Personal Correspondance from al-Anbar Province, Iraq

A friend and former member of my congregation is a Marine officer currently deployed in al-Anbar Province in Iraq.

In reply to a recent email, he writes:

I enjoyed getting your letter and I, and all the Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen, are very appreciative of all the prayers and good wishes that are sent our way. I think you might like the article below – I was directly involved with this Operation and can attest the validity of the reporting . . .

This is a very good article that needs to be highlighted. For those of you that have spent time over here, you know what I mean. For those that have not, this article speaks to what is really going on that, of course, is not reported in the mainstream media. Americans need to hear the truth, the whole truth, not just what CNN / Headline News want them to hear.

Semper Fi, (name withheld)

The Badlands of Al Anbar
Cutting the ratlines and quashing the insurgency in Western Iraq
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Insurgencies are not put down in a fortnight. But considering the successes in the recent counter-insurgency sweep in Iraq's Al Anbar Province, one fact becomes obvious to anyone with so much as a sliver of an understanding of ground combat operations: Eliminating the insurgency in Iraq is best left to those who best know how to do it.

Not the White House: Americans learned the hard way in both Vietnam and the Iranian desert that the Oval Office should never call the tactical shots once forces are committed to action. President Bush understands this, and thus — to all of our benefit — does not micromanage his commanders in the field.

Certainly not the House and Senate: Many on Capitol Hill seem more concerned about scoring points with their stateside constituencies than they are the Marines and soldiers who must battle the enemy on the ground. And make no mistake, the ground along the Euphrates River valley and up along the Syrian border has been the stage of an ongoing series of running gun-battles between insurgents and coalition troops for months.

Therein lies the obvious: The troops on the ground, taking the fight to the enemy, are the ones who best know how to quash the insurgency. They are doing so systematically. The proof is in the results of their work (whether opponents of the war want to believe it or not), and the vast majority of those troops express no intention of abandoning that country with work to be done.

(Don't miss the rest of the article. Click here to read it all!)