Good news and fascinating reporting
There’s a good news article in the SF Chronicle today, and one that also has a one interesting point and one missing point. First, the good news: A local Marine battalion just returned home yesterday, safe and sound, from its fifth tour of duty:
Number five was relatively easy.
The Marine battalion that has been to Iraq more often than any other returned home this week, and unlike previous trips to that combat zone, not a single leatherneck was lost.
I am delighted, and can’t think of any happier news to accompany a battalion’s return. Congratulations go to each man (and woman?) in that battalion. Hurrah!
The article has two more interesting aspects that I wanted to bring to your attention. First, while the Code Pinkers weep nightly for the babies the evil Bush administration is sending to Iraq, the babies have different ideas. They were bored:
“It was a pretty smooth tour,” said Maj. Kevin Norton, second-in-command of 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment. “I think a lot of these Marines would rather have gone to Afghanistan.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — for all their bleeding hearts, Lefties lack empathy. They are incapable of understanding that, while they run from any fight that doesn’t have a conservative American as an opponent (’cause they know the latter won’t hurt them), there are men and women who enjoy the challenge of a real fight, against a real opponent. I’m not of those people but, by God!, I am so grateful that we have in this country people who are willing to do the tough fighting so that I don’t have to.
The other interesting thing in the article is the magical quality it imparts to the peace the Marines found on this, their last tour:
On this seven-month tour, there were no fatalities and only a handful of wounded. One Marine was injured badly enough to be sent back to the United States early.
This was made possible by a nearly total reversal of the level of violence in Anbar province, which for a time could not be mentioned in a story without the term “restive” in front of it. But the tribes of Anbar changed their way of thinking in the last year or so, and decided to side with the Americans and fight the foreign jihadists who had brought fear, intimidation and death by beheading to both the Americans and the local Iraqis.
Known as the “Awakening” movement, the decision by the Sunnis of Anbar, aided by money from the Americans, has meant a precipitous drop in violence in that region, which is west of Baghdad and stretches to the Syrian border. It includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, once two of the most dangerous places on Earth.
This is the new liberal line, and comes directly from the Biden playbook: the Surge had nothing to do with the dramatic decrease in violence in Iraq. It was just an mad moment of enlightenment amongst the tribes. Those people just “changed their way of thinking.” The most the author of the story will admit to is the fact that substantial cash infusions made a difference. I think it was substantial Marine infusions that made the difference, but what do I know — I don’t write for the MSM.