SALMAN PAK, IRAQ – The region to the south and east of Baghdad, home to the Tigris River Valley, to the former terrorist training center (and resort town) of Salman Pak, and to the long-since defunct Iraqi nuclear reactor, has seen little of the coalition since the initial invasion of 2003. One of several areas through which the military quickly passed, killing off Saddam’s army while on the move, and then abandoned entirely, the region – strategically important due to the makeup of its inhabitants (Shi’a farmers and former Sunni aristocrats) and of its terrain (the Tigris snakes through the region, and the fields there, though they appear to be made of nothing but powdery dust, are among the most fertile in central Iraq) – has long since become home to rivaling factions of various insurgent and sectarian groups. From al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) to Muqtada al Sadr’s ‘Mahdi Army’ (the Jaisch al Mahdi, or ‘JAM’), insurgents in the area have now spent months and years fighting amongst themselves and against each other, all while terrorizing a civilian population which was cowed into submission and which had all but given up on ever achieving something better.
People ask Colonel Wayne Grigsby, commander of 3 ID’s 3rd Brigade if the surge is working and he answers "How can it not be"
We’re in these areas that no soldiers have been for months and years. Seven of our eight companies are living out in sector [at coalition outposts], among the people that they are working with. Our soldiers are conducting operations and patrols in their sectors daily. We’ve got al Qaeda…, JAM…, and JAI (Jaisch al Islam) discombobulated, and we’re showing the people there – people who might not have seen an American soldier in years – a sustained presence, catching bad guys, building checkpoints, providing medical care, and making life safer and better for them.
In other news al-Maliki smacks Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin around a little making some very good points:
Excerpts:
Nouri Maliki singled out senators Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin.
He said the Democratic senators were acting as if Iraq was "their property" and that they should "come to their senses" and "respect democracy".
[...]
But the Iraqi prime minister hit back during a news conference in Baghdad, saying: "Leaders like Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin have not experienced in their political lives the kind of differences we have in Iraq.
"When they give their judgment they have no knowledge of what reconciliation means."
The portions I have put in bold, really is the bottom line. We hear opinions and rhetoric about how al-Maliki is not making political progress fast enough for our liking and yet we have never been in his position, we have never has to live through the reconstruction, our country has, but that was before our time and yet we seem to think we know more about the hardships that they have to live through, the battles they are fighting to overcome a history of tyranny and try to reconcile?
How arrogant of us and Hillary and Levin. How very undiplomatic, especially from a woman who wishes to run our country. In case she hasn't noticed, diplomacy is a large part of the presidency and she simply isn't up for the job.
People that crticize al-Maliki and the pace of the political progress, seem to completely ignore the difficulties our own Congress and Senate seem to have coming to any reconciliation today, just look at the Senate all nighter and the last two days of our own sessions before our politicians went on recess and that is with a two party system and a century of more experience in the democratic process. Iraq has three factions and yet we expect him to do what we cannot even do.
Yes. Arrogant of us.
More about Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin's audacity from Take Our Country Back.
President Bush is right to call for patience with al-Maliki and the political process in Iraq. We may have been in iraq for 4 years, but al-Maliki has only been in charge for 1 year. People tend to lump everything that happens into Iraq into one bundle without actually looking at the realities.
One has to wonder, which one of Maliki's critics would volunteer to do the job he is doing?
Any takers?
(NOTE: Instead of leaving you with the advertisements I usually have at the bottom of each post, I will leave you with one of the videos from Freedoms Watch) [30 second video.]
Gold Star Mother:
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