At least that’s what the Iraqis are saying, according to Michael Yon:
Sheik Omar, who has gained the respect of American combat leaders for his intelligence and organizational skills, said the tough line against al Qaeda is also enforced at the tribal level. According to Sheik Omar, the Jabouri tribe, too, is actively committed to destroying al Qaeda. So much so, that Jabouri tribal leaders have decided they would
…to Taji:
“(The Taji Awakening) involves all the sheiks (in Taji), both Sunni and Shi’a. Over the period of four weeks now, it has gathered momentum,” Burke said. “The movement here has become dynamic.”
He said that the largest gathering of Sunni and Shi’a sheiks in Iraq occurred on Aug. 20 in the Taji area and that the terrorist forces in the area are now “on the run” because of the sectarian reconciliation. As a result, the overall quality of life in rural North Baghdad Province has improved, with marketplaces “flourishing” and critical infrastructure needs being met, according to Burke.
I’ve commented before about the evolution of cooperation, and its potential role in Iraq. It seems, finally, to be happening. Bad news for those who have been fully invested in an American defeat, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Ron Silver has some suggestions of things we can do to make the world like us more.
I am actually quite optimistic that at least some (more) lefties will wake up, as time goes by, to the absurdity of them being in alliance with radical Islamists. The only rationale for this otherwise ridiculous arrangement is (see above) that the enemy of your enemy (the USA) is your friend, no matter what. If you really do think that the USA is the biggest baddest thing in the world and that curbing its power is the only thing that matters (think Hitler Churchill Stalin), then this alliance makes a kind of primitive sense. Although even if you do think that, encouraging the development of rampant capitalism everywhere except in the USA would make a lot more sense. That really would reduce the USA to the margins of history. But, if you think that lefty-ism is anything at all to do with positive support for civilisation, decency, freedom, female (in particular) emancipation, life being nice even if you do not submit to Islam etc., then you should surely turn your back on all such alliances.
I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus
…same as the old Nazis. We might have defeated them (at least temporarily) in Europe, but the same mentality is thriving in the Middle East, and has been for decades. And it makes the notion that Israelis are the new Nazis all the more stupid.
[Update late morning]
Speaking of stuck on stupid, here’s Exhibit A: Ward Churchill gives a speech. Theme: Zionists are Nazis.
Many may want to pretend that Al Qaeda and Iran aren’t at war with us, but they know better.
Dutch Muslim youths rioted and burned cars, apparently in protest over the killing of someone who attacked police officers with a knife, and perceptions that they’re seen as violent. As the British foreign service used to say about many cultures, their primary problem was that they lacked a sense of irony.
Michael Yon reports that not only has Al Qaeda lost its war in Iraq, but that its attempts to foment a civil war have backfired on them. It may be that the incipient civil war there (which Yon was the first to note) is over before it really got started, and once again, the war opponents (who remain in denial about the enemy, and fantasize that this never was, and never would be, more than a civil war) are behind the curve. This possibility is buttressed by events like the Shia awakening.
Yon also has a much longer recent dispatch from Iraq.
[Update on Tuesday morning]
More good news from Iraq (and bad news for Al Qaeda, and those who continue to hope that the US loses):
…in order for the advances to be permanent, something else must take the place of U.S. kinetic operations. Solution? Concerned citizens. One reason for al Qaeda
I don’t know if I agree with this post (and haven’t given it much thought), but it’s worth discussing. I remember shopping for them with my dad in the late fifties, though we never ended up getting one.
That was then, this is now. Do they make sense in the current environment?
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts on the subject from Dr. Kurtz.