my opinion al-Qaeda found itself forced to start this villages war. It wasn’t a choice as much as a last resort because villages are among the few fighting spaces that al-Qaeda can still utilize as large cities become increasingly difficult for them to operate in.They know that without engaging the enemy-that's us by the way-their existence and influence would end and I'm almost positive that they feel bitter about having to fight this way.

In order to fight a "good" guerilla war one has to stay in fluid state, have no permanent bases or barracks, no distinguishable uniform and above all one should be able to always have civilians around so as to deter the enemy-that's again us-from attacking out of concern about collateral damages and casualties among innocent civilians.

No one questions the fact that no army in the middle east, and I doubt there are any elsewhere, that can engage and defeat the US military power in open terrain, in other words in a case of two traditional armies fighting on traditional battlefield.

The last factor is exactly what al-Qaeda is sacrificing by waging this war on villages;

But how can we make advantage of this situation? The greatest challenge I guess would be to have an alarm and information system through which the nearest available troops could be notified when an attack begins so they could interfere and repel the attack. This might be logistically difficult to establish in a short time since villages are usually far from the cities. In fact I worked in some such villages and I know that most of them are outside the administrative divisions or "civil planning" of provinces therefore they lack their own government offices and departments which means the nearest hospital, fire department, even phone and above all police station could be many miles away.

But even then if the troops fail to arrive in time to intercept the attack, which would be truly sad, the long distance that al-Qaeda fighters would have to travel to go back to their base would require them to lose precious time since they have to rely only on ground transport on mostly exposed terrain while the troops very often have the advantage of the much faster air transport.

In the worst case scenario what's left of a village if the attack is not intercepted would be only al-Qaeda fighters and the remains of what used to be a village. Now isn't that the perfect target for the countless aggressive fire units of the US military?

Now please let's put emotions aside for a while because this is war we're talking about and if sacrifices cannot be avoided we should make sure the enemy pays the heaviest price possible.

If reaction is quick enough-and timing here is of crucial importance-the hunt would be great and the results would be spectacular.

Again, of course it would be much more pleasant if the attacks can be prevented or repelled but since I doubt there's such an alarm system we could at least make benefit of the gap in time that immediately follows the action of the attackers taking advantage of faster transportation means and the old principle in combat that says the enemy can be best attacked immediately after he makes his move.

For the duration of the war on al-Qaeda in Iraq so far, the most frustrating fact for soldiers and military commanders has been that they were asked to identify terrorists who move like ghosts, separate them from civilians and kill or capture them and that's a truly difficult mission. That's partly because a soldier would have to be careful when and where each bullet he fires would hit. But when the ghosts are identified, isolated and far from any friendly objects/personnel a pilot could drop even as gruesome a weapon as a napalm bomb and rest assured that even if it misses the enemy which is quite unlikely, it couldn't hurt a friend.

That's why I think the troops should seize each and every such opportunity (which are technically moments during which the crippling rule of engagement become much more flexible) and strike as hard as they can once they are sure the battlefield falls in the category we just described.

'An Irritating Contradiction' to What the World Wants to Believe

The German magazine Der Spiegel, no supporter of the Iraq war or the Bush administration, has just published a lengthy article on , is the surprising progress (from Der Spiegel’s point of view) of the surge in Iraq. (“Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq”). It is well worth reading.

Citing Ramadi in particular as an “irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq,” the article says the peaceful situation there today:

is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters (“German Mag: US Military in Iraq More Successful Than World Wants To Believe”), cites numerous quotes from the piece, asking over and over, “Can you imagine any American journalist writing such words?”

Here's another example:

Since June, Ramadi residents have only known the war from televison. [sic] Indeed, US military officials at the Baghdad headquarters of Operation Iraqi Freedom often have trouble believing their eyes when they read the reports coming in from their units in Ramadi these days. Exploded car bombs: zero. Detonated roadside bombs: zero. Rocket fire: zero. Grenade fire: zero. Shots from rifles and pistols: zero. Weapons caches discovered: dozens. Terrorists arrested: many.

Here’s another outstanding passage from the Der Spiegel article, thanks in particular to the golden-tongued observations of US Army Captain Lauer:

The US military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe.

The Iraq war came within a hair of returning to Ramadi in early July. The attackers had already gathered four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) south of the city, on the banks of the Nasr canal. Between 40 and 50 men dressed in light uniforms were armed like soldiers and prepared to commit a series of suicide bombings. They had already strapped explosive vests to their bodies and loaded thousands of kilograms of explosives, missiles and grenades onto two old Mercedes trucks. But their plan was foiled when Iraqis intent on preserving peace in Ramadi betrayed them to the Americans.

Army Units of the 1st Battalion of the 77th United States Armored Regiment -- nicknamed the "Steel Tigers" and sent from an American base in Schweinfurt, Germany -- approached from the north and south. But the enemy was strong and they quickly realized that in order to defeat it, they needed air support. Before long, Apache combat helicopters, F-18 Hornet and AV-8 Harrier jets approached, the explosions from their guns lighting up the night sky on June 30.

The "Battle of Donkey Island," named after the wild donkeys native to the region, lasted 23 hours. The Americans forced the enemy to engage in trench warfare in the rough brush, eventually trapping them in the vast riverside landscape. It wasn't until later, after the soldiers lost two of their own and killed 35 terrorists, that they realized the scope of the disaster they had foiled.

Three of the captured attackers, who claimed to be members of al-Qaida in Iraq, revealed their plan to plunge Ramadi into chaos once again by staging multiple attacks in broad daylight. By unleashing a devastating series of suicide attacks on the city, they hoped to destroy the delicate peace in Ramadi and bring the war back to its markets, squares, streets and residential neighborhoods.

Two weeks after the battle, Ian Lauer is walking through Ramadi's western Tameem neighborhood, the edges of which melt into the vast Syrian Desert. Lauer, a captain, is in charge of Charlie Company. He hasn't forgotten the Battle of Donkey Island. The members of his company have just emerged from four armor-plated Humvees and are now strolling toward a nearby mosque.

"A few months ago, you couldn't have taken a single step here without getting shot at," says Lauer, a fair-skinned 30-year-old who still seems oddly pale under his suntan "We couldn't leave our fucking camp without being fucking shot at," he says. "Now it's peaceful and it's fucking great."

Great, naturally, unless you happen to be one of those clinging to what “the world wants to believe” about the US losing the war in Iraq--and because you have some personal stake in the bad guys winning.

In that case, you find this kind of news an “irritating contradiction” to what you want to believe.

You may recall that in early July, just around the time of the Battle of Donkey Island, Harry Reid, Carl Levin, and Dick Lugar were in Washington trying to push through Congress a plan to admit failure and pull out of Iraq. (“Sensing a Shift, Reid Will Press for an Iraq Exit”). They are convinced that there is no military solution. I think the recent Ramadi says otherwise.

Personally, I welcome the input and honesty from Der Spiegel (and O'Hanlon's and Pollock's honest assessment in the New York Times last week in A War We Just Might Win). I also welcome the good news these stories are reporting from Ramadi and elsewhere.

In fact, I think it's fucking great.

But if you just find it irritating, why in the world would that be?

Sneeze Alert: Political Progress in Iraq, and a Judge Wearing Plame-Proof Robes

It’s allergy season, and if you were in the middle of sneezing you may have missed some critical news in Detroit’s premiere news daily, the once-great Detroit News.

First, there was an in-depth, one-inch report, (or as in-depth as you can get in 31 words), in a teeny-weeny sidebar “Iraq update,” attached to a buzzkill article entitled “'Fear' dominates Iraq."

The tiny story reads in full:

Sunnis return to parliament
Sunni legislators returned to Iraq's parliament Thursday after a five-week boycott, raising hopes the assembly can make progress on power-sharing bills demanded by Washington before the lawmakers take a month's break.

Now, you may recall that, earlier this week, the US Senate shut down all normal business for some 36 or more hours in order to grandstand on an Iraq war funding amendment premised on the Democratic argument that there has been absolutely, positively no political improvements in Iraq to justify the continuing military surge.

This slogan of no progress was repeated approximately four times per hour for a day and a half. It wasn’t true, as these slogans never are true, but that doesn’t matter now.

I would expect that, even setting aside the other previous political progress that the Democrats flatly refused to acknowledge, that the return of Sunni legislators after a five-week boycott is both welcome and unexpected news of political progress. Even more surprising and welcome for Democrats, who are committed to the dogma that Iraq is embroiled in an intractable civil war between Sunnis and Shias, which should make it all the more remarkable and cheering that one side in the war would show up at parliament to work on legislation peacefully with the other side.

The other buried news was on on the back page of the front section, just below “Scientists say checkers-playing computer can never lose.” It's an AP story reporting that Valerie Plame’s lawsuit against the Bush administration was just tossed out of court. (“Judge dismisses CIA leak case suit.”)

Though I’m sure the disappointed couple left the courtroom without benefit of being frog-marched, I’ll bet Ambassador Wilson and his wife were hopping mad at Judge John D. Bates’s opinion.

This also deserved a bigger headline.

The legal and political saga of Valerie Plame has been with us for four years, and continues to be a rallying point for enemies of the President. Because of it, innumerable Congressional hearings have been launched, thousands of articles, and millions of inches of snotty commentary have been written smearing the President as “leaking” confidential information. Based solely upon the mythical crimes against Ms. Plame, Democrats have called for everything from impeachment of Bush and Cheney to the use of the guillotine for executive branch officials who anger Washington socialites.

So one would think it would be a bigger story than this, sort of as if Planet Earth were suddenly found to be rotating from east to west.

Yesterday the court dismissed the Plame case in part for a lack of jurisdiction. But the dismissal was also because the court found no merit in Ms. Plame’s claims that White House personnel violated her privacy rights by discussing her and her irritating husband after they insinuated themselves into the national debate over the invasion of Iraq.

The critical bit about the judge's opinion was left out of the AP/News story, but the Washington Post included it in their story. (“Plame's Suit Against Top Officials Dismissed”).

Judge Bates wrote “there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials."

There should never have been any doubt about this, and for those of us who have never sworn a blood oath against George W. Bush, it seems rather obvious. But once in a while it takes an adversarial process, a strict rational evidentiary standard, somebody on the other side raising objections to unfair arguments, and a judge with a gavel, to undo years of slanders amassed by false reporting in an unbridled press.

I love it when this happens.