Freedom's Truth

Marine Sgt. Shawn Bryan of Albuquerque, New Mexico casts his fishing rod off the Haditha Dam, where he is stationed, 220 kilometers (140 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 26, 2005. While Bryan was fishing insurgents began firing mortars at the Dam, with around six shells falling nearby in rapid succession forcing Bryan to abandon his fishing, and the mortar attack continued into the night. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

Nope, I'm not going fishing, but a year after I focussed this blog on "Liberating Iraq", and a year into the sovereignty of Iraq, I need a break this summer to focus on other projects, travel and activities (aka 'my life'). My little blog hasn't turned any tide against the weak-kneed behavior of the elites in Washington and the defeatist media returns again and again, like a bad TV Land rerun. We've been kicking terrorist butt over there, day in and day out, and what we need is patience to complete the job. If you forget that We've already won, and you need a reminder of the three basic facts in Iraq, here they are.

By the end of the summer, Iraq will have a new Constitution, and the current vapors that DC is having over the war will (hopefully) pass as a momentary weakness. Our enemy is testing us, and I have faith America will pass the test.

P.S. Two parting thoughts: Things will be the same, until they change. ... And if it was easy, we'd be done by now.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Monday that two years would be "more than enough" to establish security in his country.

"This is not the time to fall back." - Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari

"Success for the coalition should not be defined as domestic tranquility in Iraq. Other democracies have had to contend with terrorism and insurgencies for a number of years, but they have been able to function and eventually succeed." - Donald Rumsfeld

"We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years." - Donald Rumsfeld

"The people of Iraq today are in the early stages of their struggle to build a multiethnic democracy. Ultimately, it will be up to the Iraqi people, not the United States, not the coalition, to rebuild and secure their country. The mission of our coalition is to create an environment where the Iraqis themselves can contain and ultimately defeat their insurgency." - Donald Rumsfeld

"It's his war." - Senator Feinstein, calling it President Bush's war.

"Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam." - Senator Edward Kennedy

"The enemy can't win. The enemy can grab headlines, they can try to break our will. But there's no way the United States military in either Afghanistan or Iraq is going to be pushed into the sea." - General John Abizaid

"When I talk to my commanders in the field ... you get a clear sense of confidence and progress. And what is most encouraging to me ... is that Iraqi commanders were confident. They knew their capabilities were increasing, they were engaging more frequently and steadily in combat. They are not ready to stand alone yet, but they will be." - General John Abizaid

Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the No. 2 U.S. officer in Iraq: if a new Iraqi government drafts a constitution that gains wide acceptance, "my assessment is the insurgency could dwindle down very quickly." Mentioning that insurgents are paid money for specific attacks, General Vines said "we believe that this insurgency is driven in large measure by money."

"They [the insurgents] have not been able to expand their support base across Iraq, nor have they attracted a broad following. They have not prevented the growth of Iraqi security forces, even with almost daily attacks. They've lost their safe haven in Fallujah, and have not been able to reconstitute another one. They've also not sparked sectarian violence although they work at it every day. ... Perhaps most importantly, they have not stopped political and economical development in Iraq." - General Casey

"The terrorist groups have revealed their purpose, which is creating sectarian strife, and stand in the way of the political process and building the new Iraq," - Abdul Aziz Hakim, leader of SCIRI

"I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago," -Gen. John Abizaid

"There's no question there's an enemy that still wants to shake our will and get us to leave. ...They try to kill and they do kill innocent Iraqi people, women and children because they know that the carnage that they reap will be on TV and they know that it bothers people to see death. And it does. It bothers me. It bothers American citizens. It bothers Iraqis." - President Geroge W. Bush

"Sunni Arab and al Qaeda gangs agree on one thing; their biggest enemy is the Iraqi police. The cops have become the major threat to the anti-government forces. ... In the last week, there was a major attack on a police station. Over a hundred men took part in the attack, which was defeated by the police and army alone. At least ten of the attackers were killed, and 40 were captured. Many of the enemy wounded got away. Thus over half the attacking force was killed, wounded or captured. The anti-government forces are desperate to show they are more powerful than the police, and nothing does that better than taking, and pillaging, a police station. This latest defeat makes the enemy appear weaker, and encourages more Iraqis to actively side with the police. During the recent attack, the police received 55 calls from civilians around the police station, to report the attack and demand reinforcements. Some Iraqi civilians were seen firing, from their homes, at the men attacking the police stations." -Strategy Page

“The Iraqi people and their freely elected government … are determined to face down those who would destroy their hopes. They are determined to carry out a political process that will lead to a free and democratic Iraq. And we believe that the region, and indeed the world, will be more secure when that day is realized." - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

"I think the president really needs to tell the American public tomorrow that the main battle in Iraq is now no longer domestic insurgents, it is Zarqawi led foreign extremists. The administration has been afraid of doing that for some time for fear they would be blamed for not keeping them out, but it doesn't matter the US public needs to know who they are fighting and it needs to have a enemy to rally against, and hell would have trouble making a greater piece of evil shit then Zarqawi, so use him damn it. ... The administration needs to focus on the real evil in Iraq." - jmc1969

Here's a 'concerned citizen' quote:

“We are between the hammer and the anvil, locked between the occupation and fundamentalists,” said Sheikh Hazem al-Araji, a high-ranking Shiite clergy.

If you are not caught by the Americans, there is the possibility of you becoming the next victim of insurgents, he said.

"My brothers," he screams. "One year of the occupation has passed. They thought we would just happy dancing and singing. No! Today we refuse them, but in a new way -- in a brotherhood of Sunni and Shia!"

Yet this is what this same man said back in March 2004:

"The young people in Iraq -- everyone of them is a bomb controlled by an imam," he says. "And we have our finger on the button. Yes! Yes!" He calls out. "We won't give them a chance to sell Iraq."

"Fifty-two percent said they think the war has contributed to the long-term security of the United States, up five points from early June." Meaning that despite the negative MSM portrayals, 52% are noticing that each day we are killing Jihadist followers of Al Qaeda in Iraq, see the positive benefit that democracy will have long-term, etc.

(*) Pollaganda (fr. poll + propaganda): Term means the use of polls results to proselytize for a particular result.

ABU DHABI [MENL] -- Several commanders of the Al Qaida movement in Saudi Arabia have transferred their operations to Iraq in an effort to fight the U.S.-led coalition.

Islamic sources said the movement of scores of leading Al Qaida fighters from Saudi Arabia has hampered operations against the Saudi regime. They said the Saudi members of Al Qaida have become aides and financiers of Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi in Iraq.

About 3,000 to 5,000 Saudis have been fighting the U.S. military in Iraq. Over the past few months, about 200 Saudis returned to the kingdom.

On June 23, a leading Saudi operative was reported to have been killed in a battle with U.S. troops in Al Qaim, near the Iraqi border with Syria. The operative was identified as Abdullah Al Rashoud, who was No. 24 on the Saudi Interior Ministry's list of top 26 fugitives.

This is not a single war we are fighting in Iraq, but the third one. We won the first war, against the Saddam Hussein regime. And the second war, against those Baathist regime remnants and the 'anti-occupation' insurgents, has deflected and stopped their attempts to derail the movement of Iraq to democracy.

This news is in the short term very serious, but in the long term may be of fundamental importance in the global war on terror. In the best case, this sucks the oxygen out of Al Qaeda in other places, and terrorists who would have lived to threaten us elsewhere are dying in the attempt to bloody us in Iraq. In the worst case, Iraq's violence is becoming both a recruiting tool for Jihadists and a training ground for our enemy.

The trick is to turn Iraq into a 'roach motel' where the terrorists can't check out. Flypaper is no good if the flies don't stick.

Ahmadinejad in his capacity as a member of the Revolutionary Guard is a known assassin of many Iranian dissidents who lived in Europe and has an open criminal file in Austria for having personally killed the leader of the Kurdish opposition, Dr. Ghassemlou in Vienna, in 1989. He has also headed up the squad that is directly responsible for the fatwa to assassinate Salman Rushdie. And last but certainly not least, as one of the hostage-takers of the U.S. embassy, he was known to have vehemently pushed for the invasion of the Soviet embassy in Tehran as well.

Rafsanjani had promised the Chinese model - meaning the combination of a despotic political regime with capitalist economic policies. Ahmadinejad promises a North Korean model - that is to say a totalitarian system and a command economy.

... Unlike Khatami, who was trying to hoodwink the Europeans over the Iranian nuclear project, Ahmadinejad openly says Iran does have such a program, is proud of it, and that no one has the right to question Iran's right to develop whatever weapons it wants.

Should the outside world be frightened? Not necessarily. Paradoxically, the clarity created by this election may prove useful. ... Ahmadinejad's victory reveals the true face of the Islamic Republic as a regional power with its own world vision that challenges the so-called "global consensus". It reminds the world that the mini-Cold War that started between the Islamic Republic and the West, notably the US, is far from over.

"Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances." - Thomas Jefferson

My three fundamental points about Iraq:

Number 1: This war in Iraq today is a part of the global War on Terror and success or failure in Iraq will dictate success or failure in the GWOT. To prove it, it is enough to know this: Zarqawi, the #1 terrorist in Iraq who formerly was with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, is the #1 terrorist in the world right now, and has explicitly allied his Jihadist group with Al Qaeda. We are killing terrorists in Iraq who would otherwise be finding other places to kill westerners.

Number 2: We are winning in Iraq and have the strategic elements necessary for ultimate success. The only thing that can defeat us in Iraq is defeatism itself. The insurgents and terrorists can sow violence, but cannot stop the emergence of a democratic political order in Iraq.

Number 3: The war in Iraq has been a Liberation of Iraq from tyranny into democracy. Liberating Iraq from Saddam and setting up a Constitutional Republic has already given Iraq a brighter future and has given other mideast countries a brighter future. Ending Saddam's regime ended his support for terrorism in Palestine; rapprochment there will dampen anti-U.S. resentments elsewhere; democratic reforms are sweeping the mideast in part due to the promise of democracy in Iraq. The remaining insurgency indeed is no longer an attack on the U.S. occupation, but a rearguard attack on the emerging Iraqi democracy. It is failing, and democracy is succeeding.

The Iraqi sources, who have proved reliable in the past, said the American team included senior military and intelligence officers, a civilian staffer from Congress and a representative of the US embassy in Baghdad.

On the rebel side were representatives of insurgent groups including Ansar al-Sunna, which has carried out numerous suicide bombings and killed 22 people in the dining hall of an American base at Mosul last Christmas.

Also represented was the so-called Islamic Army in Iraq, which murdered Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist, last August; the Iraqi Liberation Army; Jaish Mohammed and other smaller factions. According to an Iraqi commander, one of the Americans introduced himself as “a representative of the Pentagon” and declared himself ready to “find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances”.

The US officer also indicated that the contents of any discussion would be relayed to his superiors in Washington.

... The Iraqis had agreed beforehand to focus on their main demand, “a guaranteed timetable of American withdrawal from Iraq”, the source said. “We told them it did not matter whether we are talking about one year or a five-year plan but that we insisted on having a timetable nonetheless.”

The demand did not meet with a favourable response from the American team, perhaps because a timetable is the one thing that President George W Bush has declared he will not agree to.

“Any arrangement that would enable them to claim they had chased the Americans out of the country would not get much of a hearing in Washington,” said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org. “And neither side can be too sure of who exactly they are dealing with. It’s too early to say if this is going anywhere.”

Pike speculated that the insurgents might offer to stop fighting if the Americans agreed to an amnesty, but any deal would be hard to monitor.

Other experts suggested the mediating role of Iraq’s tribal sheikhs showed that Sunni leaders were tiring of the violence but dared not say so publicly for fear of being seen as American stooges.

“My gut hunch is that the tribal leadership are practical men of affairs,” one specialist said. “Their view is that the insurgency is bad for business, but they can’t come out and say that without risking a bullet in the head.”

Bush acknowledged on Friday that “the way ahead is not going to be easy” and for once the Iraqi insurgent commander agreed with him.

“It looks like the Americans are in big trouble in Iraq and are desperate to find a way out,” the commander said. “Why else would they have rounds of negotiations with people they label as terrorists?”

Yet the Sunni leadership is tired of getting left behind. Kurdish Iraq is booming; Shiite Iraq is stabilizing and improving; Sunni Iraq is what's in the 'quagmire' and the Sunni tribal leadership is looking for an 'exit strategy'. This might just be the ticket.

"Anyone who calls for a timetable is part of the problem, not the solution. We cannot force them into readiness. An exit strategy, rather than a success strategy is not going to produce anything but serious issues." - Anthony Cordesman

A senior member of Iraq's al-Qaeda branch was killed recently in a U.S. crackdown on insurgents in the Iraqi town of Qaim... Khalid Suleiman Darwish, better known as Abu Alghadiya, was among those killed in the operation, the daily Alghad quoted "well-informed sources" as saying. Abu Alghadiya is described by Arab media as the "number two" in Iraq's al-Qaeda network and tipped to succeed its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But perhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition. I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the… terrorist attacks against the United States."

I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the earth; a side of the Pentagon destroyed; and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble.

Moderation and restraint is not what I felt - and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will - and to brandish steel.

MoveOn.Org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies. Conservatives see the United States as a great nation engaged in a noble cause; liberals see the United States and they see … Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and the killing fields of Cambodia.

Has there been a more revealing moment this year than when Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, speaking on the Senate floor, compared what Americans had done to prisoners in our control at Guantanamo Bay with what was done by Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot - three of the most brutal and malevolent figures in the 20th century?

Let me put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America's men and women in uniform in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

Baynative on Free Republic has the goods on what the Liberals were saying, such as:

• “We, The Undersigned, Citizens And Residents Of The United States Of America … Appeal To The President Of The United States, George W. Bush … And To All Leaders Internationally To Use Moderation And Restraint In Responding To The Recent Terrorist Attacks Against The United States.” (MoveOn.Org Website, “MoveOn Peace,” http://web.archive.org/web/20021127190638/peace.moveon.org/petition.php3, Posted 9/13/01, Accessed 6/23/05)
• Just After 9/11, Moore Blamed America’s “Taxpayer-Funded Terrorism” And Bush Administration For Terrorist Attacks. “We abhor terrorism – unless we’re the ones doing the terrorizing. We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me.…Let’s mourn, let’s grieve, and when it’s appropriate let’s examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.” (Michael Moore Website Archive, “Death, Downtown,” Posted 9/12/01, www.michaelmoore.com, Accessed 7/27/04)
• Dennis Kucinich (D-OH): “Afghanistan May Be An Incubator Of Terrorism But It Doesn’t Follow That We Bomb Afghanistan …”(Elizabeth Auster, “Offer The Hand Of Peace,” [Cleveland, OH] Plain Dealer, 9/30/01)
• Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) Claimed Osama Bin Laden Could Be Compared To “Revolutionaries That Helped To Cast Off The British Crown.” “‘One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown,’ Kaptur told an Ohio newspaper, The (Toledo) Blade.” (Malie Rulon, “Lawmaker Compares Osama, U.S. Patriots,” The Associated Press, 3/6/03)
• John Kerry: War On Terror Is A Law Enforcement Operation Kerry: “[W]ar On Terror Is Far Less Of A Military Operation And Far More Of An Intelligence-Gathering, Law-Enforcement Operation.” (The Iowa Brown & Black Coalition Presidential Forum, Des Moines, IA, 1/11/04)

Your editor returned to Iraq in April and May of 2005 for another embedded period of reporting. I could immediately see improvements compared to my earlier extended tours during 2003 and 2004. The Iraqi security forces, for example, are vastly more competent, and in some cases quite inspiring. Baghdad is now choked with traffic. Cell phones have spread like wildfire. And satellite TV dishes sprout from even the most humble mud hovels in the countryside. ...

What the establishment media covering Iraq have utterly failed to make clear today is this central reality: With the exception of periodic flare-ups in isolated corners, our struggle in Iraq as warfare is over. Egregious acts of terror will continue—in Iraq as in many other parts of the world. But there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war.

Contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq. In 2004, our military fought fierce battles in Najaf, Fallujah, and Sadr City. Many thousands of terrorists were killed, with comparatively little collateral damage. As examples of the very hardest sorts of urban combat, these will go down in history as smashing U.S. victories.

And our successes at urban combat (which, scandalously, are mostly untold stories in the U.S.) made it crystal clear to both the terrorists and the millions of moderate Iraqis that the insurgents simply cannot win against today’s U.S. Army and Marines. That’s why everyday citizens have surged into politics instead.

The terrorist struggle has hardly ended. Even a very small number of vicious men operating in secret will find opportunities to blow up outdoor markets and public buildings, assassinate prominent political figures, and knock down office towers. But public opinion is not on the insurgents’ side, and the battle of Iraq is no longer one of war fighting—but of policing and politics. Policing and political problem-solving are mostly tasks for Iraqis, not Americans. And the Iraqis are taking them up, often with gusto. ...

Increasingly, the Iraqi people are taking direction of their own lives. And like all other self-ruling populations, they are more interested in improving the quality of their lives than in mindless warring. It will take some time, but Iraq has begun the process of becoming a normal country.

Yet the headlines today trumpet Generals talking of an insurgency that is no smaller than 6 months back. How can such a comment, and MSM reminders that car bombs and civilian deaths are worse now than last year? Partly, this is due to the re-generative aspect of the insurgency. With respect to money, I mentioned the use of kidnapping; with repsect to people, the 'tell' is that the ratio of foreign fighters continues to go up. As Iraqis increasingly turn away from the insurgency, the replacements are Jihadists from foreign lands.

How long will the twilight struggle of the terrorists last? Right until we kill them, capture them, or they give up. That may make Senators gnash their teeth, but how long it takes is not highly predictable, and it's quite dangerous to suggest we should give ourselves some time-limit in this excercise, when "Do whatever it take" would lead to certain victory.

Recently, I opined that our 'operational tempo' was such that we should be cleaning up the terrorist threat sooner (in months) rather than later (in years); my realistic hope is that a few months more of operations attacking the 'rat-lines' and we could significantly reduce the effectiveness and the deadliness of the insurgents, lowering civilian and troops deaths measurably. We shall see.

What is not a mere hope is the statement of Mr Zinmeister that: there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war. ... I've explained on this blog how the January 30th elections were the final strategic 'tipping point' to victory, following up on the Bush re-election, and the retaking of Fallujah. Perhaps 10,000 insurgents, against a growing Iraqi security force, backed by 140,000 American troops, a legitimate elected Iraqi Government, and 8 million Iraqi voters.

Senator Chuck Hagel said, "The reality is that we're losing in Iraq." On what basis? Because we haven't won yet? Or is the rule that, since we might not be doing as well as optimistic projections claim (like Cheney's "last throes"), we must be losing? This is not a reaonable statement, not when you look at the progress across Iraq versus a year ago, the fact that the Iraqi army can do so much more now than 1 year ago, etc. This is pure defeatist rubbish.

The United States lost one war - defeatism and our home-grown anti-war movement led to our Vietnamese withdrawal; we had the resources, but lost the will. It's why I say: "The only thing that can defeat us is defeatism itself."

We will not fail the test this time. We must not. And in the final analysis, we cannot. The plausible chain of events that could lead to defeat would require us to defeat ourselves through defeatist strategies: Self-immolation; putting internal politics over the national interest; requiring a 'time limit' for victory, after which time an exit is force - call that "premature evacuation".

We will not let that happen. History will not write it that way. America will persevere until victory, our military leadership and our President will consistently pursue our goals of a stable, democratic Iraq; Iraq's center is holding and will build up strength, both in terms of the political legitimacy and the security capability of the Iraqi Government; the sapling democracy will become an oak.

And when the terrorists are ground down into dust and their violence becomes a memory, history will eventually agree with the "strategic optimists" and say "WE WON".

PostScript: A business trip and much summer vacation and other activities will prevent much posting. Blogging will be light, and I will have a summer hiatus in the blog soon.

"If you look at the number of the men they've lost we can say that their backbone is broken," Atifie added. "It has been a great, great success for the government."

The Philippines government says freed hostage Robert Tarongoy is in "relatively" good health considering his long captivity. Mr Tarongoy was released on Wednesday after months of negotiations with his Iraqi captors.

Mr Tarongoy was taken hostage with five co-workers eight months ago, when militants stormed a Baghdad villa belonging to their Saudi employer. The kidnappers released four of the workers soon afterwards, but the fate of an American hostage is still unknown.

Al Jazeera television said a group calling itself the Army of Mujahideen announced the release of Mr Tarongoy after the Philippine government agreed to its demands. Local media reports have also suggested the kidnappers demanded a US$10 million ransom.

Each ransom payment is feeding the insurgency, which is surviving now as a financially driven crime syndicate. The lines between fanaticism and mafia-style organized crime is getting blurred here, as it has in other terrorist insurgencies (such as Columbia).

A silver lining: With Douglas Wood and other cases, we are rescuing hostages rather than paying ransom to retrieve them. Because the insurgents have successfully driven off many of the foreigners, there are now fewer hostages than last year.

That leaves the Iraqis to face these burdens. The world does not seem to care to save their lives at a cost to its own; they cannot be ransomed except as an outright criminal kidnapping with no pretense of insurgency wrapped around the crime. Yet the terrorists, like a shark, must attack to survive. Thus, the terrorists kill and kidnaps Iraqis, and are exposed as the criminals they are.

One of Saudi Arabia’s most wanted terror suspects was killed by an air-strike during fighting with US and Iraqi forces in north-west Iraq, the leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq group said in a website statement posted today.

Abdullah al-Rashoud had been number 24 on a list of the top-26 most wanted terror leaders put out by Saudi Arabia three years ago, and was one of only three militants on the list still at large.

The website posting said he slipped into Iraq in April.

Even the tales of "torture" being pawned off by the detainees on credulous American journalists are pretty lame.

The Washington Post reported that a detainee at Guantanamo says he was "threatened with sexual abuse." (Bonus "Not Torture" rule: If it is similar to the way interns were treated in the Clinton White House.)

"Sign or you will be tortured!"

"What's the torture?"

"We will merely threaten you with horrible things!"

"That's it?"

"Shut up and do as we say, or we'll issue empty, laughable threats guaranteed to amuse you. This is your last warning." ...

According to Time magazine, this is how the "gulag of our time" treats the inmates: "The best-behaved detainees are held in Camp 4, a medium-security, communal-living environment with as many as 10 beds in a room; prisoners can play soccer or volleyball outside up to nine hours a day, eat meals together and read Agatha Christie mysteries in Arabic."

Perhaps the Bush administration shares some fault here, for not expecting the task to be as difficult as it has been, and/or to project and explain the challenge. This effort, even when one is prepared to see a 'long, hard, slog', has an element of frustration to it. This frustration, though, is magnified by the obsession to be done with it. Why can't we get things up and running faster?

The challenge in dealing with Iraq, and our enemy it seems, is nothing more than time. America lacks patience and the sense of history that other cultures have; indeed, we have a part of culture determined to throw traditions overboard, as if "Future Shock" is not fast enough for them. We live in a world where 24/7 news chews up and spits out stories on a daily basis. genocidal dictators become mundane celebrities (coming to Oprah: Saddam's dorito diet!) What a different world from the tribal Arab culture, where a political argument in the 8th century (that created the Sunni Shia split) echoes in attacks and disputes in the past month. Where indeed, young men are taught that they have a tribe, what that means and what their history is for centuries back; they are not taught, as our local Politically Correct school has it in the Orwellian phrase: "Unity through Diversity".

Perhaps indeed we got fooled by that 21 day march to Baghdad, the 21st century warfare that was fast, mobile, intelligence-based, and highly flexible. The fast war was almost immediately followed by the mantra 'exit strategy', with an obsession over the draw-down of troops. We can't wait to 'finish the job' and move on.

This is a mind-set that our terrorist enemies find quite convenient. We smart-bombed our way to victory, but now find ourselves tied down by a foe tailor-made to frustrate democracies, Terrorism, and with a strategy that is nothing more complex than simply: Sow chaos bad enough and long enough to make the enemy get tired of it and walk away.

There is not a doubt that terrorism would fail quickly were we to respond with the tactics of repression and force. But terrorism succeed precisely because the tactics of repression and force destabilize and undermine the very democratic freedoms we are trying to defend. In effect, terrorism is the HIV-AIDS of military strategies: Attack in a way to strip the layers of protection the civil society depends on.

Terrorism, by attacking soft targets, is attacking the hearts and minds of the people, attacking their morale. Iraq has been hit with the equivalent of a September 11th every month for the past 18 months (considering their smaller population and the several hundred that die each month from terrorism). That, plus kidnappings and assassinations of civil servants and policemen, wears down the spirit, enough to turn on the Government: "Why don't they protect me? They are to blame!" forgetting the real culprit, the terrorist organization.

September 11th taught us that despite our enemies efforts, we had the strength of mind and strength as a nation to respond with purpose to it. We had the strength, but Iraq is testing us anew. Do we have the patience?

I do know this. "If it was easy, we'd be done by now."

The difficult but rational conclusion is that we should be mentally prepared to stay "as long as it takes". The negative articles in the past month about Iraqi troop training made it appear as if it would take years - that's right, years - to train the Iraqi troops. Never mind that they are taking on more jobs now than ever before, or that Baghdad today is massively improved, despite continued news of violence, over Baghdad of 12 months ago. Let's consider the pessimistic case, the media and outside military assessments that say up to three years may be needed to get the Iraqis fully standing up.

So be it. Three more years. Should we walk away from Iraq now if that were to be the case?

The 2 years thus far and 3 more years is the proverbial "long, hard, slog", but is no more than the time it took to get Germany and Japan back on their feet. If we are in Iraq for 10 years, it would be no longer than our Bosnia deployment, a far less important deployment for America. And if we are there 50 years, it would not be longer than the efforts on the Korean DMZ, or longer than our presense in Europe.

We need to stop making time our enemy. The Bush administration needs to prepare America for a long stay in Iraq; the military needs to plan the same way; and the calls for troop withdrawals need to end. We can tolerate the current "operational tempo", it is no different from the overseas deployments of the Cold War. We need to stop thinking about bringing the troops home unless this becomes the geopolitical right choice for USA and Iraq.

Instead, we need to look at the key factor that would make all the difference: The safety and survival of the troops. As we plan to stay, plan to put the troops in that are needed to stay on offense against the insurgents; learn how to defeat the terrorists at all tactical levels; seal the Syrian border with the help of Iraqi forces; create an environment where we are killing and capturing terrorists while taking few casualties ourselves. The good news is in many operations we are doing that already.

I believe if Bush made the case for patience for the long haul, he would garner enough support and understanding to make our commitment rock solid. And nothing would deter the terrorists more than a show of united, firm, American resolve ... and patience.

Last year -- on July 2, I recall -- I saw six Iraqi National Guardsmen manning a position beneath a freeway overpass. It was the first time I saw independently deployed Iraqi forces. Now, I see senior Iraqi officers in the hallways of Al Faw Palace conducting operational liaison with U.S. and coalition forces. I hear reports of the Iraqi Army conducting independent street-clearing and neighborhood search operations. Brigadier Gen. Karl Horst of US Third Infantry Division told me about an Iraqi battalion's success on the perennially challenging Haifa Street.

In February of this year, under the direction of an Iraqi colonel who is rapidly earning a reputation as Iraq's Rudy Giuliani, the battalion drove terrorists from this key Baghdad drag. Last year, Haifa Street was a combat zone where US and Iraqi security forces showed up in Robo-Cop garb -- helmets, armor, Bradleys, armored Humvees. Horst told me that he and his Iraqi counterpart now have tea in a sidewalk cafe along the once notorious boulevard. Of course, Abu Musab al Zarqawi's suicide bombers haunt this fragile calm.

It seems America wants to get on with its Electra-Glide life, that Sept. 10 sense of freedom and security, without finishing the job. The military is fighting, the Iraqi people are fighting, but where is the US political class? The Bush administration has yet to ask the American people -- correction, has yet to demand of the American people -- the sustained, shared sacrifice it takes to win this long, intricate war of bullets, ballots and bricks.

What tipped me to finally blow my stack was a phony left-wing blog article that Yahoo deigned to link from their TOP news page ... This Urban Legend that just happens to be another anti-Bush conspiracy lie. You have to read past the article that claims that thousands of soldiers have unaccountably died due to the war in Iraq and the fact is being hidden from the American people in a big conspiracy, to find out that a Holocaust-denying nut-case is behind this debunked story, and story which the leftists are just eating up like a cheese danish. This bogus anti-Bush blog-story rates a Yahoo link?

Why does one Yahoo news page have two (anti-Bush) Nation articles back to back? Why the "Socialist Worker" and their leftwing rant? Village Voice? The Leftist Guardian? Then they add the conventional liberal wisdom emanating from the Boston Globe and similar OpEd pages for 'balance'. Left and further Left, your choice. Robert Kagan is the only recognizably pro-Iraq war voice in the list of over 30 sources.

The bias is palpable. In a universe of already left-leaning MSM morsels to choose from, they are ignoring any positive messages on Iraq and choosing an almost uniformly negative set that ranges from critical to hostile and opposed to war, then to basically calling Bush administration murderers and torturers. This is news?

The list for June 20, 2005:

* 'Exit strategy' a mere phrase, not a strategy - at USATODAY.com - Mon, Jun 20, 2005 * Someone Else's Child - at The New York Times (reg. req'd) - Mon, Jun 20, 2005 * Whether This War Was Worth It - at The Washington Post (reg. req'd) - Sun, Jun 19, 2005 * Two Top Guns Shoot Blanks - at The New York Times (reg. req'd) - Sun, Jun 19, 2005 * War and Weakness - at The New York Times (reg. req'd) - Sun, Jun 19, 2005 * The Ultimate Deception? - at The Huffington Post - Sun, Jun 19, 2005 * The Beginning of the End? - The Nation via Yahoo! News - Sat, Jun 18, 2005 * Conyers vs. The Post - The Nation via Yahoo! News - Sat, Jun 18, 2005 * President must answer to Downing Street Memo - at Palm Springs Desert Sun - Sat, Jun 18, 2005 * War and Consequences - at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd) - Fri, Jun 17, 2005 * Saving Project Iraq - at The Washington Post (reg. req'd) - Fri, Jun 17, 2005 * Answers needed on Downing Street memo - at Detroit Free Press - Fri, Jun 17, 2005 * What's the Deal With the Downing Street Memo? - at Village Voice - Fri, Jun 17, 2005 * Iraq's other resistance - at The Guardian (UK). - Fri, Jun 03, 2005 * Now's the time for a clear-eyed look at where we are in Iraq - Knight Ridder Newspapers via Yahoo! News - Wed, Jun 01, 2005 * The last throes of truth in Iraq - at Boston Globe - Wed, Jun 01, 2005 * Time for an Iraq Accounting - at The Washington Post (reg. req'd) - Sun, May 29, 2005 * The U.S. should work with Syria on insurgents - at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Thu, May 26, 2005 * Stop the torture and abuse - at Japan Times - Thu, May 26, 2005 * Investigate the abuse - at St. Petersburg Times - Thu, May 26, 2005 * Muslims who kill others desecrate Islam itself - at Daily Times - Thu, May 26, 2005 * The road to Abu Ghraib - at Socialist Worker - Thu, May 26, 2005 * We must not give up on intervention - at The Guardian (UK). - Wed, May 25, 2005 * The Berlin-Baghdad Connection - at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd) - Wed, May 25, 2005 * For U.S., the path narrows - at Philadelphia Inquirer (reg req'd) - Wed, May 25, 2005 * Saddam photos not a Kodak moment - at The Virginian-Pilot (reg. req'd) - Tue, May 24, 2005 * Unite and Fight - at Slate - Tue, May 24, 2005 * Iraqi inclusiveness - at Boston Globe - Sun, May 22, 2005 * Newsweek's flub and Bush's - at Boston Globe - Thu, May 19, 2005 * Corruption's ugly head - at NY Post - Thu, May 19, 2005

Why would we run away from a fight with Al Qaeda?

We shouldn't be obsessing over how to get the troops out, we should be obsessing over how to get the troops safe. A presence in Iraq for many years to come, if it is peaceful, safe and without negative political consequences (ie backlash), would not be a 'quagmire' but an asset in the war on terrorism. Think about our 10 years in Bosnia, our 10 years in Saudi Arabia, and our 50 years in Korea. Where's the 'exit strategy' for national security?

Operation Dagger began Saturday morning about 50 miles northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said, with the mission of finding weapons caches and insurgent hideouts in an area west of Lake Thar-Thar.

A report by Marine spokesman Captain Jeff Pool said about 50 insurgents had been killed, and 10 civilians whose homes guerrillas had fired from were wounded. Three U.S. soldiers were wounded early in the operation. Among the dead were Sudanese and Saudi citizens, he said.

An intense firefight on Saturday concentrated on a bunker complex, which the U.S. military said was used to make bombs. Troops found what they called a car bomb factory, Iraqi hostages and a torture house for captives on Saturday.

Reporters invited to accompany the U.S. forces reported little sign of civilian life: "Nobody's been home. We've run into probably four families since we got here," Captain Chris Toland said as his company paused on Sunday in a house close to a mosque where marines killed three gunmen the day before.

Outside lay scattered remains of one of the fighters; after he died, troops set off grenades he had strapped to his body.

U.S. Marines in Karabila freed four men -- a border police officer and three other Iraqis -- who were chained to a wall in the center of the city and had apparently been taken captive and tortured, according to a CNN correspondent embedded with U.S. troops.

It is believed that that a meeting for the leaders of armed groups in Mosul was planned to be held in the house where Abu Talha was staying and that representatives of the groups that established contacts with the government didn't attend the meeting.

American troops raided the house at the exact time of the meeting and captured Abu Talha. Sources from Mosul told Al-Mada that on June 9, some person bought a house for 120 million Dinars and then immediately rented the house to a man who works for the education ministry and on Tuesday June 13, a task force from the American army (12 armored vehicles backed by 4 helicopters) raided the same house and arrested Abu Talha and his wife. Not one bullet was fired in the operation.

"Tenacious, brave, professional Marines and Iraqi soldiers kicked butt in western al-Anbar province today in the town of Karabilah, capturing over 100 fanatical, mindlessly violent foreign terrorists in the doomed and pathetic insurgency, and finding a car bomb factory. As usual, the U.S. military gave a lot worse than they got, killing enemy while taking no casualties. Cowardly insurgents are doing most of their killing via roadside bombs,and scored a hit near Ramadi, killing two brave American servicemen. But they are no match for the insurmountable firepower and resolve of American soldiers and Marines in open battle."

Here's the facts. MNF announced Operation Spear:

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND , Iraq – Approximately 1,000 Marines and Sailors from Regimental Combat Team-2 , 2nd Marine Division and Iraqi Security Force soldiers are conducting combat operations in northwestern Al Anbar Province.

Operation Spear (Romhe) began in the early morning hours aimed at rooting out terrorists, foreign fighters and disrupting terrorist support systems in and around Karabilah. Marines engaged terrorists in Karabilah on June 11, using precision air strikes.

Elements from 1st Tank Battalion and 2nd and 4th Assault Amphibian Battalions are participating in the operation along with Coalition aircraft .

The new campaign began just before dawn in the desert wastes around Karabilah and nearby Qaim, a lawless town about 200 miles west of Baghdad that squats at the crossroads of an insurgent smuggling route leading into Iraq from neighboring Syria.

During Friday's assault, troops captured about 100 foreign fighters and discovered at least one car bomb factory, said Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the Second Marine Division. He said U.S. and Iraqi troops encountered some resistance, but didn't characterize it as significant.

Iraqi troops did not participate in the earlier anti-insurgent offensives but Chase said this time they not only fought alongside Americans, but used their language skills and knowledge of the area to spot foreign fighters.

... During daylong battles, Marines and Iraqi soldiers fought "insurgents holed up in buildings within the city," Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.

"Coalition aircraft using precision-guided munitions destroyed these targets. Only buildings occupied by insurgents firing on Marines and Iraqi soldiers were bombed. Three buildings were confirmed destroyed," Pool said.

No American or Iraqi military casualties were reported.

As I mentioned earlier, we should consider it progress if we chased them out of many of the major towns and are now hunting down insurgents in lawless s**tholes in the deserts of western Al-Anbar.

Wish our troops well and send them prayers - I am sure they miss home a lot being out there in the desert heat.

"My premise is that failure is not an option. There is too much at stake. We have to isolate those who have no interest in Iraq's success, whose agenda is a global agenda, who would like to bring about a civil war in Iraq to back their unholy agenda and then to promote a war of civilisation."

I believe he will be a great ambassador to Iraq.

The administration's most important task is obviously to make its policy succeed: We will have to negotiate with elements of the insurgency. ... Every instrument at our disposal has to be used to try to force Damascus to get serious about shutting down the tentacles of the insurgency within Syria. ... The reconstruction effort needs an overhaul. ... Keeping the political process on schedule is imperative, as the administration has rightly been telling the Iraqis.

... At this point, President Bush doesn't need the gung-ho enthusiasm of the American public, but he does need its patience. He has to explain how victory in Iraq protects Americans’ security, and how defeat would endanger it. If we succeed in creating a decent, stable government in Iraq, it could shift the geo-political balance in the region against radicalism, ending its status as a caldron of murderous anti-Americanism.

"Senior members of the Shiite-dominated committee writing the charter reached agreement with the Sunnis on how many representatives the minority will have on the body. ... The compromise calls for 15 Sunni Arabs to join the two already on the 55-member committee. Another 10 Sunni Arabs would join, but only in an advisory capacity."

Five Marines were killed after their vehicle was attacked near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said Thursday. Officials in Ramadi had reported a roadside bomb blast in the pre-dawn hours.

A top aide to Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been captured in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, the US military revealed. Mohammed Khalaf Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, is "Zarqawi's most trusted operations agent in all of Iraq," a military statement said Thursday. "This is a major defeat for the Al-Qaeda's terrorist organisation in Iraq. Zarqawi's leader in Mosul is out of business," said US Air Force Brigadier General Donald Alston.

... Alston, the new top military spokesman, told reporters in Baghdad: "Numerous reports indicated he wore a suicide vest 24 hours a day and stated he would never surrender. Instead Talha gave up without a fight."

Iraqi authorities said recently they had captured one of Abu Talha's most trusted aides and his financial manager, Motleq Mahmud Motleq Abdullah, also known as Abu Raed, in Mosul on May 28.

They had also announced the arrest of another Zarqawi aide in Mosul known as Mullah Mehdi.

Late Wednesday morning in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood, 15 Iraqi soldiers on a cordon-and-search operation ... As his troops rushed the second door, two men opened up with AK-47s from the other side, but Col. Mohammed's men broke through the doorway and wrestled the fighters to the floor.

Inside, they had another surprise: just a few steps away, hidden under a blanket — where he had been told to stay and act like a sick female — and dressed in a long Arab man's shirt, was Australian hostage Douglas Wood, who had been held by an Iraqi insurgent group since May 1. Wood, who is married and resides in California, was stunned by his rescue. He told a U.S. solider that reached him minutes later: "I haven’t smiled in 45 days." Col. Mohammed, who accepted several hugs from Wood, congratulated his troops and told them, "You gave Mr. Wood his life back." That was no exaggeration: Wood had seen three other hostages executed in front of him in the course of his captivity.

No force, conventional or guerrilla, can continue to fight if it is deprived of sanctuary and logistics support. Accordingly, the central goal of the U.S. strategy in Iraq is to destroy the insurgency by depriving it of its base in the Sunni Triangle and its "ratlines" — the infiltration routes that run from the Syrian border into the heart of Iraq.

"Next came the rivers campaign — to destroy the insurgent infrastructure west and northwest of Fallujah, and so shut down those "ratlines" — which continues apace.

May saw four operations within that campaign:
* The first, Operation Matador, was a week-long Marine action centered on Qaim, near the Syrian border. Matador sought to kill and capture followers of Zarqawi known to be located there and to interdict the smuggling routes they used to move downriver to Baghdad. Some 125 insurgents died in the fighting.
* Next came Operation New Market, another Marine operation, in the Haditha area southeast of Qaim. Here, a major highway from Syria crosses the Euphrates and then branches north toward Mosul and southeast toward Fallujah and Baghdad. While the insurgents did not stand and fight as they had in Qaim, the operation still netted substantial intelligence.
* The third was a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation in the Mosul-Tel Afar region that contains the Tigris River ratline.
* The fourth operation of this campaign was the aforementioned Lightning/Thunder in Baghdad itself, which led to the capture of a former general in Saddam's intelligence service, who (according to the U.S. military) led "the military wings of several terror cells" operating in west Baghdad. Hundreds of other insurgents were captured as well.

The rapid tempo of Coalition operations will likely continue. ..."

1) The fact that we are chasing them out into desert hell-holes tells us we made progress in getting them out of more important towns like Fallujah, Samarra and Ramadi.

2) The "Fast tempo" is a major reason why the insurgents are attacking more *and* we are taking casualties on offense. MSM treats it as a setback, but in fact this may force resolution faster than we would otherwise expect.

He says: "The high operational tempo is intended to rapidly degrade the rebels' lines of communication at both ends of the two river corridors, while killing and capturing as many of the enemy as possible. "

If that happens, and if we continue this tempo, capturing key terrorist leaders like we just did in arresting Zarqawi's "military adviser" Abed Dawood Suleiman, then the insurgency will be a shadow of its former self within a matter of months.

RUSH: Today, I would like to join the chorus of those calling for a cease-fire in Iraq. I don't mean a truce and I don't mean a surrender. Don't misunderstand me. I'm talking about a cease-fire.

I, your host, El Rushbo, on today -- Tuesday, June the 14th -- call for a 90-day cease-fire in Iraq.

I call on the New York Times to lay down their arms. I call on the Democrats in Congress to stop the assaults. I call on weak-kneed Republicans to lower the temperature for 90 days, three measly months.

Lebanon is in the middle of a crucial election sequence. Iran is about to have an even more crucial election. Syrian and Saudi terror backers are losing for signs.

So for 90 days, no attacks on our war effort. Somewhere, deep inside, there has to be something -- a memory of patriotism, a stirring of some national pride -- some remaining sense of right and wrong.

A loose wire in the brains of the left and the media that can be connected if only temporarily, to bring about a 90-day cease-fire because the upside for the United States is enormous.

Positive news, upbeat spirit, a seemingly united United States would send a warning to our enemies, a rallying cry to our allies and a signal to those nations shirking responsibility.

Just a 90-day cease-fire. There's no downside to this. You still have a full-year plus to return to playing politics, to bashing the president, to bashing the administration, bashing the Republican Party, to even bashing America if you want. So much to gain and so little to risk from a 90-day cease-fire.

After all, it could take two years or two decades for the wisdom our Middle East policy to bear fruit. Is it too much to ask you on the left to give unity a chance for just 90 days?

Where's the lyrics to Kumbaya?

According to a 6/8/05 Gallup poll, the respondents surveyed offered the following opinions concerning our troop levels in Iraq:


10% send more
26% keep the same
31% withdraw some
28% withdraw all

FR poster says: In typical agenda-driven fashion, the leftist MSM chose to add those who answered 'withdraw some' to those who responded 'withdraw all' so that they could BOGUSLY report that 59% of the American people want our troops out of Iraq . . . NONSENSE! An objective MSM would have noted that 67% of the American public want to maintain our presence in Iraq, with a plurality within this percentage also wanting to begin the 'draw down' process -- A POSITION, BY THE WAY, THAT JUST HAPPENS TO REFLECT THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICIAL POSTURE RELATIVE TO THIS ISSUE!!!

The new IBD/TIPP poll confirms that inpterpretation. 70% of Americans support a continued U.S. military presense in Iraq: "What's more, a large majority (70%) also believe it's important for the U.S. and coalition countries to maintain a military presence in Iraq. "

So the headlines show more MSM pro-defeatist bias. Ugh.

As someone once wrote ...

Let me save a tons of comment exchanges and post what an exchange between optimism and pessimism might sound like:

Pess: our casualty rates are still high.
Opt: Theirs are higher.
Pess: I care more about US lives, and anyway they can just keep recruiting Jihadists.
Opt: But they are becoming more and more foreigners, isolated from the Iraqi civilians. Did you know less than 10% of suicide bombers are Iraqis?
Pess: Yes. Well they are still killing said civilians rapidly.
Opt: And losing the PR war rapidly.
Pess: Apparently not, given the Gitmo flak by Amnesty Int'l. Continued violence in Iraq shows the US too look bad. We cant pacify Iraq.
Opt: Look, it doesn't matter what some whacky group or the media is touting, what matters is progress on the ground in Iraq. Like the constitution ...
Pess: ... like the fact that training of Iraqi soldiers is lagging.
Opt: Training is proceeding, there are 155,000 troops trained and hundreds graduate each day from various training courses. We are making progress.
Pess: Ah, pentagon numbers, we are back to the body count myths.
Opt: What do you mean?
Pess: They say they are trained, but they are not high quality.
Opt: True in some cases, but quality and quantity both are improving. The commandos in the Wolf Brigade, the other elite units, and many regular army units are really doing a bang-up job patrolling and getting terrorists.
Pess: So why havent we reduced violence?
Opt: Actually we have Baghdad bombings went down this month.
Pess: But went up elsewhere, like a General said, the insurgency is like the pillsbury doughboy. It just pops up somewhere else.
Opt: But each time it is moved or disrupted, it loses strength.
Pess: And you know this how? Total attacks were pretty high in May. If we are 'turning a corner' how come we keep finding corners beyond it?
Opt: It may look that way, but ...
Pess: I mean we were promised some change after the election.
Opt: And there was a change, a huge change. The election changed the future of Iraq. It will be democratic. Iraqis have started acting like citizens and are having patriotic, civic pride to make the country safe. A survey found that 12% of women felt threatened by the coalition soldiers, and over 42% felt threatened by the terrorists.
Pess: How is that good news?
Opt: More know the real threat is from the terrorists. Most of those negative numbers came from 'sunni triangle' provinces like al-anbar. Overall in Iraq, the coalition presence is appreciated by the 'silent majority'.
Pess: A silent majority that still won't help themselves to stop terrorists.
Opt: That's not fair.
Pess: Didn't you read that Washington Post article about training the Iraqi troops, and even the Iraqi troops
Opt: Yes, I read it, and I noted it curious that they picked a Sunni company. The most elite and best units are the more Shiite or Kurd-based ones, or at least mixed. This unit was a bunch of Sunni locals from the town of Biaji, not the kind of professionals ...
Pess: ... who apparently don't like Americans, were in it only for the money, didn't do their job, and ran at the sound of gunfire. If this is what the Iraqi army consists of, yes, we have years before they can fight.
Opt: Ah, but the whole Iraqi Army isn't all Sunni, it isn't all just a local unit like this is. Many units have performed far, far better. And a key difference in many units is leadership. So they found a unit whose leader was assassinated and which disintegrated and was rebuilt 5 months ago ...
Pess: ... only showing how fragile and weak the Iraqi army can be.
Opt: No, showing that this unit was an outlier. The Wolf Brigade ...
Pess: Them again, well, I've got you! They tried to infiltrate even the Wolf Brigade, the guy with the bomb ..
Opt: ... and failed. The point is that this unit has been actively catching terrorists, interrogating them, showing the confessions on TV,
Pess: .. violating human rights ...
Opt: Puleeze. They are tough and the terrorist enablers whine about how terrorist sympathizers are treated. They are not the only good unit, there are many others now.
Pess: Hardly as good as our troops.
Opt: The question is not whether they can match us, the question is whether they can stand up to the insurgent attacks. They have shown that they can. Several firefights in recent months have occured between Iraqi security forces and insurgents and in every case the 'good guys' held their ground and won.
Pess: Yeah, but our casualty rates are still high.
Opt: Not as high as ... hey, wait a minute.

PART 2: A response to BG on 'over-optimistic narratives'

You miss the point entirely in talking about how much fight is left in the insurgency, or asking if the insurgency is 'dead' (Monty Python voice on: "I'm not dead yet.")

Instead ask the strategic question: "If we have the will to stick it out, does the enemy have a chance to thwart our goals? specifically thwart our goals of a stable, secure, democratic Iraq?" The answer to that question is "NO".

A neat little book called "The Battles that changed history" on my desk here convincingly notes that the 'point of decision' in WWII was passed in December 1942, after Stalingrad, Midway and El Alemain shifted the strategic balance in favor of the allies. D-Day, Anzio, Kursk, the Ardennes and Okinawa were yet to come, and most US casualties had yet to happen, but the Axis powers were toast.

Well, I've got news for you: The 'point of decision' has passed for the Iraqi insurgency and the terrorists. They are toast. It happened the day 8 million Iraqi voters chose a democratic future for Iraq; that, combined with Bush's re-elction, combined with the retaking of Fallujah, combined with Al-Sadr gaving up last October, combined with the people of Iraq having the confidence to turn in terrorists now, created a momentum for stabilizing Iraq and securing a democratic future that the insurgents do not have the capacity to stop. That's what we will call victory when it happens.

Fears of civil war are overblown, as are the 'theocracy' scare-meme: the shiites btw now are agreeing to keep the moderate provisional constitution language on Islam, so there goes that 'theocracy' there; the safe haven of Fallujah was taken, Mosul stabilized (see Michael Yon's reports), and now, with Iraqi forces in Baghdad, they are being pushed on to s**thole towns in the western deserts. BG worries that we don't have enough forces out there - point taken, but a bunch of insurgents in a s**thole campsite in the middle of the desert won't do much to stop civil society from developing in Iraq. Expelling terrorists from Baghdad is a *big deal*.

Belmont's point is that casualty rates dont signal defeat but battlefield friction - friction that we have been creating through offensive operations like Operation Matador and Operation Lightning. These operations cost lives but hasten the demise of the enemy. Sure, we lost 9 men in Matador, but we took out several hundred insurgents in Al-Anbar.

Our strategic position vis a vis the insurgents is far better now than in the fall of 2004. On the political level, Iraq is more stable and its emerging democracy is proceeding on target.

Last point. Belgravia can't have it both ways: If MSM defeatism isn't responsible for prolonging our stay or inciting the insurgents with false hopes of us 'bugging out' prematurely, neither can Bush administration optimism (let alone blogger enthusiasm) be responsible for us failing to do all it takes to win. It's not as if the war critics are demanding we send more troops, keep them longer, and be harsher in dealing with the terrorists, right?

Realism and cynicism are not the same thing, yet many fake 'realism' by affecting a cynical air. Cynics said the election wouldn't work. Cynics will tell you it will take years to stand up the army. Realism will tell you, as US Grant learned, that the enemy is as scared in battle as you are. The Sunni insurgents are at wits end and the rumbles of possibly 'rejoining politics' are not to be unexpected. The insurgency has failed in its core objective and needs an 'out'. Realism will tell you that the Iraqi army needs to be good enough not to win a major war, but to defeat an insurgency.

I believe the most realistic view is one of strategic optimism - we WILL prevail - mixed with an understanding that the costs are yet to be determined, in lives and treasure. The two most important questions then are: What will secure that victory? and, What will keep that cost in lives and treasure to a minimum?

Despite this, Belmont (Wretchard) insists, correctly in my view, that we are inflicting more on the insurgents than they are on us: Yet the question remains: if the insurgency is losing then why is the level of combat constant or increasing? The only answer, admittedly one that will not convince everybody, is to point to the pattern of operations.

He shares a lengthy excerpt from Michael Yon on how Mosul has changed from open firefights in the streets of last November, when insurgents were openly defying American forces, over-running police stations, etc. to a situation where insurgents need to be rooted out:

Instead of leveling the enemy with outright combat like they did in November and December when they were openly fighting in the streets, Deuce-Four uses every intelligence apparatus available to aid in capturing the enemy, because the enemy, once captured, usually sells out the cell members who've squeezed themselves into cracks in the back alleys of Mosul. The change in operations is also because the enemy no longer presents the targets that they did in November and December when they massed and tried to fight Deuce-Four head to head.

During World War 2 the years with highest American casualty figures were 1944 and 1945. The US lost nearly 1 in every 20 men killed in World War 2 on the one island of Okinawa, but America was on the offensive and winning; while the years with the lowest casualty figures in Vietnam were 1972 and 1973 where America was in retreat. One rarely noticed statistic that is highly inconsistent with military parity suggested by Fester and Kos is the almost absolute lack of American prisoners in insurgent hands. In Vietnam, almost 2,500 men were taken prisoner by the NVA. On the global battlefield against terror (not just in Iraq) the number of American prisoners in enemy hands is nearly zero, despite the fact that hostage taking and beheadings are a favorite mode of terrorist combat.

A summary of the flow of battle during the insurgency period could be stated as follows.

The ground level insurgency of the summer of 2003 onwards was expressed by the IED, hit-and-run remote attacks. No purpose or program, just trying to kill american soldiers. It was not until March 2004 that the insurgency 'opened up' and tried to take out or take over towns openly. Once they did that, they had a modus operandi that was successful in many 'Sunni triangle' towns: Co-opt or threaten police to look the other way, kill 'collaborators' so the U.S. lacked local assistance, and make it too dangerous for U.S. forces to relax and get close to locals. Key insurgent strategy is to create 'isolation' in the 'occupying forces'. The insurgents succeeded to make places like Fallujah insurgent havens for a time. That in turn fed the insurgency and created other problems, such as terrorist kidnappings.

What made Arpil 2004 worse was al-Sadr bringing his al-Mahdi army out against the coalition. The threat suddenly had a more dangerous political dimension, since we could not afford to lose Shiite support, and a military dimension, since Shiite militia were attacking supply convoys.

The events of March and April 2004 left the insurgents in a more open and stonger position than they were prior; the level of the insurgency had stepped up. Between the spring and the fall 2004, the coalition struggled to put the genie back in the bottle.

The coalition response was two-fold: Stand up the Iraqi forces and regain the towns lost by taking troops in and cleaning them out. Towns like Tal Afar, Samarrah, and Ramadi, went through this process more than once. We'd go in, root out the terrorists, re-install some ING or other force, then leave; the terrorists would slowly re-insert themselves and intimidate the Iraqi forces into ineffectiveness. At some point in the fall, the U.S. decided they were ready to re-take towns permanently and get the Iraqi security forces to provide security without the town slipping back to insurgent control; they had to eliminate Fallujah to make that happen.

One thing that helped tremendously was the agreement by al-Sadr to close down the Mahdi army. The two front war became a one-front war, and the Shiite faction has now become a part of the political development in Iraq, and not a threat to the emerging political order.

That left the Sunni insurgents and the terrorist allies, Zarqawi and company. The team on offense takes more casualties. So it was that November 2004 was a bloody month for U.S. forces, not because the terrorists made an advance, but because we went on offense and retook Fallujah. In the process, the terrorists took advantage of the Fallujah attack to attack elsewhere, such as Mosul, to try to tie us down. So we lost men not just in Fallujah but in stamping out insurgent counteroffensives in Mosul, Ramadi, Baghdad, etc.

But open battle anywhere leaves the enemy decimated. In Fallujah, we lost 50 men, but hte enemy killed or captured was estimated at 1500 or more. A most recent example was the attempt to storm a prison in Baghdad at the start of Operation Lightning. It failed, no prisoners released, and hundreds of terrorists have been captured in the Operation Lightning overall.

The run-up to the election therefore was a series of coalition attacks and operations to stabilize the situation for the election. It worked.

In the post-election period since January 2005, the flow of battle has changed again. A lull in February and March and then the insurgents increased attacks in April and May. The terrorists' main threat is the suicide bomb or car bomb, or often, the combination - suicide car bombs. The Iraqi forces and coalition have been on strategic and tactical offense throughout, and now we are seeing more active Iraqi army activity, more aggressive operations to both kill and capture terrorists: Operation Matador, Operation Lightning. We have been attacking and holding a number of towns, draining the swamp. They have been reduced to attacking non-combatants, sowing chaos but creating their own strategic isolation.

If the insurgency had a chance to succeed at all, that window of opportunity existed in the period of March 2004 to November 2004 ... November 4, 2004 to be exact, when America's will to fight had been confirmed. (There is no doubt that, as of today, had Kerry been elected, the defeatist voices would be listened to and a quicker retreat path would have been made, at great cost to U.S. resolve, credibility and standing; Saigon 1975 Redux.)

In May 2004, they had PR momemtum (Abu Ghraib); they had a U.S. administration and a CPA that had credibility problems, both in Iraqi and international eyes; and no national political order with roots to contend with; they even had a dangerous UN envoy (Brahimi, former pal of Saddam Hussein) making helpful comments. They had a Salafist town, called Fallujah they were running, and they had some Shiite allies (al-Sadr).

What a difference a year makes. The successful election in January sealed the deal; Iraq's politics are on a solid footing and it is just a matter of time and effort to get the security to fulfill the promise of a stable, democratic Iraq. Now, we have the terrorists, not the Government isolated and thoroughly disgraced by their own immoral and senseless violence; A national assembly backed by the legitimacy of 8 million voters. On security, a coalition force that is training and working with a growing Iraqi security force; the Shiite insurgents deciding to rejoin the political process last October; and now rumbles of the same for Sunni insurgents. Apart from the casualty numbers, the Strategic Indicators are that the insurgency is in retreat. The outcome has been foregone since the twin elections in America and Iraq: Iraq's future is democratic, it is a merely a matter of the time and the cost to get there.

So, yes, we are winning; the casualty rates are a reflection of the pace (faster) and type (offensive) of operations. Just as we had deadly months during the end of WWII, fighting the last gasp of Nazi Germany in the Ardennes and the last gasp of Japan on Okinawa, so too the last gasp of the Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq can and will be at least as desperate and bloody, and as I noted, suicide operations themselves are a sign of desperation. Belmont concludes similarly:

The Coalition is on the strategic offensive, probably inflicting a multiple kill-ratio on the enemy, capturing its leadership, improving its intelligence capacity and generating ever larger numbers of indigenous combat forces. It is basically ascendant in every measurable military category.

I would have expected the post-election decline this spring to be permanent, but then the pace of operations is more than I expected as well: More spectacular captures, more open battles, more weapons caches seized. Taking out about 1,000 of the enemy in the past month alone suggests that the insurgency could not last past the end of the year. This pace is a sooner victory than predicted by the 'it will take decades' crowd, so it tells us that either there are more terrorists than that, the pace will slacken, or indeed, the terrorist insurgency will peter out this year.

Which is most likely? Some predictions as to where the flow of battle is taking us:
1. The Sunni insurgents will 'give up' and come to the political table, just as al-Sadr and his Mahdi army did last fall. They will do it in the next 3 months (if not immediately) to get on board the constitution bandwagon. When this happens, expect an impact on U.S. casualties - lower numbers overall, with big falloff in IED-related casualties.
1b. Low-probability Fly-in-ointment scenario: they may be so upset with non-representation on constitution-writing (having only 2 seats out of 55) that they instead act to try to defeat the proposed constitution.
2. Al Qaeda in Iraq gets successively more marginalized but continues to be active. They will never give up, not until they are killed or jailed, since their Jihadist vision is not reconcilable with a democratic Iraq at all. Since their targets are mostly civilians, the impact on U.S. troops is less.
3. Continued aggressive pact of operations against terrorists in north and west Iraq. we keep pressing the enemy as fast as the informational flow allows, to more quickly quash the insurgency. This fast pace is a sign of success in intelligence, it keeps casualty rates relatively high for most of summer yet lowers it later on. I would expect three months of this pace of operations would be enough to significantly reduce the terrorist organization's capabilities, if it hasn't happened already.

The script may be considered all wrong if the U.S. casualty rates fail to decline in the fall, and/or if terrorist attack volumes continue at the rate sustained in May. I'd expect 40-70 casualties in the next 3 months, dropping to 15-30 in the fall. The script may be considered correct if we look back this fall to the spurt of violence in May as akin to the Germen Ardennes offensive, a last gasp where the enemy saw defeat looming, desperately threw at us everything they had - and failed.

Some of Chrenkoff's highlights are:
1. Parliament in the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq has held its first session in the northern city of Irbil.
2. Shiite legislators have decided not to push for a greater role for Islam in the new Iraqi constitution ... Instead, the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite coalition that won the most seats in January's elections, will advocate retaining the moderate language of Iraq's temporary constitution that was drawn up under the auspices of the American occupation authority.
3. Since its launch in October, 2003, the new dinar has preserved its value vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar and other major countries. ... "The (central) bank has pursued sound monetary policies," says Thuraya Khazraji, Baghdad University's professors of economics.
4. In less than one year, the newly formed Iraqi Stock Exchange has tripled its trading volume, with growth rates unheard of nearly anywhere else. ... "When we choose to start our business here, demand was very high so we began just with 15 companies . . . now we have about 88," said Taha Abdul Salam, CEO of the exchange.
5. In oil news, talks are to begin soon with Saudi Arabia about reopening a 1.7-million-barrel-a-day pipeline. "The IPSA-1 pipeline, completed in 1989, was shut in the following year after the start of the Gulf War and has remained closed since. The pipeline goes to the Yanbu terminal near the Red Sea port of Jiddah."
6. Regular Baghdad-Basra flights now operational ... Some 42 passengers made the 50-minute trip from the Iraqi capital to the southern city, including airways officials and the transport minister. Iraqi Airways intends to operate four flights a week on the route.
7. Reconstuction Projects update from Bill Taylor, the departing U.S. official overseeing the reconstruction effort in Iraq: were moving ahead despite soaring security costs ... security costs amounted to an average 10-15 percent of the overall price. ... United States was paying out about $200 million a week to contractors and $5.3 billion had been disbursed in total of the $18.4 billion. A further $12.9 billion had been "obligated," or put under contract. ... in the past 10 months, 57 U.S.-funded electricity projects, ranging from big to small, had been completed and 103 more were in progress.
8. Lots of water projects being completed, such as: Iraq's Ministry of Municipalities and Labor recently announced the completion of work on 10 water projects in the Al Rasheed district south of Baghdad, including new tanks and pipelines providing water to several villages. ... 60,000 residents in the rural areas of Diyala governorate will very soon benefit from the rehabilitated water and sewage treatment plant. ... Iraqi authorities in Basra are working on a range of water infrastructure projects. ... USAID supplies potable water to rural Iraqis by digging wells in mid-sized communities. So far, the program has constructed wells at 81 sites; 69 of those sites are now active and 12 have been abandoned due to dry wells or other issues. Operating under the Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction Program, this initiative will drill approximately 110 wells in remote locations throughout Iraq.
9. He cites case after case of chairtable activities to help Iraqi children, such as: Not long ago a Soda Springs pastor serving as a guardsmen in Iraq started a mission, to help kids in Iraq get much needed school supplies. Today, an entire community rallies behind his dream to help others oversees. ... Rhode Island business, working in Iraq, is also trying to contribute in other ways: "A Middletown company is trying help the children of Iraq. Northeast Engineers and Consultants Incorporated has set up the Iraqi Children's Aid Relief Effort. So far, the firm has shipped soccer uniforms, and is planning a major fund-raiser."
10. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq marked their 1000th reconstruction project with the completion of work at a school in the northern-most province of Dahuk ... Engineers have 840 planned school projects throughout Iraq. To date, 580 school projects are finished and 171 are underway.
11. Coalition partners accomplishments: Under the Ukrainian soldiers' or peacekeepers' initiatives a decision about the formation of additional ING units was taken. Due to the efforts of Ukrainian instructors, the Iraqi Armed Forces' 27th Infantry brigade battalions were fully manned and trained (Iraqi National Guard troops were renamed to the Armed Forces of Iraq on February 8, 2005).
12. Good news for down under: Australian troops stationed in southern Iraq were welcomed with open arms when they visited a market in the village of As Samawah. Australia has 450 troops deployed in al-Muthanna Province to assist a contingent of engineers from the Japanese self defence force and provide training for local security forces. The commanding officer of the al-Muthanna Task Group, Lieutenant Colonel Roger Noble, said last night a dozen personnel had been mobbed by friendly locals on their first visit to the village. "There was genuine warmth from the people, (who) reacted to Australian soldiers and they have welcomed us in the best way," Lieutenant Colonel Noble told The Australian.
13. An Iraqi official survey showed that 40% of Iraqi women considered the criminals represent an actual danger for their lives, while 12% of them considered that the coalition forces represent their main threat. 46% of the surveyees did not point out any direct threat for them.
14. Operation Lightning successes: 887 arrests have been made, 608 mobile and 194 permanent checkpoints set up around Baghdad, and 38 arms caches recovered. ... As part of Operation Lightning, a sweep by Iraqi and American forces in Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, netted another 108 suspects. A similar operation around Taji, north of Baghdad, resulted in arrests and weapons confiscations.
15. Iraqi army takes on more responsibility: Outside Kirkuk, meanwhile, Iraqi Army soldiers with First Company, Second Battalion, Second Brigade, Fourth Iraqi Army Division have taken over control of Forward Operating Base Dibbis from U.S. troops. And the Nemer (Tiger) Unit of the Iraqi Second Brigade was officially given control of the Rasafa area of Baghdad.
16. Story about revered and feared Wolf Brigade, Iraq's elite anti-terrorism unit: "The complaints against the Wolf Brigade were the usual: excessive force, renegade patrols, kidnapping, murder. The charges came from Iraq's most powerful Sunni Muslim leaders, and Abu Waleed [commandre of Wolf Brigade] clearly relished reading them. It's precisely this take-no-prisoners reputation that has made his unit the most feared and revered of all of Iraq's nascent security forces. "The Muslim Scholars Association? They're infidels," Waleed said, tossing his detractors' complaints into the wastebasket. "The Islamic Party? Humph. More like the Fascist Party." ... "Every time I see them [Wolf Brigade] in the street, I feel safe," said Ahmed Kanan, 25, who works at a menswear shop in Baghdad. "I feel that we have a country with a government."
17. Lots of Iraqi citizen tips leading to terrorists getting arrested, such as: On May 22, "an Iraqi citizen told Iraqi Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division about two people suspected of planning and carrying out a car-bomb attack near a military base in central Baghdad. An Iraqi patrol went to the site, cordoned off the area and detained two suspects. . . . Another Iraqi citizen's tip helped Task Force Baghdad Soldiers find 14 mortar rounds in east Baghdad."
18. Lots of security successes, such as this one: "Security forces arrested an insurgent leader, Mohammed Daham Abid Hamadi, in a raid carried out in Baghdad on May 23. A government statement said Hamadi was an Islamic extremist who runs a group called the Lewa al-Numan--the Numan Regiment--in the town of Ramadi. The group is said to be responsible for attacks on civilians and the security forces, and Hamadi himself accused of killings and of a series of kidnappings of officials and businessmen, with the aim of collecting ransom money to fund his own group and also to provide other insurgent organisations with funds and weapons."

Chrenkoff closed with a statement from Marine Lt. Col. Bern Krueger, who has been flying helicopters along the Euphrates for the past few months:

I don't see what you see on the news. . . . As I travel hundreds of miles each night, I don't see the violence that you see in the media. Sure, it exists, and is very real to those near it. But it is sporadic, unorganized, and often isolated. It is not everywhere. There are not great pillars of smoke peppering the landscape. There are no riots or mass panic sweeping through the towns. There are no fiery infernos burning houses and schools to the ground, no barrages of mortar fire raining destruction upon the communities, and no raging mobs displaying hate or screaming anti-American propaganda. Sure, it is out there. But it is in small pockets, concentrated in small areas. Overall the country is quiet, silently and eagerly trying to repair an infrastructure damaged by war and neglect and trying to return to some sort of normalcy not seen in decades.

Wash Post's Mission Improbable - building the Iraqi army traces a company of (Sunni) Iraqi soldiers and gives a rather downbeat assessment, given that it is focussed on a single Sunni company located in the Sunni triangle town of Baiji, the kind of place where insurgent threats of killing men who sign up as soldiers is more than credible - the company lost their commander to a car bomb in December, almost all the company soldiers quit and it had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

New York Times is following the lead in discussing woes of training Iraqi soldiers, but giving a more mixed-bag assessment:

Especially in regions sympathetic to the insurgents, they have performed woefully, with Sunni Arab soldiers making little secret of their support for Saddam Hussein and their contempt for the Americans. Among Shiite and Kurdish soldiers, the overwhelming majority in the new army, the Americans say, there are problems beyond loyalty - those inherent in building a new army, at breakneck speed, in the midst of a brutal war. ...

From a single American-trained Iraqi battalion a year ago, the American command says there are now 107 battalions of Iraqi troops and paramilitary police units, totaling 169,000 men. The total is set to rise to 270,000 by next summer, when 10 fully equipped 14,000-man Iraqi Army divisions are scheduled to be operational.

But figures alone tell only part of the story, since only three battalions are rated fully operational by the Americans, and many others are far behind in terms of manpower, training and equipment.

Which makes this description one of the hopeful signs - we are training some elite forces which are taking on very difficult tasks:

Many new soldiers, and most officers, are veterans of the Hussein-era army, and American officers believe they could become a formidable force. As an example, the Americans cite the 1,000 men serving in Iraqi special forces units - some of them veterans of elite commando units under Mr. Hussein - who have trained at a heavily guarded base outside Baghdad that reporters visit only on condition they not disclose its location. The Iraqis are equipped much like the American Army's elite Delta Force - with lightweight rip-proof camouflage uniforms, black balaclavas, Humvees and American weapons like M-4 rifles.

The Iraqis have been deployed, in units stiffened by Americans, in some of the war's toughest operations, like the offensive that recaptured Falluja in November and assaults in other cities, like Mosul and Najaf, where insurgents have threatened to take control. Last month, General Petraeus, flanked by visiting generals from the American Special Forces, glowed as he watched in a hangar at the special forces' base as the Iraqis stormed a mock enemy-held house and simulated a room-by-room raid with live ammunition and stun grenades.

"You have been to virtually every part of Iraq where there are insurgents, and you have done great service to your country," he told rows of tough-looking men lined up for a medals ceremony. As the men stepped forward, American officers ticked off their achievements: more than 700 combat missions, 500 insurgents killed, 1,400 captured. "You are the best of the best," the general said. He concluded in Arabic: "Shukran jazilan" - "Many thanks."

E&P, the MSM's 'party central', had a columnist recite the WashPost article points, and had this as his takeaway from the NYTimes:

"Despite the Bush administration's insistent optimism, Americans working with the Iraqis in the field believe that it could be several years, at least, before the new Iraqi forces will be ready to stand alone against the insurgents....."

Insurgent Abu Hajji Ibrahim Hamid Khalaf turned himself in on Wednesday to the security authorities in the city of Mosul, northern Iraq. ... Abu Hajji Ibrahim is one of the financiers and planners of terror operations in the city of Mosul, who also has links to Al-Mullah Mahdi.

Seven precision-guided U.S. air strikes on the outskirts of the town of Karabilah killed the insurgents who were stopping vehicles at gunpoint and threatening Iraqi civilians, said a U.S. military statement. The military said there were no U.S. casualties when Marines engaged large groups of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles.

Iraqi Govt repeats that insurgents are wanting to make peace:

"Many have been trying to open channels to talk in recent weeks," Kubba said. "Some were calling directly, saying 'We did not kill any Iraqis but took up arms to resist the occupation and want to participate in the political process."

The first parallel between Okinawa then and Iraq today is that it was clear when the battle of Okinawa began on April 1st, 1945, that the U.S. would win World War II. It has been clear since the elections in January that the insurgents would lose in Iraq.

The second parallel, the emergence of the suicide bomber, is a proof of the first.

Okinawa was as bloody as it was chiefly because of the kamikaze pilots. Nearly 5,000 of the 12,000 American dead were sailors killed in kamikaze attacks.

The kamikaze behind the wheel of a car or truck has become the weapon of choice in Iraq, and -- as our media constantly remind us -- has created much carnage in the last two months.

The suicide bomber is a weapon of fanatics. But it is also a weapon of desperation. The Japanese were fanatical from Pearl Harbor on. But the kamikaze didn't make an appearance until Oct. 19, 1944, near the end of the battle of Leyte Gulf, which marked the effective destruction of the Japanese navy. The Japanese didn't turn to suicide bombers until defeat was staring them in the face.

Perhaps the silliest of the many silly things journalists have written about the war in Iraq is that the wave of suicide bombings is happening despite Iraqi/American offensives such as Operation Lightning in Baghdad. It is more likely that the increasingly indiscriminate bombings are a desperate effort to fend off destruction as the terrorists are flushed from their hiding places.

"The Iraqi insurgency is running out of tricks, and like a cornered rat it is fighting back furiously," wrote Gary Anderson, a retired Marine officer who has advised the Defense Department on Iraq in The Washington Post June 2. "The recent spate of suicide bombings ... has many commentators wringing their hands and wondering what is going wrong. In reality, the question might be: What is going right?"

By going after ever softer targets, Iraq's kamikazes have racked up an impressive body count, but are failing in their strategic purpose.

"All achievement is concentration."

"Some people don't have enough tragedy in their lives that they have to invent some."

"The only crisis is the crisis in leadership."

"Freedom and resposibility are two sides of the same coin. Grace and the law are two sides of the same coin. "

"The greatest fool is the one who cannot see the fool in others."

"No great idea will lack detractors, but collecting detractors do not make an idea great."

The Great Seige of Malta in 1565 was one of a trio of decisive battles where Christian Europe faced the Muslim Ottoman empire under Suleiman the Lawgiver; Suleiman struck at the heart of Europe and failed. The first was the seige of Vienna in 1529. The Ottoman defeat there was the high-water mark of Ottoman power in the center of Europe. Denied the northern route into Europe and Christendom, Suleiman tried advancing in the Mediterranean. The second turning point therefore was the Siege of Malta; the Sultan saw Malta as the key to Sicily and Sicily the key to Italy and Rome (remember the moive "Patton"?); truning him back denied him that path. The last battle was the great Naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. With the defeat on the seas, the Ottomans were penned in the Mediterranean lake. Their days of expansion were over.

History, and life, has turning points, some recognized at the time - like the Siege of Malta - some only understood after the fact. Suleiman might have had abler heirs to change the course of history but it was not to be. At the behest of his favorite wife, Roxelana, in 1561 he had to own first-born son Mustafa murdered, to pave the way for a less able son Selim (one of Roxelana's sons). Suleiman the Magnificent died in battle in 1566, and it is regarded that the succession of Sultans after him were a degenerative lot, as rotten as the Ottoman empire itself was to become. In retrospect we now know the empire reached its zenith with Suleiman.

The Maltese Cross, the 8-pointed cross of the Knights of the Order of St John:

Like when a former President decides to get in the base closure business. Note to these idiots who create the PR problem by implying shutting a camp is an appropriate response to a concocted PR problem: We shut Gitmo, the terrorist prison opens up next to your house.

Or when a General calls the enemy 'good, honest' folks. General: Save your hearty praise for our troops and the Iraqis who are bravely deciding not to lash out in violence; they need it more!

Then we have the shell-shocked John Deutch who wants U.S. troops withdrawn 'as soon as possible.', spreading the kind of defeatism that would have led the us to surrender after Valley Forge, the Alamo, Manassas, Kasserine Pass, Pusan in June 1950, etc. Note to former Clinton appointee Deutch: Victory is our exit strategy. If you want to tell us about the need to admit defeat somewhere, tell us again what to do with Kosovo.

Nothing can top How Weird Dean is. DNC chief Dean calls Republicans "evil," "corrupt" and "braindead liars" who "never made an honest living in their lives" and "not nice people". And this took the cake, when he said Republicans are: "pretty much a monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

This is the kind of absolutist, derogatory, broadbrush, prejudiced insult, that if it was said against say, a braindead, evil, robotic terrorist follower of Bin Laden, the media would tut-tut over such narrow dangerous thinking. Think about that General who said we were fighting against the devil in the GWOT and got into hot water over it.

We are left with the conclusion that a politician can say worse things about Republicans than about terrorists, and if you are Howard Dean, you'll take that opportunity every chance you can. At least some Democrats are blushing at his blather:

"Did he make a mistake with these comments? Absolutely," Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut told CNN on Wednesday. "Howard is doing a good job ... he could have chosen better words."

UPDATE: Just confirmed by above point that Dean really does judge Republicans more harshly than terrorists even when alerted by Tim Russert to this double-standard:

Answering questions from Tim Russert two weeks ago, Dean had no regrets about his April mockery of Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction in Minnesota. He also defended his statement last month in Massachusetts that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) "ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence down there courtesy of the Texas taxpayers." To Russert's objection that DeLay has not been convicted of anything, Dean replied that DeLay is "under investigation…This gentleman is not an ethical person, and he ought not to be leading Congress, period.

He had taken the bait:

MR. RUSSERT: You said in December of 2003 that we shouldn't prejudge Osama bin Laden. How can you sit here and have a different standard for Tom DeLay and prejudge him?

DR. DEAN: To be honest with you, Tim, I don't think I'm prejudging him…

The stockpile consisted of over 1,000 sub-munitions and 56,000 fuses.

It was discovered after the owner of the factory met with a Coalition Forces Government Support Team, and told them that he wanted to open his factory but needed a pile of explosives removed first. ... The factory owner, who preferred not to be named, thanked the coalition forces and said there is an overwhelming feeling amongst the Iraqi people that things are getting better.

The influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said the operation, which has led to nearly 900 arrests, could spark sectarian strife. Now in its second week, the campaign involves thousands of Iraqi security forces and 7,000 U.S. troops, according to the U.S. military.

"We tried to reduce tension, but the government took another path. What is being done by the army during the raids and the arrests is only enhancing the culture of hatred," said association spokesman Abdul-Salam al-Qubeisi.

"Islamist insurgents have turned the aftermath of the war in Iraq into a seemingly endless holy war, and are still pouring into the country to fight the 'American devil'. En route, many of them pass through Syria. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visits the ancient city of Aleppo and hears one jihadi's story"

"In 1999 Abu Qaqaa, a charismatic Syrian religious sheikh, was preaching a radical version of Islam in Aleppo. In Saudi Arabia, Abu Ibrahim heard about the sheikh, who wore a salwar kameez, a relic of his time spent with Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan, and was impressed. "We were Wahhabis. Abu Qaqaa was preaching what we believed in. There he was saying these things: people with beards, come together. I was so impressed. ... By 2001, Abu Qaqaa had attracted about 1,000 young men to his cause, though everything at this stage was underground and secret. "No one knew about us. But September 11 gave us the media coverage. It was a great day. America was defeated. We knew they would target either Syria or Iraq and we took a vow that if something happened to either countries, we would fight." "

I often critique the media, but this story is an example of what really good journalism can be. It gives 'just the facts' (I havent read the NYTimes version) and some critical insight into our enemy and what has been motivating them.

Well, there they go again.NYT's Alaska story was warmed-over fearmongering and its data was built on 'thin ice'.

Now NYT alleges Bush administration officials dare to edit reports to ignore the data that doesn't fit. From the New York Times, which has selectively reported on Global Warming in the same biased way they report on other pet causes, this is rich irony indeed.

NYTimes is once again full of hot air. The Bush administration officials have every right to make the word of the Bush administration what Bush administration officials want it to be, just like the New York Times editorial board will do in their paper. And in both cases, we can, as independent observers, judge the accuracy of the claims independently. ... So far, NYTimes claims in this topic are failing the grade.

There is a phrase I hear in almost every conversation with Iraqis that captures the mood of this process: hutwa bi hutwa, or "step by step." I hear it from National Assembly members talking about writing the new constitution, from anticorruption watchdogs trying to monitor the government, and from women's groups planning a campaign to reduce violence in schools.

The lead-up is the same: The conversation turns to the magnitude of a task at hand, and the seemingly insurmountable challenges involved. There is a shrug of the shoulders, a resigned smile, and the words hutwa bi hutwa. "Step by step" is the way Iraqis reconcile their great hopes for the future with recognition of the slow, painful march it will take to get there.

With the government formation behind them, Iraqi officials and the public are shifting focus to the next step: the constitution. Without a doubt they will treat this next monumental task with the same serious dedication and undiminished enthusiasm that they have shown at each step so far.

Those who wait for the headline "Iraq completes constitution" or "Iraq misses constitution deadline" will have missed all the intervening steps that really mattered, as political parties and civil society organizations mobilize the Iraqi people to participate in a national dialogue on the constitution.

A prominent Iraqi Sunni politician has said that two insurgent groups are ready to disarm and begin talks with the Iraqi government.

Former minister Ayham al-Samarie said the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Mujahideen Army represented more than 50% of the resistance.

He said he began contacting the groups' political leaders five months ago.

He said no deal had been made on disarming, but a truce of limited duration could be arranged to prove their goodwill after talks began.

"We told them that 'no-one knows what you want and you must come out to the political arena and make clear what is your agenda'," he said.

"They set no conditions and we agreed with them that the time had come for them to come out."

Reality says: Wait and see. We've been hearing noises like this for a few months, there's probably fire along with this, but it's just smoke so far until we see tangible changes.

JihadWatch refutes these notions of a 'secular' justification for terrorism on a daily basis, exposing the clear links between radical Islam and the tactics of terrorism including suicide bombing. Suicide tactics are forms of "Jihad" that seems to work best against western democracies, confounding our ability to see with moral clarity the enemies real actions, intents and goals.

Suicidal behavior requires a fanaticism beyond devotion to a cause - so suicide bombing is taught to teenagers as a religious duty in Jihad:

They are taught that to give their lives is to be guaranteed a place in heaven. And to be a suicide bomber is one of the highest forms of martyrdom.

"Beijing, China, 4 June 1989. Demonstrator confronts a line of People's Liberation Army tanks during Tiananmen Square demonstrations for democratic reform."

Never one to share the good news from Iraq, our editor found that "the biggest turning point was the Abu Ghraib scandal."

That's right. This conflict took the lives of 1800 coalition soldiers and perhaps 12,000 Iraqi civilians, with 800 civilians victims of terrorist bombs in the month of May alone. This conflict wrested democracy out of one of the worst tyrannies in the world today, saw a major standoff in Najaf where the holiest shrine of Shia-dom risked destructuion ... but the key thing for him was "Abu Ghraib", when in the course of a few days, some lewd and abusive pics were taken of a small number of jailed (alleged) terrorists.

What does that tell you, about the prism of a world-view that puts the image so much higher than reality? The perspective where a mionr abuse of a few terrorists is a bigger deal than the beheading execution of innocents civilians like Nick Berg amd many others? In this essay he makes not a single mention of the 8 million people who voted in the January election, an earth-shattering event, the biggest event since Saddam's statue fell, and the one event that seals the end of tyranny in Iraq. (Say what you will: democracy will triumph in Iraq in due course of time, it is only a matter of the cost of transition.) He makes only grudging admission of the support the elected Government has; No mention of the fact that Iraq and we are facing terrorists that call themselves a wing of Al Qaeda; No mention of the foreign elements in this.

The Abu Ghraib focus is worse than an obsession, it's the heart of a strawman argument that conflates abuses with official policy: "There is no evidence that all the mistreatment and humiliation saved a single American life or led to the capture of any major terrorist, despite claims by the military that the prison produced "actionable intelligence." " No official has ever said 'mistreatment' would lead to capture of terrorists; nor has any official acknowledged that any of the acts that soldiers are being charged with inflicting is in any way supported by official policy. On the contrary, the Schlesinger report last fall concluded that the Abu Ghraib abuses had nothing to do with interrogation at all. This was the 'night shift' of the wardens 'gone wild'.

Moreover, the journalist is wrong on one score: It was intelligence from prisoners that indeed led to the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003.

And so it goes. Because some wayward MPs stacked prisoners in a naked pyramid, our cause is rotten and they hate us all. He sees NO heroes among our troops, but VICTIMS all: "They're [the soldiers] overworked, much ignored on the home front and widely despised in Iraq, with little to look forward to but the distant end of their tours—and in most cases, another tour soon to follow. Many are reservists who, when they get home, often face the wreckage of careers and family."

Any attempt at glimmers of hope fade into pathetic gloom: "But Iraqis have such a long way to go, and there are so many ways for things to get even worse. " There are so many ways for everyone's life to get worse. Yours, mine, everyone's. Undoubtably, the violent Iraq of today will get better in months and years to come. It has to, if you believe this guy's account of how horrible it is now.

Any attempt to parody the doom-n-gloom media, the 'nattering nabobs of negativism', couldn't top this column. It is beyond satire, but it reflects in a nutshell the 'homefront' challenge of explaining a war through the filter of the negative media.

UPDATE: So what's Rod Nordland been up to as he reports from Iraq? Nordland in Aug 2003.

In February 2005, Then he gets snarky with some obviously loaded questions, which attracted a lot of web-attention; google shows lots of lefty bloggers thrilling to see him 'exposing' some 'wingnuts', yet he takes equal-opportunity cynical potshots, such as:

Toronto, Canada: Why do you refer to Zarqawi as "the most ruthless and notorious killer in Iraq" when Bush (et al) has murdered between 20 and 100 thousand for much less reason than Zarqawi? Eh? That epithet could be better applied to "Chemical" Cheney, "Anthrax" Rumsfeld, or any of the other gangsters in the U.S. government.
Rod Nordland: Well we're hearing from all the loonies in Toronto ...

Lincoln, RI: The United States spent billions trying to establish democracy in the foreign culture of South Vietnam. What makes us so optimistic that we can do it in the Middle East where none exist now except in Israel? Rod Nordland: Who's optimistic?

Dallas, TX: The pictures of voting Sunday in Iraq and the incredible turnout demonstrate the determined will of a courageous people. Even if President Bush was wrong in invading Iraq, doesn't the result make it all worth while?
Rod Nordland: It was indeed a very heartening occasion. Still, Bush didn't invade the country to bring it democracy. By that reasoning, we should also invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, etc., none of which have anything even remotely resembling democracy. No WMD, remember, which was one reason, and no al Qaeda, the other reason—until after we invaded. And Iraq now is the biggest producer of terrorists in the world, which it wasn't before.

Negativism as a posture allows one to declaim a particular political position, a form of nihilism, although it clearly tends to aid a particular side:

Indian Land, SC: After seeing how depressed you were on your Fox News interview in regards to the number of attacks on Iraqi voters, and their dislike of American presence, are you able to have any optimistic view of Iraq at all?
Rod Nordland: Perhaps Fox didn't run the whole thing, or you missed part of it. I said the insurgents staged a record number of attacks on election day, but still failed to stop the elections or to stop Iraqis from voting. And that's a major defeat for the insurgents, their biggest setback since Saddam was captured. Is that pessimistic? At the same time, most Iraqis are unhappy with the American presence, for many reasons— that's just a fact. But it's true I'm pessimistic about the war. It's gone very badly, and it may well end badly for us if we don't make the right moves, and maybe even if we do.

Raleigh, NC: Rod Nordland could barely disguise his disappointment at the success of the Iraq elections. Why would he be so disappointed? Rod Nordland: LOL. I wasn't disappointed. I was surprised, very pleasantly surprised. I'm sorry you couldn't figure that out, but maybe you didn't manage to read all the way to the end.

There are possibly more than 500 cases being prepared against Saddam Hussein, but there is no reason to waste time in dealing with them all," government spokesman Leith Kubba told reporters. "We are completely confident that the 12 fully documented charges that have been brought against him are more than sufficient to ensure he receives the maximum sentence."

... "Saddam faces a litany of accusations from his more than two decades in power including the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, the forceful repression of the 1991 Shiite rebellion and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait."

American marines have discovered an elaborate series of underground bunkers used recently by insurgents in central Iraq, with heavy weapons, a kitchen and fresh food, furnished living quarters, showers and even a working air-conditioner, the military said Saturday.

The bunkers were built into an old rock quarry north of the town of Karma, an insurgent stronghold in Anbar Province that lies near the city of Falluja. The bunker system is 558 feet by 902 feet, nearly equal to a quarter of the Empire State Building's office space, making it the largest underground insurgent hide-out to be discovered in at least the past year, if not during the entire war, said Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, a spokesman for the Second Marine Division.

The military said the bunkers were discovered Thursday around 5 p.m. as part of continuing anti-insurgency operations being conducted in Anbar, a center of the Sunni Arab resistance and an arid province that stretches to Iraq's western border. In the past three days, troops with the Second Marine Division found more than 50 caches of weapons and ammunition in the province. Twelve were discovered in the immediate area of the rock quarry, Captain Pool said in an e-mail interview.

"Marines were out patrolling and looking for weapons caches, when out in the middle of the desert they see a lone building," he said. "They went to go and check it out. In one room there was a large, chest-style electric freezer. The marines moved it and found the hidden entrance to the underground quarry system."

"I can tell you that it is the largest underground system discovered in at least the last year," he added.

Near the building, marines also found evidence of a rifle-training range, including many casings from assault-rifle rounds.

No one was in the bunkers at the time of the raid, Captain Pool said. But the fresh food in the kitchen indicated that insurgents had been there recently. The underground lair had been in use for some time, he said, and was built from one subsection of the quarry.

In one part of the hide-out, troops discovered machine guns, mortars, rockets, artillery rounds, black uniforms, ski masks, compasses, log books, a video camera, night-vision goggles and fully charged satellite phones, Captain Pool said.

The marines were still uncovering "new finds" on Saturday night, the captain said, making it too early to tell exactly what the bunkers were used for or who inhabited them.

A Heritage Foundation study reported that during the Clinton administration “the military [was] suffering its worst personnel crisis since the draft ended in 1973. The U.S. Navy missed its recruiting goal by nearly 7,000 sailors in 1998, forcing many ships to deploy understaffed. In response, the Navy’s leadership decided in 1999 to accept a higher percentage of recruits without high school diplomas. That same year, both the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force missed their recruiting goals. As noted … only the Marine Corps, by far the smallest of the four services, has avoided a major personnel crisis.”

They say that if you disagree with something (religious) being said on the podium, it makes you a second-class citizen. What an insult to the intelligence of students who are forced to sit through 16 years of lectures, much of it they finally realize they disagree with. What about the leftwing harangues that many graduates are subjected to? Conservative students are the second-class citizens of the University: "All across the country colleges invited numerous leftwing activists to cap the educational careers of their students, while the only right-of-center speakers permitted to grace these poduim were senior Administration officials like Condoleezza Rice, or cabinet members like Donald Rumsfeld and Tom Ridge." Or what about speeches that call America the world's 'middle finger'? Sorry kids, you have to sit through those and shut up, get your final dose of indoctrination and poor speechmaking quietly.

There is always the case where the speaker abuses the privilege and the peasants revolt, rush the stage, and unplug the microphone. That can be avoided if you have a Separate but equal ceremony, so you cater to the known non-hostile captive audience.

Phooey on the lawsuits and the insulting of students by assaultig them with egregiously offensive speakers. Bad enough kids have to sit through the heat in those made-up robes, and can't even wear Marine uniforms if they wish. Here's a fair compromise: If you find the speaker or his benediction or invocation or whatever is offensive to you, don't take them to court - shout them off the stage and pass out the diplomas. It's the students' graduation, after all.

UPDATE: Horsefeathers reports Another leftwing rant (by Erica Jong) booed at a graduation.

In Tuz Khormato, a popular highway stop 55 miles south of the oil-rich town of Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber targeted bodyguards for Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime minister as they ate at a restaurant. The blast killed 12 people. ``I was sitting inside my restaurant when about six cars parked nearby and their passengers came inside and ordered food,'' owner Ahmed al-Dawoudi said. ``Seconds later, I heard a big explosion and the restaurant was turned into twisted wreckage and rubble. Blood and pieces of flesh were everywhere.''

In middle America, The tragedy of missed homework and having to go to your 'backup' College choice

Thought for the day: "Some people don't have enough tragedy in their lives that they have to invent some."

In January I wrote about one bomber who grabbed the hand of a small child while she was playing on a sidewalk. Smiling, he walked with the child in hand, approaching some Iraqi police, and exploded. Americans standing close by were unharmed.

During the month of May in Mosul, there have been so many terrorist attacks killing women and children--often when no American or Iraqi Forces have been in the area-- that they are barely news. It happened again on Saturday. This time by radio-controlled IED.

Soldiers from Deuce Four happened to stop three cars in the immediate vicinity where explosives were buried on the roadside, and while Americans searched those cars with women and children about, a terrorist clicked the radio switch, and slaughtered eight Iraqi civilians. Three of them children under the age of 10. Other children were wounded.

News report headlines: "Three suicide car bombings struck within an hour and two parked motorcycles exploded in northern Iraq on Thursday"

Details not headlined: At least 700 'terrorists' have been captured and 28 killed in the first four days of a major counterinsurgency operation being carried out by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in Baghdad, the Interior Minister said.

Headlined analysis: "Suicide bombings have surged to become the Iraqi insurgency's weapon of choice, with a staggering 90 attacks accounting for most of last month's 750 deaths at the militants' hands."

Non-highlighted facts: Fewer than 10% of suicide bombers are Iraqis! Calling into question the very term 'insurgency'; less an insurgency, this is war by foreign Jihadists carried into Iraq to attack western values and influence in Iraq, with the main target Iraqi civilians and officials.

I comment: Are they PR firms for the terrorists? They highlight the terrorists that much more than the good work of the Iraqi security forces? They call a bunch of foreign terrorists an 'insurgency'?

They distort, I deride!

The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq - died on Friday and his body is in Fallujah's cemetary, an Iraqi Sunni sheikh, Ammar Abdel Rahim Nasir, has told the Saudi on-line newspaper Al-Medina. He claims that gunfights which broke out in Fallujah in the last few days involved militants trying to protect the insurgency leader's tomb from a group of American soldiers patrolling the area.

During a telephone conversation from the city of Fallujah with the Saudi newspaper, Nasir said al-Zarqawi was taken there after being injured in the city of Ramadi around three weeks ago, and may have been treated by two doctors who had worked with his aides in Baghdad. He said the two doctors had stopped a serious haemorrhage in al-Zarqawi's intestines, but that after his condition worsened last week, the militant died on Friday.

My reaction: Dig up the body.

"while the Pentagon was correct in assuming that there were plenty of officers who were not Saddam Hussein loyalists and who would be willing to serve a new government, it overestimated their skills. ... only by spending an extended time abroad in a professional environment can Iraqi officers truly understand the principles of leadership that make Western armies effective on the battlefield while remaining servants of democratic states. ... I would suggest sending hundreds of Iraqi officers to the United States over the next three to four years ... Several hundred senior officers at a time would go for a full year to the military staff colleges where we instruct our majors and colonels."

“We’re certainly not trying to turn this into the equivalent of an American city,” says Williams. “But it will be first class for an Iraqi one and that’s going to win the hearts and minds of the people.” From the smiles, the thumbs up, the waves, and the cries of “Hello!” in Arabic I got from the children in even the worst parts of the city, I’d say they’re being won.

Still waiting for a military tribunal and a firing squad for these terrorists, instead of a prayer rug and 3 square Halal meals a day. Git 'er Done!

An analysis of 107 bombers whose names and backgrounds Zarqawi's group published revealed that 45 of the dead extremists, or 42 percent, came from Saudi Arabia, said Rita Katz, SITE director. Many other bombers were Syrian, Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Afghani, Libyan and even French, while only 10 of the attackers, or 9 percent, were Iraqi-born.

So much for 'insurgency', this is an attack by Arab Jihadists, many Saudis and from almost every other Arab country, yet few Iraqis in this so-called phony terrorist 'insurgency'.

The "flypaper" effect has worked - in spades.