Just to educate Emanuel and his sidekicks.

“The authors were seven US soldiers, writing from Iraq at the end of a tough 15-month combat tour.

Respectfully, but with a directness and gritty authenticity that comes from combat experience

I personally – not that it matters – think Petraeus is one heck of a brilliant mind, and that if he says that it can’t be done – for whatever reason – then it probably can’t.

That being said, here’s my personal opinion, just between us: I don’t think we’ll “win” in Iraq. I think, having seen what’s going on here firsthand, that we certainly <i>can</i> have a positive outcome, but that there are enough people like yourself – who have decided that something you don’t even have much knowledge of is a lost cause – or Mad Dog, who is so wrapped up in partisan @$$-holishness to get over his own big, inaccuracy-filled head, that we will decide not to succeed, even if a positive outcome <i>is</i> possible.

Please tell me that you are not on this trip to promote your ideology, that you want to actually have your views challenged.

Rugby, FYI, when you’re being shot at or blown up, or witnessing kids going back to school or getting medical care for the first time in years, ideology is far less important that you and those back here at home think it is.

Just to interject a dash of reality into the sadly political discussion.

I still like you as much as ever though, and thanks for the wishes

Please tell me you I misread this statement: “Have no desire to see spam in a can.”

If you are referring to Americans dying in Iraq — that is not funny, it is not cute, and I cannot believe I just read this insensitive comment by a fellow American.

If you did say this the way it seems then you, sir, make me sick.

Have no desire to see spam in a can.

MD

Dominus vobiscum.

Stefan’s a funny guy, a seen-it-all, done-it-all-by-now type of soldier. He’d be a good interview I’m sure.

You take care of yourself. We want all of you home safe more than anything else, no matter what you’re doing over there.
Spacey G.

Please tell me that you are not on this trip to promote your ideology, that you want to actually have your views challenged.

I need a laugh.

I thought it was Errorick Errorickson… but I could be wrong.

MD

I believe his name is Erick Erickson, but, I could be wrong.

Let me know when you get blown to hell as a journalist.

Since Eric Errorickson has labeled me one of those people that celebrate soldiers dying in Iraq, I thought I’d act the part.

MD

Yet.

BTW, claiming that I’m running around and belittling the few journos who actually <i>are</i> in the thick it of shows how little regard <i>you</i> have for the truth (see <a href=”http://jeffemanuel.blogspot.com/2007/05/from-iraq-underscoring-danger.html” rel=”nofollow”>here</a>), not that that would make any difference in the size of your head.

YES! That’s the Douglas I know and miss. Where have you been my friend? Obviously still lost in your world where the only directions are left and right, where the only colors are black and white, and where the only people are liberal and conservative. how can you live in such an oversimplified world?

One more set of eyes and ears in a country of 24 million and only You have the full story.

Laffing the buttons off my remote control.

You’re bragging about being on the frontlines of a battle that has no front lines. And, you think that is factual reporting!

Very partisan and self serving, Jeff.

I hate your attitude that you’re special over everyone else. Where exactly does that come from? The luck of never riding directly over an IED?

So tell me again about all the journalists that died … how they weren’t on the frontlines like you.

You glad handing —– Keep Fighting Ideology with armored vehicles, body armor, and bullets.

Perhaps the harshest attacks ever on ideology in the past 100 years was out of Hitlers Germany.

How many years did Germany occupy France? How many French civilians were executed for every German soldier killed by the resistance? And, still on D-Day, the resistance was an effective force against the Germans.

How many ideologies have you seen shot in the head lately…

But, come home safe… so I can kick some truth into your posts from time to time.

MD

p.s. Get an atlas, man. I’m far more than 4,000 miles from Iraq. Even when confronted with something as simple as that, you can’t get the facts, bubba.

I’m still not convinced your reports are anything less than political puff pieces, that are in fact, more biased, beyond comprehension even, of the evil, liberal MSM.

And I am willing to take this belief a little more and predict that if Petraeus says anything other than Iraq is not a lost cause (which I also believe), he will not be immune to you claiming he is wrong and should be discredited.

Perhaps a touch of honesty is in store when you report on the openings of schools and rebuilding of a society.

Mention how uniformed police officers are being bought by militias to shoot US soldiers, and that children can’t go to school because they are afraid of being kidnapped. You know, proof “that the

jm, that’s a very good question. In all honesty, based on the intelligence I’ve seen, and the operations that I’ve seen, (a) AQI is populated both by foreign insurgents and by native Iraqi Sunni extremists, and (b) they are much more concerned with their own Caliphate here than they are with expanding their reach around the globe.

Whether it’s because of increased effective US military activity, because of their own goals and lack of organization, or — in my opinion — both, AQI lacks, in the words of a Special Forces intelligence officer, the “global reach” that is the hallmark of its big brother.

They are very, very good at causing chaos and destruction here, and publicizing it globally, but I don’t honestly think, at this point, that they have the means, the organization, or the will to export their terror across the Atlantic. That being said, “big al Qaeda” is also watching Iraq very closely, and has said repeatedly that it is, to them, the central front in the fight against the US, so that must be taken with at least some degree of seriousness.

The bottom line on this is, as you said, the war against (and for) them will always be — at least partially — wherever we are. As we have declared war on them — and on their ideology — it would seem to behoove us to continue to fight them where they are.

The “wealth” issue, as you mention it with bin Laden, is largely a nonissue. Many, many individuals who lead (or participate in) terror attacks in the West or in Third World countries are wealthy men — from bin Laden, to Ayman al Zawahiri, Abu-Musab al Zarqawi, and a half dozen of those involved in the Britain car bomb plot, all of whom are physicians.

Bill_k, to a degree I am, but not entirely. While many, many journalists leave the green zone and go to Forward Operating Bases, where Battalion and Brigade headquarters are located, or even to Combat Outposts, where Companies and Platoons are, the vast majority of those tend to settle in there, in those heavily fortified outposts, and still report what they hear from those who actually go Outside the Wire, rather than going out themselves. There really are only a handful of us who leave safety of any kind and really do everything we can to bring an eyewitness perspective to the people at home.

With regard to Rusty’s analogy — yes, that’s a very good one. That’s why all of the on-the-ground embeds, which involve living and operating with platoons for weeks at a time in their areas of operations, must be supplemented by bigger-picture briefs, aerial familiarizations, etc, etc. I would never claim to be an expert on 100% of the Iraq war — I learn new things almost every day.

The point is that, as I learn them, good, bad, or simply important, I pass them along, straight from the source — entirely unfiltered and unaltered by reliance on hearsay or by editors who, like Mad Dog, may think that they know better than the guy on the ground, despite the 4,000 mile difference in location.

It’s getting a little arrogant when you think reading the NY Times while listening to Wolf Blitzer and sipping lattes gives you a better perspective than someone who is blogging from the front line.

You may or may not be for the war, but don’t be so closed minded that you can’t see a first hand account contrary to your opinion without assuming the writer is naive or a jingoist.