Operation Spear

Operation Spear began today in Iraq.  I highly recommend Bill Roggio's piece at Winds of Change.  The whole piece is well worth reading to get a good grasp of this important assault near the Syrian border.  However, this portion of his analysis speaks volumes as to how the US and Iraq are progressing in dealing with the insurgent terrorists:

"The operations in Anbar must also be looked at from a political perspective as well. The coalition struck a serious (but not fatal) blow to al Qaeda with the capture of Abu Talha. The terrorists continue to lose their appeal with the Iraqi people. The Iraqi Assembly has successfully completed negotiations with the Sunnis to participate in creating the Constitution, generously ceding 15 seats on the committee to a party that boycotted the elections. Negotiations with Sunni groups at the national level and the local level (particularly in Anbar) are accelerating, as the government attempts to offer the Sunnis an option to end the violence and participate in the government. The Iraqi Army is making the long, uphill climb towards becoming an effective fighting force, and is increasing its participation in combat operations against the insurgency."

This type of summary is often missing in the mainstream media.  There is progress in Iraq.  Operations such as Spear, Matador and New Market are further diminishing the insurgents' ability to kill Iraqis and terrorize the citizens of the cities they corrupt. 

Our prayers and support are with the US and Iraqi forces, who are engaged in an important battle.

Comments

[Seth]

"This type of summary is often missing in the Mainstream media."

Well put.

We've been doing progressively better in Iraq since the invasion was completed, I think in part because our commanders have been getting the camel country version of their 'sea legs', the Iraqis are, indeed, providing us with tons of HUMINT(who better, right?) and we're knocking the last of the kinks out of our training programs for Iraqi soldiers.

Our troops and their commanders have, from the outset of the campaign, risen to the occasion whenever the going got tough and they've learned from their experiences.
This is a trait of Americans, why we are who we are, and our military has a healthy habit of rotating many of its combat experienced people directly into the training system to prepare those who follow.

The politicians who are demanding that the Bush administration establish a deadline date for withdrawing our troops from Iraq are following the same pattern of retreat Clinton did in Somalia and that the French seem to have a copyright on. From the left's viewpoint, if they can get us out of there before the job is done, the bad guys might have a chance to take back the country like we allowed Ho Chi Minh's gang to do in the 1970s. That, or major civil war might erupt, leading to something like the Taliban taking root.
Then they could leer "Vietnam Quagmire, W's fault!"

Sometimes I wonder what those aliens in the opening two hour episode of the original Star Trek series, "The Menagerie", would have thought if they could watch all that has been transpiring in U.S. internal politics.