The Final Mission, Part III

Via Michael Totten: The Final Mission, Part III.

READ.IT.ALL.

Exerpt:

You know who else is in Iraq and therefore knows what the country is really like? Iraqis. (Of course.) They see and experience much of the same kinds of events George Packer and I have seen and experienced. They don’t learn about Iraq from Reuters and Hollywood. And they are less anti-American than they were during the initial invasion in 2003 – at least many of those who have had sustained contact with Marines and soldiers. Sustained contact with the “other” breaks down bigotry all around, even in war zones.

The violent strain of anti-Americanism in Fallujah and the surrounding area has ebbed almost completely. People here know Americans are not the enemy. They know Americans protect them from murder and intimidation from the head-choppers and car bombers. They know Americans provide medical care to Iraqis hurt by insurgents and even to insurgents wounded in battle.

If the Iraqis who listen to the Marines’ lectures on human rights and the rules of engagement ever took seriously the once common comparison between the American invasion of 2003 and the bloodthirsty Mongol invasion of the 13th Century, they certainly don’t anymore. They may not absorb all the lessons of their coursework, and they may still resent the American presence on principle to an extent, but at least they know what Americans really are like as people and warriors. The class taught by Lieutenant Eric Montgomery wasn’t designed with public relations in mind, but it has that effect all the same.

Again, READ.IT.ALL. and pass it on to everyone you know. That is the only way to convert ignorant, liberal douchebags to military/war effort supporters.

Also see: Blackfive – Iraqi Politics at The Long War Journal

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Al Qaeda in Iraq is Crumbling

Via Charles Johnson at LGF: Al Qaeda Documents Show They’re in Big Trouble

There’s new evidence tonight that Al Qaeda in Iraq is falling apart: U.S. Military Says Seized Docs Show Al Qaeda in Iraq Is Weakened.

BAGHDAD — A diary and another document seized during U.S. raids show some Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders fear the terror group is crumbling, with many fighters defecting to American-backed neighborhood groups, the U.S. military said Sunday.

The military revealed two documents discovered by American troops in November: a 39-page memo written by a mid- to high-level Al Qaeda official with knowledge of the group’s operations in Iraq’s western Anbar province, and a 16-page diary written by another group leader north of Baghdad.

Click here for the English translation of the diary. (PDF)

Click here for the original version of the diary. (PDF)

In the Anbar document, the author describes an Al Qaeda in crisis, with citizens growing weary of militants’ presence and foreign fighters too eager to participate in suicide missions rather than continuing to fight, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman.

“We lost cities and afterward, villages… We find ourselves in a wasteland desert,” Smith quoted the document as saying.

The memo — believed to have been written in summer 2007 — cites militants’ increasing difficulty in moving around and transporting weapons and suicide belts because of better equipped Iraqi police and more watchful citizens, Smith said.

David Ignatius of the Washington Post also nails the point that those who were saying “more troops!” was the answer were completely missing the point of what works in Iraq in COIN operations:

Traveling in Iraq and Afghanistan in late January, I kept encountering two themes that cut across the usual U.S. political debate about these conflicts: The hard-nosed operations of U.S. Special Forces are increasingly effective, and so are the soft-power tactics of provincial reconstruction teams.

The debate over troop numbers may be missing the point. What’s making the real difference isn’t how many Americans are on the ground but how they are being used. That’s true at both ends of the spectrum — hard power and soft. And, as commanders learn to use these tools of counterinsurgency effectively, they may also be able to operate with fewer people and a lighter footprint.

As I said before, Senator McCain was wrong.

Also, as Charles Johnson notes, so too was Senator Obama, who stated last August that the war effort in Iraq was a “Complete Failure“. Note above that the memo citing the failure of Al Qaeda was written last summer… right around the time that Presidential Candidate Obama was declaring Iraq a “Complete Failure”.

Yet this man is set to become the Presidential Candidate for the Democrat Party. Brilliant.

Sorry, John McCain, You Were Wrong on the Surge

Not that the average voter even has a damn clue about what the “surge” offensive was actually about, since they spend their time getting their news from the mass media and morons like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews and those leading organizations of military strategic thought such as CODE PINK, Think Progress, Moveon.org, et al. Ask anyone if they read MILBLOGS and I bet you get a blank stare. Ask them if they even know what is a MILBLOG and I bet you get an even blanker stare.

The fact is the commentor RC at Protein Wisdom is exactly right. Every time I hear John McCain and his idiotic ranting about “leading the way on the surge” or whatever bullshit he peddles, I want to scream. I am really sick of his lying bullshit and pandering to the ignorant idiots of our society who don’t even know what the “surge” is.

As an only slightly OT point, I’m way past sick and tired of McCain claiming the current strategy is what he had been calling for all along. The only thing the dumbass was calling for was more troops to “lock down” Iraq. That is not at all what is going on. It may be too nuanced for Mr. Maverick but the extra troops were not sent to “lock down” anything. They were sent to provide a continuing presence in small locations to help stand up local Iraqi assets and build relationships at the sub federal level since it became obvious that clearing and handing over to Iraqi forces wouldn’t work until competent Iraqi organizations were available and they weren’t coming from centralized training fast enough to do the trick. If some of the Iraqi’s see our troops as an occupying army think of how many more actual moderate Iraqi’s would have joined any sort of resistance force if we had tried to “lock down” Iraq with more troops. For many Iraqi’s our troops have simply become members of the Amerika tribe and are allied with their tribe and country. Never could have happened under McCains “plan” (BTW, sending more troops is not a plan it’s just sending more troops). [ … ]

Sounds of Iraq One Year After Surge: Laughter of Iraqi Children

Hopefully you have already read about the Continued Success and Progress in Iraq. If not, just click on that link and go read about it now.

In addition to that, Laughing Wolf at Blackfive has put together a great Blackfive TV video about “The Surge at One Year: Handshake for the Future”

[You can watch all videos from Blackfive here]