Michael Yon has a new venue to explain Iraq, both directly to the American people, and to the media and politicians who (either ignorantly or mendaciously, or perhaps both) continue to mislead them about it being simply a civil war:

When it comes to Iraq, being there matters because of the massive disconnect between what most Americans think they know about Iraq, and what is actually going on there.

The current controversy about the extent to which Al Qaeda is a threat to peace in Iraq is a case in point. Questions about which group calling itself an offshoot of Al Qaeda is really an offshoot of Al Qaeda is a distraction masquerading as a debate.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq, intentionally inflaming sectarian hostilities, deliberately pushing for full scale civil war. They do this by launching attacks against Shia, Sunni, Kurds and coalition forces. To ensure the attacks provoke counterattacks, they make them particularly gruesome…

…Clearly, not every terrorist in Iraq is Al Qaeda, but it is Al Qaeda that has been intentionally, openly, brazenly trying to stoke a civil war. As Al Qaeda is now being chased out of regions it once held without serious challenge, their tactics are tinged with desperation.

This may be the greatest miscalculation they’ve made in their otherwise sophisticated battle for the hearts and minds of locals, and it is one we must exploit.

Whether it was in 2002 is irrelevant. Iraq is the current front line in the war. Yon knows it. The administration knows it. Even Al Qaeda repeatedly admits it.

To abandon it now will be to give the enemy a great victory, and show bin Laden to be right, that when the going gets tough, America (and the West) abandons the field. It would demonstrate that their viciousness works in accomplishing their vile goals.

And it would be all the more tragic if it happened at a time in which we are actually winning on the ground, if not in the media.

Michael Yon has a new venue to explain Iraq, both directly to the American people, and to the media and politicians who (either ignorantly or mendaciously, or perhaps both) continue to mislead them about it being simply a civil war:

When it comes to Iraq, being there matters because of the massive disconnect between what most Americans think they know about Iraq, and what is actually going on there.

The current controversy about the extent to which Al Qaeda is a threat to peace in Iraq is a case in point. Questions about which group calling itself an offshoot of Al Qaeda is really an offshoot of Al Qaeda is a distraction masquerading as a debate.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq, intentionally inflaming sectarian hostilities, deliberately pushing for full scale civil war. They do this by launching attacks against Shia, Sunni, Kurds and coalition forces. To ensure the attacks provoke counterattacks, they make them particularly gruesome…

…Clearly, not every terrorist in Iraq is Al Qaeda, but it is Al Qaeda that has been intentionally, openly, brazenly trying to stoke a civil war. As Al Qaeda is now being chased out of regions it once held without serious challenge, their tactics are tinged with desperation.

This may be the greatest miscalculation they’ve made in their otherwise sophisticated battle for the hearts and minds of locals, and it is one we must exploit.

Whether it was in 2002 is irrelevant. Iraq is the current front line in the war. Yon knows it. The administration knows it. Even Al Qaeda repeatedly admits it.

To abandon it now will be to give the enemy a great victory, and show bin Laden to be right, that when the going gets tough, America (and the West) abandons the field. It would demonstrate that their viciousness works in accomplishing their vile goals.

And it would be all the more tragic if it happened at a time in which we are actually winning on the ground, if not in the media.

Mark Steyn on censorship by litigation:

…why would the Cambridge University Press, one of the most respected publishers on the planet, absolve Khalid bin Mahfouz, his family, his businesses and his charities to a degree that neither (to pluck at random) the U.S., French, Albanian, Swiss and Pakistani governments would be prepared to do?

Because English libel law overwhelmingly favors the plaintiff. And like many other big-shot Saudis, Sheikh Mahfouz has become very adept at using foreign courts to silence American authors

…and the laws of war. Some interesting thoughts.

I’ve often discussed my frustration with those on the left who deludedly (or more likely, disingenuously) claim that we must treat enemy captured according to the Geneva Conventions (i.e., in their minds, as POWs, or even worse, as civil criminals) when in fact to do what they demand would be a clear violation in itself of the conventions, because the conventions require that we not privilege illegal combatants. And in this war, the enemy has no legal combatants, in terms of Geneva.

In an age of asymmetrical warfare, and entering a post-Westphalian era, the conventions seem no longer to work (except as a means for those who hate America, and particularly George Bush’s America, more than they fear radical Islam, to tie our hands). They need to be replaced with something else. This kind of technology may be one solution.

The Saudis are suppressing speech, and getting books burned.

Optimism about Iraq, from unlikely sources:

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated

That’s what Cathy Young writes that civil libertarians are about terrorism.

Not that the moonbats will pay much attention, but the Lancet report from 2004 claiming a hundred thousand civilian casualties in Iraq as a result of removing Saddam has been further discredited.

The other Michael, Michael Totten, reports from Baghdad:

The other Michael, Michael Totten, reports from Baghdad: