Flag Day Rally in West Chester, PA

Here is a video excerpting the Flag Day Rally in West Chester, PA this past weekend:

This Ain’t Hell was there to blog about the event, and links to other bloggers who were there.

Here is how Skye recorded the festivities:

Yes, the same Skye who was slapped by a male hippie from the Chester County Peace Movement.

Afghan-Pakistan Clashes and Iranians in Iraq

I am glad to see that we will not afford our enemy a sanctuary across international borders (I wish we would do the same with Mexico), and we are engaging the enemy:

The Afghan Army clashed with the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal agency of Mohmand on June 10. While initial reports indicated the US conducted a targeted airstrike against a Taliban or al Qaeda target in the tribal agency, the aircraft appear to have been supporting Afghan troops. Pakistani soldiers were reported to have been killed in the fighting.

The fighting started after Afghan forces attacked a Taliban force as it attempted to cross the border. Between 10 and 13 Pakistani soldiers were killed after Afghan and US forces pursued Taliban forces fleeing into Pakistan.

“The militants launched a cross-border attack into Afghanistan,” an unnamed Pakistani security official told Reuters. “At least 10 of our soldiers were killed in a counter-offensive by forces in Afghanistan.” Geo TV reported 13 Pakistani soldiers, including a major, were killed. An estimated 50 Pakistani soldiers were manning an outpost in Suran Dara along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. Only 10 have been accounted for.

Source: The Long War Journal

I wonder when we’ll start going across the border in Iran to stop their “Special Groups” and “Explosives Experts” from going into Iraq and killing American soldiers? When will people begin to realize that Iran has been at war with us since President Jimmy Carter installed the Ayatollah Khomeini and jump started the Iranian Islamic Revolution?

BAGHDAD – Coalition forces captured a suspected Iranian-trained Special Groups explosives expert Wednesday in Numaniyah, about 180 km southeast of Baghdad near Al Kut.

Acting on intelligence information, Coalition forces targeted a suspected Iranian-trained improvised explosive device expert. Using information provided by Special Groups criminals already detained, the targeted criminal is believed to have traveled to Iran several times for explosives training. Intelligence sources also said the suspect has numerous Iranian contacts with whom he would meet when smuggling weapons and bomb-making materials into Iraq.

Coalition forces entered the suspected criminal’s residence and subdued him without firing any shots after the man made a move toward a weapon.

“Significance progress is being made, and Iraqi people are a big part of the operations to stop terrorists throughout Iraq,” said Navy Lt. Patrick Evans, MNF-I spokesperson.

Source: MNF-Iraq

Arabs Volunteer To Fight In Afghanistan Against al-Qaeda?

WASHINGTON — The leader of the tribal confederation that has fought to expel Al Qaeda from most of Iraq’s Anbar province is offering his men to help gin up a rebellion against Osama bin Laden’s organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said, “I have no problem with this, if they ask me, I will do it.”

The success of the Anbari tribal rebellion known as the awakening spurred Multinational Forces Iraq to try to emulate the model throughout Iraq, including with the predominately Shiite tribes in the south of the country. Today, the tribal-based militias formed to protect Anbaris from Al Qaeda are forming a political alliance poised to unseat the confessional Sunni parties currently in parliament in the provincial elections scheduled for the fall and the federal ones scheduled for 2009.

During his nomination hearing for taking over the regional military post known as Central Command, General David Petraeus said one of the first things he would do would be to travel to Pakistan to discuss the current strategy of the government in dealing with Al Qaeda’s safe haven in the Pashtun border provinces. A possible strategy for defeating Al Qaeda would be an effort there along the lines of the Anbar awakening to win over the tribes that offer Osama bin Laden’s group protection and safe haven.

Source: Michael J. Totten

No wonder the Legacy Media doesn’t cover the war in Iraq (or Afghanistan) very much these days. These kind of stories do not fit the America-hating template of failure.

Still, things are not all rosy in Afghanistan, or even in Pakistan.

New York Slimes Spins On Iraq Attacks

Graphic Courtesy New York Times

BAGHDAD — Newly declassified statistics on the frequency of insurgent attacks in Iraq suggest that after major security gains last fall in the wake of an American troop increase, the conflict has drifted into a stalemate, with levels of violence remaining stubbornly constant from November 2007 through early 2008.

The new figures, presented Tuesday at a Senate hearing in Washington by David M. Walker, the top official at the Government Accountability Office, emerged a day after eight American soldiers were killed in bomb attacks, five in downtown Baghdad and three in Diyala Province. And the trend appeared to continue Tuesday, as bombings and small-arms attacks led to casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces in or near at least eight cities.

Source: New York Times

Commentary

Stalemate ?!? I bet the New York Times would have called for us to surrender to the Germans during The Battle of the Bulge.

Just look at the graphic (available at a larger size at the above link) and note the very dramatic decline in insurgent attacks after the troop surge began in Feb of 2007. No wonder the Democrats shirted tactics to focusing on the political situation in Iraq. Now that the political situation is improving, I wonder where they will retreat to next?

Aren’t you glad that we did not listen to Harry “The War Is Lost” Reid last April?

Related Materials:

Iraqi Order of Battle March 2008 Update

Long War Journal: Inside Iraqi Politics (5 Part Series)

Parting Shot

When you read about, and see, lefties protesting the War over the next week, remember this post, remember these figures, and know that they are protesting against Victory in this 4th World War. Pity them, and their limited world view.

Rooting Out al-Qaeda, Iraqi Politics, and Socialists

As al Qaeda in Iraq is targeted in the northern city of Mosul, pressure continues to be applied to the terror network nationwide. US and Iraqi security forces have killed or captured 26 senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq’s terror network over the past several weeks, Major General Kevin Bergner, the spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq said in a briefing in Baghdad on March 5. Many of those killed or captured have come from the northern regions, where al Qaeda is struggling to reestablish its network during a joint US and Iraqi military onslaught.

Eight of those killed were emirs, or leaders responsible for “a geographic or functional area,” five were cell leaders, and 13 were facilitators “involved in supporting the network of foreign terrorists, organizing the movement and security of senior leaders of the terrorist cells, or the making and use of improvised explosives and suicide vests,” Bergner said.

Bergner identified 11 of those killed or captured by name. The list highlights how al Qaeda’s operations have shifted from Anbar and Baghdad provinces to the northern provinces of Diyala, Salahadin and Ninewa. Of those al Qaeda leaders identified, five operated in Mosul, two in Tikrit, one in Sharqat, and one in Baqubah, all in the north. Only two of those identified as killed or captured came from Baghdad.

Source: The Long War Journal

And, on a related note, since the surge has proven to be so successful, the Democrats have moved the goal post once again…claiming that political benchmarks haven’t been met. Well, just take a read at the 5-part series Inside Iraqi Politics for ammunition to fire back at your lefty friends.

A portion of the fifth installment is below:

Unified Retirement Law, Accountability and Justice Law,
and General Amnesty Law

These three laws specifically have the potential to advance stability and reconciliation. They are designed to clarify pension rules for Iraqis in need of economic support, reintegrate some former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party into government employment, and release primarily Sunni Arab detainees accused of insurgency but held without trial or conviction.

The Coalition Provisional Authority’s 2003 decision to purge more than 1 million former Baathists from government and deny them retirement benefits created strong political and economic incentives for rebellion among those disenfranchised. What followed was the rise of a predominantly Sunni nationalist insurgency that presaged al Qaeda infiltration of Iraq and the resulting sectarian conflict. Taken together, the Unified Retirement Law and the Accountability and Justice Law remove some of the negative incentives by expanding the number of former Baathists who can re-enter public service or receive retirement pay from the government, though concerns remain about certain aspects of the latter law and its eventual implementation.

The 275-member Council of Representatives, Iraq’s parliament, passed the Unified Retirement Law by a 106-39 vote on Oct. 4, 2007, barely exceeding the minimum attendance of 138 required for quorum. The law grants retired civil servants pensions equal to 80 percent of their salaries and, significant for reconciliation, also provides pensions to members of the former Iraqi Army, many of whom had been involved in the insurgency. The law removes eligibility distinctions between those who retired before or after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

“It’s removing discrimination based on social status or political affiliation,” said Phil Reeker, Counselor for Public Affairs at the American Embassy in Baghdad.

The Unified Retirement Law paved the way for parliament’s Jan. 12 passage of the Accountability and Justice Law, also known as “de-Baathification reform.” This law reforms the previously sweeping terms of removal of former Baathists from government service, and was passed unanimously by the 143 members of parliament who were present, though several major voting blocs rejected it via abstention. The law features some terms favorable to Sunni reconciliation, including reinstatement of the jobs or pensions of those who were in the bottom six levels of the Baath Party’s 10 ranks, a clarification of pension rules, and a new appeals mechanism. But other facets of the law are considered potentially unfavorable to reconciliation and are strongly opposed by Sunni representatives. Those controversial aspects include the law’s maintenance of a committee that scrutinizes the rehiring of former Baathists and the extension of de-Baathification purges to new areas of government, including Iraq’s judiciary.

So, the anti-American war protester I discussed in a previous post is just part of the 5th and 6th columns in America fighting against our victory in Iraq. The real agenda with these protesters is Revolutionary Defeatism [1] [2], where there goal is the destruction of America, and western civilization, in order to pave the way for a Socialist Civilization.

We conservatives should be about studying the enemy, both foreign and, in this case, domestic…they are every bit as dangerous (if not more):

The Chinese have a saying; when you hunt tigers, learn about tigers, learn about their habitat, their diet, their habits and their tactics. If you do not fully know about the tiger, you are not hunting tigers, you are just walking in the woods. A Western equivalent phrase is “Know your enemy”. I know mine, how they think, how they operate and what their end goal is, and the tactics they will use to try and silence and stop me. Do you? In order to defeat the far left, we need to know him, and without a grasp of the concept of revolutionary defeatism, we do not truly know our enemy; we are just walking in the woods….

Iraqi Awakening

WASHINGTON (AFIS, Nov. 26, 2007) – Determined to rise up against al Qaeda terrorists, concerned local citizens, working together with coalition forces, have started neighborhood watch programs in northern Iraq.

The citizens are calling the movement “Sahwa,” an Arabic term that means “awakening.”

The neighborhood watch programs were established Nov. 14, two weeks after local citizens approached Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, with the idea. More than 1,000 citizens showed up, ready to be recruited to take up arms in defense against the terrorists in the region.

Source: army.mil news

Hat Tip: Sgt Hook

Commentary

You know, I think the Iraqis get it better than half of America, and they are gonna be okay…despite the Democrats refusal to fund the war, and forcing the Army to cut back.

Victory in Iraq–The Real Surge

While the “surge” of five US brigades plus their accompanying support elements, about 30,000 US troops total, is the main focus of commentators when discussing the current situation in Iraq, the real surge in Iraq is happening behind the scenes. The rapidly expanding Iraqi Army is where the real surge in forces is occurring.

In November 2006, Prime Minister Maliki understated the real surge when he announced the increase of the Iraqi Army beyond the subjective counterinsurgency force. Maliki’s originally announced plan was an increase of the army by three divisions, five brigades, 20 battalions, and an Iraqi Special Operations Force (ISOF) battalion. He also wanted to increase the manning of existing Iraqi units to 110 percent. At that point, the Iraqi Army was 10 divisions, 35 brigades, 102 battalions, and two ISOF battalions. Most Iraqi Army formations were only approximately 65 percent manned at that time.

Over the last year the Iraqi Army has grown to 12 divisions, 41 brigades, 123 battalions, and four ISOF battalions. This is a 20 percent increase in units and a doubling of the ISOF. This does not include the three former strategic infrastructure brigades (17 battalions) that have been transferred to the Iraqi Army and are currently being retrained. While the Iraqi Army officer and NCO ranks remain undermanned, the overall unit manning has grown to 108 percent during that time. This does not mention the steadily increasing Iraqi Army competence that can only come from combat and counterinsurgency experience.

Source: The Long War Journal

Here is another thing to consider:

Click Image for Larger Version. Image Courtesy The Long War Journal

The author concludes with these damning (to those who don’t support the war, anyway) words:

This is the real surge — a surge in training and building of the Iraqi Army. Security in Iraq improves with an increased long-term security presence; a security presence that will increasingly be shouldered by Iraqi troops. The five US surge brigades were not only brought in to buy the Iraqi government time to sort out the political situation, they were brought in to buy the Iraqi Army time to expand. The five US surge brigades are doing some much needed housecleaning in Iraq’s problem areas, freeing up Iraqi Army formations to provide cadre for new forming units, and providing additional training partners for the new Iraqi Army formations thus facilitating the accelerated expansion. The Iraqi Army is replacing the US forces departing Iraqi by the end of 2008 at rate of two Iraqi brigades for one US brigade.

Commentary

So, the hemming, hawing, and condemning of the Iraq War as a failure will be a moot point by the time the 2008 Election rolls around, and the candidates who are anti-war will find themselves ever more marginalized by their break from reality.

The Legacy Media is already being forced to report on the success in Iraq because they can no longer hide it…the bloggers are getting the word out, and have been all along.

Life Returns to Normal in Baghdad

BAGHDAD—Since the last soldiers of the “surge” deployed last May, Baghdad has undergone a remarkable transformation.

No longer do the streets empty at dusk. Liquor stores and cinemas have reopened for business. Some shops stay open until late into the evening. Children play in parks, young women stay out after dark, restaurants are filled with families and old men sit at sidewalk cafes playing backgammon and smoking shisha pipes.

To be sure, Baghdad is still a violent and dangerous place. Pockets of territory remain under the control of the Al Qaeda in Iraq organization. Bandits and gangsters roam back alleyways. Explosions still rumble through the air, though far less frequently than they did a few months ago. Many issues remain unresolved and much could still go wrong.

But for the first time in years, Baghdad’s residents are starting to remember what an ordinary life is like.

“I used to close my shop at 6 p.m. but now I stay open till 9 or 9:30. Then I walk home and I feel completely safe,” said Jawad al-Sufi, 64, who runs the House of Hijab head scarf shop in the much-bombed district of Karradah. He had to replace his windows five times because of bombings outside his shop, but there has hardly been an attack in Karradah since September.

“It happened very suddenly,” he said. “There was a sharp turnaround, right after Eid,” the Muslim holiday in late October. “Since then, security has improved 85 percent.”

It’s not only that Baghdad is starting to feel normal. Statistics compiled by the U.S. military and the Iraqi government show that the violence has fallen significantly countrywide. Most of the figures are not broken out for Baghdad, but the capital has in the past accounted for a high percentage of the violence.

Source: Chicago Tribune
Related: The Torn Ultimatum
Releted: Troops and Locals Stop and Defuse 20 Car Bombs

Commentary

The Surge has been successful beyond the Darkest Democrat Nightmare!

However, the relentless Democrats will continue to try to sabotage the mission in Iraq despite being warned by the Legacy Media that this will cost them the election in 2008 if they continue to play to the Moonbat Democrats, Loser Libertarians, and Idiot Ron Paul Supporters.
The strategy of President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Generals in the Iraqi Theater have worked, and will continue despite the Treason of the Defeatocrats.

And this, on the heels of the IVAW (Iraqi Veterans for Treason) declaring our troops to be “baby killers.” Shameful. It is too bad indeed that there are no whackjobs protesting in the far western counties of North Carolina to taunt
with this information.