Posted: 2/5/2008 4:13:24 PM EDT
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Between election coverage and being a single dad for the last couple of weeks I haven't been able to keep up. I searched my usual news sources and can't find much. Is no news good news? Are the violence stats going down still? |
| Open sources say Al-Q is shifting operations from Iraq to Pakistan. Further show that most "insurgents" are foreign (not Iraqi). See CTC Analysis of Al Qaeda's Foreign Fighters in Iraq. Majority Saudi, majority per capita Libyan. So... if they were importing most of the trouble makers, but are moving to Pakistan, it appears there will be a lot less fighters in Iraq. |
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Things are pretty quite and returning to normality in Iraq. The pavement cafe's are open again in Baghdad, that says it all. "The Sons of Iraq" news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7226974.stm |
And to the big us media it will be quiet until a Democrat is in office in 2009 and then "look how much better Iraq is doing now" 
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Well, it got awfully quiet in the news media, so that can only mean that things are going well. Same in Afghanistan; we've not heard of what's going on over there in a long time, so that means that is going very well. The MSM only reports about it when things go bad, which really irks me; I know for a fact that our boys are doing a heck of a good job routing out the insurgents and stabilizing the country, but I'll be damned if I ever hear about it on the 3 letter news networks (well five if you count MSNBC). My only source of news about Iraq is Michael Yon's website and of course, the MNF-I website. as well as our ARFCOM members deployed overseas that pull double-duty as correspondents. Stay safe brothers. 
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in baghdad living fat for a week picking up new MRAPs for the unit...  in our area (salman pak, 20min SE of baghdad) violence used to be nonstop and widespread. in the past few months due to the CLC's (sons of iraq) and constant missions by us we havent had an IED hit in over a month and we are tagging and bagging the badguys faster than they can replenish themselves. more and more areas are being designated "secure" and their security placed in iraqi hands. more shops have opened up and people are present all the time in the streets. things are looking up gentlemen. it aint over, i was taking machine gun fire only two weeks ago and two mortars have landed in feel-it-in-your-chest-distance from us in the past week, but that used to be the norm. whatever it is thats been happening is most definately working, dont let anyone tell you otherwise. i dont sit on a FOB all day (at least not normally  ) i live on an outpost smack dab in an iraqi city and am out seeing this shit firsthand all the time. |
AQ wired two women with down syndrome up with remote detonated explosive vests and told then to go to the pet markets… killed 70 or so people news.scotsman.com/world/Terrorists-39use-Down39s-syndrome-suicide.3737669.jp |
Afghanistan from the front line with the British… ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=670894 |
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Well done, to you and to all over there. Thanks. |
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I was never in doubt that the troop surge would result in a reduction in violence. That Sadr decided to call a ceasefire at the same time has helped massively. What worries me is that we are in a false victory. We've given the Iraqi politicians the breathing room they needed to work things out between them, and I've seen little indication that they have done so. Sadr's declared ceasefire time is drawing to a close. Things can yet go South very quickly. I'm hopeful, but neither am I doing the victory dance yet. NTM |
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i think the CLCs have helped decrease violence in a massive way. the only thing that remains to be seen is if they can maintain the peace amongst themselves and keep the sectarian violence at bay. also it hasnt proven that all the JAM members who are also CLC's now wont just jump back into the mortar/IED game once the cease fire is over. the concerned citizens/sons of iraq has almost singlehandedly solved both the security issue and unemployment in iraq. once they are out of our hands and onto the iraqi national security budget things will be somewhat permanent. |
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Hey Daemon, Eric Tracy's pckg bounced back to me. I got the zip code wrong.  BIG FAIL on my part. I'll resend on either Thursday or Friday. Am picking up Girl Scout cookies from someone I know. Dunno when she'll deliver them but I intend to send them to the guys on the list. |
to be honest, they were pretty straight when we got here. had a couple EFPs early in the deployment on detroit, and a firefight right off the bat but since then nothing has happened really up there. thats another company's AO, but we used to bounce around without a battlespace for a while, thats how we ended up around there. we are more southwest inside the city of salman pak. |