Hope

Despite the MSM’s incessant bleating about all the awful news from Iraq (killed! explosions! bombs! riots!), there really is a lot of progress in Iraq. The military blogs written by soldiers actually in Iraq complain bitterly about the wrong-headed picture painted by the MSM — just short of outright lies (usually), but very much omitting much that is true. The Iraqi blogs express similar sentiments about news coverage, and are much better informed and realistic about the political situation. Strategy Page is reliably level-headed and observant; reporting the world (including Iraq) as one might imagine a soldier would want it reported: fact-based, analytical, unbiased (good and bad news is equally well covered). They’ve got a post today that is full of detail about the improving capabilities of the Iraqi military and police forces — very encouraging, on the whole. It concludes:

From Strategy Page:

The Iraqi battalions are able to make terrorist attacks much more costly, for the terrorists. Thus the recent terrorist attack on the Palestinian hotel, resulted in over a dozen terrorist personnel killed or captured because of prompt action by Iraqi soldiers and police. As a result of this, two more trends are in evidence. First, more and more of the terrorist activity is moving outside of heavily policed Baghdad, to smaller towns where there are fewer security personnel. Second, more Sunni Arabs are giving up on plans for any quick take over of the government. These Kurdish and Shia Arab police and army officers were not supposed to show up so quickly, if ever. But there they are.

If these trends continue, this is very good news indeed! Let us hope the Iraqi forces can push the terrorist forces way back — say, to Iran and Syria…