All Slaughters are not equal... by The Vegas Art Guy

Michael Yon, who is currently covering the real war in Iraq has reported on the true face of the enemy in Iraq. Be warned, the photos are brutal to look at, so if you have a tender stomach scroll past them. Long story short, AQI is not above depopulating villages that don't subscribe to their brand of Islam. Recently US and Iraqi soldiers happened across what was the village of al Hamira. The village was abandoned with the exception of booby trapped roads, animals and houses. The question on every one's mind "Where are the villagers?" was answered soon enough in a nearby palm grove where the smell of dead bodies were overwhelming.

At last report the total body count in the palm grove was 14. What has made many online very angry is the lack of reporting on this story by the MSM. While every coalition soldier's death is reported along with every mistake, abuse and other blunder by the MSM with huge headlines and lead story status, the silence regarding the barbarity of Al Queda and their ilk is staggering, but not surprising. Why would the media, who hate Bush with a passion, do anything to help him out? Why would they reverse themselves on their mantra of "Iraq is a failure", "Cut & Run", or any other idiocy? Because that would mean admitting they were wrong about many things. The nature of the enemy in Iraq, the real story about Iraq, President Bush and a great many things regarding the war on terror.

Their failure to report on stories like this is why more and more people are using the new media to get their news, the old guard is to interesting in pushing politics to accurately report on what's really happening in Iraq and around the world to be trusted, and their declining circulation and viewership is a direct result of this poor journalism.

Surge Part III by Vegas Art Guy

Update #1...
Iraq the Model has got more news on the effectiveness of the new strategy employed in Iraq. The authors of this blog live in Iraq and are an excellent source of information regarding what is really going on over there. In short the Iraqis are really starting to turn on the insurgents and have thrown their lot in with the coalition troops.

"Iraqis are awakening, one very telling example can be seen in the ongoing operation in Diyala; members of the 1920 revolution brigades, once bitter enemies of the US military and Iraqi government are now assisting US and Iraqi military in fighting al-Qaeda even though the majority of the Iraqi soldiers and officers are Shia.
If the change in exclusively Sunni Anbar is good then the change in Diyala is good beyond words."

Need I say more about what's going on? This is a far cry from what you hear in the news about Iraq and the quagmire it's become.

Over at Burkean Reflections, Dr. Douglas has an interesting read about the military strategy behind the Surge in Iraq. Despite what Senator Reid and many on the left believe, the early signs, while mixed, are becoming more and more positive, especially in the Anbar province, once considered enemy territory.

I've commented here, here and here about Iraq, Iran's role in Iraq, and some well deserved justice for Iraqi kurds. In short there is more going on here than the MSM lets on too. Considering the liberal leanings of the MSM I'm not a bit surprised by this.

His opinion and the testimony that he's reacting to are both easy to read and very informative. One of the biggest surprises about this new strategy is the stunning success in Anbar where we now have the support and cooperation of local and tribal leaders in the fight against Al Queda and the like.

Michael Yon has also seen first hand the effects of this new strategy and mistakes by AQ as noted in Betsy's Page, who also has some good insights into what is actually happening in Iraq.

One of the most interesting things that I read in the article is that security has to be established before real political progress can be made. And while things are far from over and the Iraq's ability to defend themselves has progressed unevenly, it is progressing. Obviously it's going to take some time to undo the mistakes that the Bush administration made from 2003-2007, but it's folly of the highest order to say that we've failed with this new strategy, especially considering all of the additional troops have only recently been deployed and some equipment is still en route.

It took us 4 years to screw this up, it's going to take more than a couple of months to fix it.

Justice in Iraq by the Vegas Art Guy

Don't believe me? Ask any Kurd about the man known as 'Chemical Ali'. He was responsible for killing 180 thousand, yes 180 thousand Kurds in the late 1980's. The chemical part comes from his use of chemical weapons during that time, especially in the Village of Halabja where 5000 men women and children were slaughtered.

Unlike the Saddam's reign of terror, this was not done at a whim, but he was tried, convicted and sentenced according Iraqi civil law. He had access to a legal defense and was treated like any other defendant.

It's a good day in Iraq, especially for the Kurdish North were they can rest easy knowing the man who was responsible for so much bloodshed and heartbreak will soon be answering to God for his actions.

Surge Part II

General Petraeus sure isn't sitting in his easy chair in Iraq, that's for sure. After getting an additional 31,000 troops into the country and radically changing how we are fighting the bad guys in Iraq, the second part of his strategy has begun outside of Baghdad. Instead of having big bases and trying to lure the enemy into set piece battles, Petraeus has made the soldiers and their Iraqi counterparts a daily part of Iraqi life in both the capital and Anbar province, where according to recent reports, (h/t Burkean Reflections) the situation has gone from dire to promising and that's before the 31,000 troops had all arrived.

Now the General hopes to catch or kill as many of our enemies as possible in this new offensive by plugging as many of their escape routes as possible by driving them into the flanking troops who are cutting off their retreat. The other change is the lack of publicity this offensive was given ahead of time. Strategic surprise is difficult to achieve considering you're talking about 10,000 troops, but tactical surprise is another thing entirely. Hopefully tactical surprise was achieved and we were able to catch them with their pants down. (that depends on the quality of the Intel we get, and the indications are that our Intel has been getting better and better since the new strategy was implemented) Every time we have a firefight with the enemy they get crushed at a ratio of 60:1. That means for every coalition soldier that loses their life in the line of duty we kill 60 terrorists. To give you an example of how overwhelming this is, during the Korean war we had a kill ratio of 12:1 in the air which many consider to be total domination. We're talking 5 times that kill ratio in Iraq, talk about taking your enemy to the woodshed!

If this move succeeds and we can make headway on the policital front then things are indeed looking brighter in Iraq and the matter of the troops coming home will become 'when' and not 'if'.
I say this because there has to be a political element to this as well, a purely military solution is impossible and the Iraqis need to do more of the heavy lifting so that we can go from doing most of the fighting to supporting the Iraqis while they take care of their own country, much like we did in S. Vietnam from 68-73.

Iran's role in Iraq and why it matters...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273474,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18492460/

I know that people on the left and some on the right like to bang on the US for the problems in Iraq. What they either fail to realize or just don't care about is a small detail in this situation: Iran.

Over the last few months, the suspicion that Iran is shipping weapons and training fighters has become a certainty. I realize that it's easy and lazy to say that the President is to blame for all that is wrong with Iraq, and yes he shares some of the blame. However, people need to wake up to the fact that Iran is working to undo everything that we've fought for in Iraq. Why? A couple of reasons.

The first reason is that Iran fears a stable democratic Iraq. These two countries share a large border and the last thing that Iran wants is a neighboring country that's free. You see Iran is a religious dictatorship. There are no freedoms in Iran, especially for women and for non Muslims. They keep power via brute force and fear. This is all well and good when most of your neighbors run the show the same way, but when there is a beacon of hope next door for your oppressed citizens it is cause for alarm. You don't want them agitating for freedom, because it comes at the expense of the ruling class.

The second reason is that Iran is at war with the US. It's an undeclared war, but it's a war just the same. This war started when Iran seized the US Embassy and keep our citizens hostage for over a year. They regularly aid terror groups around the world. They are the avowed enemy of Israel. They will do anything to hurt and defeat us. Since they're not yet strong enough militarily to confront us (Thank God!) they use groups like Al-Queda and Hezbollah to do their dirty work. They are the part of the militant Muslims that want to convert everyone to Islam by any means necessary.

Their weapons are killing our soldiers and yet we've done nothing so far. The congress and the MSM are too busy trying to turn the country into another Vietnam and the Bush administration has done a horrible job of bringing this to the collective attention of this country. They've done a worse job of confronting Iran about it as well. I think we need to seriously consider aggressive patrols on the Iran Iraq border and consider air strikes against their arms factories if they don't stop. They can't hate us any more and they need to be taught a lesson about messing with the US, this lesson is long overdue, about 30 years overdue.

Iran keeps pushing: Updated

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-03-23T124131Z_01_COL331821_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-IRAN-BRITAIN.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

The British were in IRAQI waters for crying out loud. This is an act of war in my book anyway.
Let's see what kind of brass Tony Blair is really made of. This reminds me of what Hitler did in the 1930's. England needs to respond and push back, HARD. I don't think this was any sort of an accident. Iran's leader is very smart and knows exactly what is going on and what buttons to push. I'm kind of curious if this has anything to do with Russia pulling most of it's techs and other personnel over a pay dispute with Iran regarding it's nuclear weapons pro---- I mean it's nuclear reactor that is being built for strictly peaceful purposes. What peace, all the little pieces that will be left of Israel? If a democrat gets elected in 08 expect Iran to do this to us. Remember how Carter reacted to the hostages in 79-80. That worked REALLY well.

I have a suggestion for Tony Blair. Call Iran and tell them they have 6 hours to release all the prisoners and equipment or you wipe his military off the face of the earth from the air. And at 6 hours and 1 seconds the bombs start to fall. Do not pull a Spain under any circumstances.

Funny how Iran didn't try this with the USA it would be the excuse we need to crush their nuclear ambitions and wipe out their military, then let the citizens do the rest...

Hat Tip:http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/

Update #1:

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1283092.php/Iran_continues_to_hold_15_British_navy_personnel__2nd_Roundup_

Well the Iranians are still questioning the British sailors and marines and deciding if they are going to charge them with any crimes. The British to their credit are not taking this lying down. I have a feeling that behind the diplomatic and public posturing etc., the Brits have a plan B as in Bomb... I certainly hope so anyway. Iran needs to see they cannot get away with things like this. If it were the French I'd have a completely different opinion.