Jim Dunnigan’s Strategy Page offers an insider’s assessment of the developing situation.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has been virtually wiped out by the loss of an address book. The death of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi was not as important as the capture of his address book and other planning documents in the wake of the June 7th bombing. U.S. troops are trained to quickly search for names and addresses when they stage a raid, pass that data on to a special intelligence cell, which then quickly sorts out which of the addresses should be raided immediately, before the enemy there can be warned that their identity has been compromised. More information is obtained in those raids, and that generates more raids. So far, the June 7th strike has led to over 500 more raids. There have been so many raids, that there are not enough U.S. troops to handle it, and over 30 percent of the raids have been carried by Iraqi troops or police, with no U.S. involvement. Nearly a thousand terrorist suspects have been killed or captured. The amount of information captured has overwhelmed intelligence organizations in Iraq, and more translators and analysts are assisting, via satellite link, from the United States and other locations.

Perhaps the most valuable finds have been al Qaeda planning documents confirming what has been suspected of terrorist strategy. Also valuable have been the al Qaeda assessment of their situation in Iraq. The terrorist strategy is one of desperation. While the effort continues, to attempt to trigger a civil war between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, this is seen as a losing proposition. The new strategy attempts to trigger a war between the United States and Iran. This would weaken the United States, and put the hurt on Iran, an arch-enemy of al Qaeda. Other documents stressed the need to manipulate Moslem and Western media. This was to be done by starting rumors of American atrocities, and feeding the media plausible supporting material. Al Qaeda’s attitude was that if they could not win in reality, they could at least win imaginary battles via the media.

Zarqawi considered al Qaeda’s situation in Iraq as “bleak.” The most worrisome development was the growing number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police. These were able to easily spot the foreigners who made up so much of al Qaeda’s strength. Moreover, more police and soldiers in an area meant some local civilians would feel safe enough to report al Qaeda activity. The result of all this is that there are far fewer foreign Arabs in Iraq fighting for al Qaeda. The terrorist organization has basically been taken over anti-government Sunni Arabs. That made the capture of Zarqawi even more valuable, as his address book contained a who’s who of the anti-government Sunni Arab forces. This group has been hurt badly by last week’s raids.

The government deployed two infantry divisions and over 40,000 police in and around Baghdad to prevent “revenge” attacks by terrorists not yet rounded up by the growing wave of raids. Al Qaeda has announced an increased number of attacks. These have not occurred, although it is believed that more attacks are possible, as many attacks in various stages of preparation can be rushed forward before they are aborted by a raiding soldiers or police. At the moment, most al Qaeda members appear to be scrambling for new hiding places.

The damage done by the post- Zarqawi raids has spurred the Sunni Arab amnesty negotiations. These have been stalled for months over the issue of how many Sunni Arabs, with “blood on their hands”, should get amnesty. Letting the killers walk is a very contentious issue. There are thousands of Sunni Arabs involved here. The latest government proposal is to give amnesty to most of the Sunni Arabs who have just killed foreigners (mainly Americans). Of course, this offer was placed on the table without any prior consultations with the Americans. Naturally, such a deal would be impossible to sell back in the United States. But the Iraqis believe they could get away with it if it brought forth a general surrender of the Sunni Arab anti-government forces. The Iraqis, after all, are more concerned with Iraqi politics, than with what happens in the United States. Iraqi leaders believe that the U.S. has no choice by to continue supporting Iraqi pacification efforts. However, the spectacle of amnestied Sunni Arabs bragging to Arab, European and American reporters about how they killed Americans, might have interesting repercussions.

The Israeli-based purveyor of Intel-gossip Depkafile tells us that Jordanian intelligence provided the breakthrough leading to the successful targeting of Zarqawi.

(It is generally believed that Depkafile functions as a mouthpiece for Mossad, and commonly distributes rumors or even false stories, but this one serves no obvious Mossad agenda, and could possibly even be true.)

The final breakthrough in the long pursuit of the most blood-stained terrorist of them all, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, came from Jordan.

The source was Ziyad Halaf al Karbouli, also known as Abu Hufeiza, one of the lowlifes Zarqawi employed to attack and rob the convoys plying Baghdad’s main supply route across the Jordanian border and murdering their Iraqi or Jordanian drivers. Foreigners riding along were taken hostage. DEBKA-Net-Weekly reveals that he was picked up — not by chance, but in consequence of a well-laid Jordanian sting operation set up and executed by King Abdullah’s old unit, The Riders of Justice of Jordan’s 71st Commando Brigade – and on his orders.

Jordanian intelligence had a score to settle with Zarqawi’s highway robber-in-chief. Last September, he kidnapped a Palestinian called Khaled Da Siko, who was an important Jordanian undercover agent, assigned with penetrating Zarqawi’s following. The abduction took place in Ruthba in western Iraq. When Abu Hufeiza asked Zarqawi what to do with his captive, he was told to execute him forthwith, which he did.

From that moment, Jordanian intelligence never let up on their efforts to lay hands on the kidnapper to exact revenge.

The Riders of Justice infiltrated western Iraq at the beginning of 2006 and scoured al Qaim, Ruthba, Falujja and Ramadi for the wanted man. At some point, they realized that even if they overpowered his bodyguards and killed him, they would never make it back to Jordan past Zarqawi’s killers. It had become necessary to go for the boss, who was in any case under sentence of death in the kingdom.

In early April therefore, a decision was taken in Amman to lure Abu Hufeiza into entering the kingdom in defiance of Zarqawi’s prohibition. Double agents held out an offer of a Jordanian base for al Qaeda, plus information on ways to lay hands on the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the funding channel between Jordan and Iraq.

Abu Hufeiza swallowed the bait. He was dazzled enough to picture himself handing the rich booty over to Abu Zarqawi and being promoted to his Number Two in al Qaeda’s Iraq hierarchy by his grateful master.

The moment he and his bodyguards set foot on Jordanian soil, all got up as Iraqi businessmen on a shopping trip, the trap snapped shut; they were surrounded by the Riders of Justice and hauled to Amman for questioning.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror sources report that Abu Hufeiza held nothing back from his Jordanian interrogators. He was the source of the first real lead to Zarqawi’s location to be made available to the US command and intelligence in Iraq.

Abu Hufeiza also gave away certain members of the Butcher of Baghdad’s command group. Here is a summary of the data the Jordanians extracted from him:

The name of al Qaeda chief’s chief of operations, Yassin Harabi — an Iraqi Sunni codenamed Abu Obeida. Going down the chain of command, he identified Yunas Ramlawi, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Ramallah, and Muhammad Majid, a Saudi Arabian known as Abu Hamza.

The descriptions he gave the Jordanians were good enough for identikit portraits and betrayed their hideouts, how they stayed in touch with Zarqawi and their movements.

This data haul Jordanian intelligence whipped across to Washington where analysts went to work on it and rushed their findings to American headquarters in Baghdad.

All of a sudden, the US military in Baghdad had an intelligence bonanza instead of chance identities of the odd Zarqawi adherent which was all they had to work with before. From Abu Hufeiza Jordanian intelligence had extracted the first clue to the location of the safe house near Baquba, where Zarqawi was actually in conference with his senior commanders. The next link in the chain came from a senior Zarqawi commander in Iraq, who fell into American hands and was persuaded to part with the final steps that brought two US 500-pound bombs crashing down on Zarqawi’s last address.

At first, some American officers queried these offerings as disinformation designed to trip them up. But when US commander General George W. Casey and American ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad ordered the input examined and cross-referenced, it proved solid enough for direct action.

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Today’s Wall Street Journal has a story which appears to be incorporating the Depkafile report:

Perhaps the most important arrest, however, say Middle East and European intelligence agents, was Jordan’s capture last month of an al Qaeda logistics and smuggling agent, Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly. Mr. Karbouly went on Jordanian television after his arrest and described murdering Jordanian truck drivers moving goods into Iraq. He also described carrying out political assassination of Moroccan and Kurdish diplomats on the orders of Mr. Zarqawi.

The Jordanians worked with agents inside Iraq to draw Mr. Karbouly across the border, Jordanian intelligence officials said last month. And the al Qaeda operative provided Jordanian interrogators with important intelligence on Mr. Zarqawi’s top aides, including his spiritual adviser, Abu Abdul-Rahman. In recent weeks, U.S. military personnel said they monitored Mr. Rahman’s movements and, ultimately, were drawn to Mr. Zarqawi’s hideout near the Iraqi city of Baqubah.

The Jordanian operation “offered a critical link” on al Qaeda’s leadership structure, said a European counterterrorism official.

Iraqi blogger Hammorabi gloats over US forces at last succeeding in nailing Zarqawi’s well-deserving hide to the barn door:

The Prime Minister of Iraq Mr Al-Maliki just announced that the criminal and terrorist thug Abo-Mousab Al-Zarqawi was killed by the Iraqi forces in the last few hours.

Zarqawi who is Jordanian from Palestinian origin was responsible for thousands of crimes against the Iraqis and the MNF as well as against humanity. He appeared recently in a video challenging the American and Iraqi forces. He beheaded by his dirty hands many Iraqis and foreigners.

Zarqawi was with at least 7 among his closest thugs in an area called Hib-hib in Diyala province north east of Baghdad before the MNF and Iraqi forces attacked them last night.

The attack was first by the US forces with an air strike to a selected target where they cockroaches were hiding in. On the same time and in the ground were the Iraqi forces making an advance towards the target and securing the area before and afterward.

Zarqawi without doubts went into the bottom of the Hell with blood of many innocent children, women and men in his dirty hands.

There were celebrations going on now in the holy city of Najaf and Kerbala. On the other hands there are sadness and shock among his allies in the region and abroad like Al-Jazeera Qatari TV and other Arab pro-terrorists thugs.

Zarqawi and his aides simply went to Hell and this is the worst fate for any one like them.

Photo used by London Times to libel US Marines

Michelle Malkin today publicly identified a major case of fraud by one of the most prominent international members of the mainstream establishment media.

The Times (UK), on June 1st, ran a vitriolic anti-US news story, titled ‘Massacre Marines blinded by hate’, based entirely on selective quotation of an interview with Corporal James Crossan, a marine injured in the IED attack, which included a photo of supposed victims of American forces. The photo was actually taken six months earlier, and the bodies were the victims of a massacre by insurgents in a soccer stadium.

That lying bastard who wrote the smear story selectively quotes Crossan speculating, in a video interview with KING5 News in Seattle, on what might have happened after he had been evacuated by helicopter:

I think they were blinded by hate . . . and they just lost control.” Corporal Crossan, who passed out soon after being hit by the bomb in al-Haditha on November 19 last year, said that the unit had a lot of new members. “

They might have got scared or they were just p*****, really p***** off and did it.”

(Note: Crossan is only speculating on why marines might have shot civilians, if they actually had. He dd not witness any such thing personally.)

But he didn’t quote Crossan saying:

Crossan: We used to go out on patrols and have the little kids count the patrols and all that stuff and we couldn’t really do anything except grab them and throw them inside their houses…

KING 5 TV interviewer: Why would you do that? Because you were afraid that the kids were scouting for the insurgents or you thought they were in danger?

Crossan: There are little kids that scout for ‘em. ‘Cuz later that day we, along the main road there, we cut behind a few buildings and the next patrol that went out got hit. And that little kid that was just there and there was people all around. But the day that I got hit they were planning a major attack and it got spoiled, so, and there was like 20 some people, insurgents, that were gonna attack the cop that day.

Then we got hit by an IED and the cops sent out a squad of Marines, and the insurgents just started attacking then, just right off the bat and we just foiled it. We were just driving back from the cop. I remember taking a left and then a right, and then remember waking up from the ground for a split second. And then waking up in the helicopter and then finally knew what happened in the hospital.

KING 5: So after you were injured, also tell me, you lost one of your guys. What can you tell me about him?

Crossan: We lost Lance Col. Miguel Terrazas. He was a good guy. He was from El Paso, Texas. And he was my point man. He was pretty much the guy I went to if I needed anything.

Great work, Michelle Malkin.

The US Government really ought to deport leftwing London Times journalist Tim Reid for this one.

USATODAY has a story quoting marines currently serving in Iraq, warning of the harm being done to US efforts to stop the insurgency by the MSM’s haste to trumpet unproven charges damaging to the reputation of American forces.

Allegations that Marines killed civilians in the western Iraqi town of Hadithah last year could undo efforts to win the cooperation of locals in the volatile Anbar province, some Marines say.
“All it does is make our jobs harder out here,” said Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio, commander of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. “Every Iraqi will assume Marines will act like that. It’s a perception that in this part of the world is hard to overcome.”

A left-wing web-site has posted a 20 minute video of a stuttering supposed Army Ranger named Jesse MacBeth, who is peddling stories of “killing 30-40 women and children a night,” and all sorts of other atrocities.

Mudville Gazette noted these discrepancies:

1. Special Forces Combat Patch (Wrong)
2. Two “Tabs” sewn above SF patch (Wrong- Only One)
3. No Ranger Tab
4. No Airborne Wings
5. No Unit Crest
6. No Sewn on Rank
7. No One in the Army rolls their sleeves like that.
Bonus: 8. Mustache is out of regulation by extending past the corner of the mouth.

Jeff Goldstein has collected a lot of debunking information: we now know he works in a Wendy’s and fancies himself a socialist revolutionary.

New Yorker staff writer George Packer, author of the Iraq War-bashing book The Assassin’s Gate, nostalgically recalls the scene in March of 1968, when Lyndon Johnson met with the elder statesmen of his party’s foreign policy establishment, a group known (ironically, I think) as “the Wise Men.”

Grimly, they “told Johnson that the war could not be won in the time that American opinion would permit him, and that the United States should begin to disengage from Vietnam. Five days later, Johnson announced a restriction on bombing in North Vietnam and his own withdrawal from the Presidential race.”

“If there are any Wise Men available in the spring of 2006, what should they tell President Bush to do in Iraq? And, if they told him, would he listen?” wonders Packer aloud.

Since the end of the Cold War, the role of the foreign-policy establishment has been killed off by the nasty partisanship that now infects every aspect of Washington politics. In mid-March, Congress announced the formation of an Iraq Study Group to analyze the state of the war and advise the President about the way forward. Perhaps because the very idea of a bipartisan foreign policy no longer exists, the group seems to have been chosen for its political constituencies rather than for its informed and independent judgment. It’s hard to imagine the likes of Rudolph Giuliani, Chuck Robb, Vernon Jordan, and Sandra Day O’Connor marching into the Cabinet Room to tell the President that his Iraq policy has failed and that he needs a new one, along with new people to implement it.

But what if they do? This is not a President who places his faith in the wisdom of men.

Well, when the wisdom of men (or, at least, the wisdom of the liberal establishment and New Yorker pundits) tells the president and us “the war, in which almost twenty-four hundred Americans have died, and whose cumulative cost will reach $320 billion this year, is going badly and shows no prospect of a quick turnaround,” George W. Bush is entirely right to ignore it, and trust in the might of American arms and the justice of our cause.

Mr. Packer cites 2400 American deaths as if that were a figure so costly as to break the country’s will. In 1864, when the population of the United States was 31 million, the Union Army lost 10,000 casualties at the battle of Cold Harbor in twenty minutes, but the North did not abandon the war. Today the US population is in the neighborhood of 300 million.

Mr. Packer seems to have managed to forget to compare the deaths of over 3000 non-combatant civilians in under two hours on September 11, 2001 with the casualty figures he notes accumulated over three years in Iraq. The US lost 2400 (overwhelmingly military casualties) killed at Pearl Harbor, and more than 400,000 American lives were lost in the course of the war resuting from that attack.

Not only are American combat losses in Iraq minor by historical standards, defeatist liberal pundits like Packer carefully overlook the fact that we are winning the war.

Fareed Zakaria observes in Newsweek:

Al Qaeda Central, by which I mean the dwindling band of brothers on the Afghan-Pakistani border, appears to have turned into a communications company. It’s capable of producing the occasional jihadist cassette, but not actual jihad. I know it’s risky to say this, as Qaeda leaders may be quietly planning some brilliant, large-scale attack. But the fact that they have not been able to do one of their trademark blasts for five years is significant in itself….

The danger from global Islamic terrorism is real. But it is the product of small and scattered groups, spewing hate. It has much less support in the Muslim world than people think. There is much to be distressed about in that world-oppressive regimes, reactionary social views, illiberal political parties, mindless and virulent anti-Americanism. But these trends are not the same as support for jihad or for a Taliban-like Islamic state. And it is the latter-terror and theocracy-that are Al Qaeda’s basic goals. The evidence suggests that they are not gaining adherents.

The West, and the United States in particular, has a long history of seeing the enemy as 10 feet tall-think of Soviet Russia and Saddam Hussein. But as we paint Al Qaeda in those lofty terms, let’s please remember last week, when Osama bin Laden appealed on a crackling audiotape for a little money to build a few huts in Waziristan.

From Free Republic (where readers sometimes post these kinds of letters from the front):

To Everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know that I’m still doing well and have been blessed with the Lord’s protection every day. I finally got back to the ‘rear’ where I could get on the computer to email everyone. I don’t have a lot of these opportunities, so if I get a second while I’m out operating, I’ll write what I can and save it for when I can email it.

That’s what I’ve written below – an Easter weekend message. I hope you enjoy the update and I hope you enjoyed your Easter!

To everyone,

I am writing to wish you a wonderful Easter weekend (a bit late). It’s about 0300 the day after Easter right now and I’ve got a few minutes to write an email to all of you to update you. I’m writing this email on my “Toughbook” computer, one of the ones we bring out to conduct tactical communications and planning….it’s a really awesome piece of gear. Yep, I’m “outside the wire” right now, typing up an email to send later! Hard to believe isn’t it? Well, I haven’t had more than a few minutes to eat, or sleep over the past four days, so this is my first breather to be able to write, and I know that as soon as we get back “inside the wire” we’ll be prepping to turn around and come right back out…so that’s why I’m writing you an email from out here.

You’re probably wondering how I have power to run a laptop. We have power converters in our humvees that we run extension cords from, and just start the trucks every so often. This powers our computers, a single light for my platoon “ROC” – Recon Operations Center, and various radio equipment. Of course, we can operate without power, but it makes everything easier. Without going into great detail on our tactics, I’ll explain where I am. I’m currently in the house of an Iraqi family. Yes, it’s a shame, but we have to kick them out of their houses for periods of time in order to have a secure place to operate. Most of them know the deal by now, so it’s not too hard. I’m provided with lots of cash to compensate and I usually leave the place much cleaner than we found it and with some money waiting for the owner. We quickly turn a house into a defensive position and can operate out of it for long periods of time if required. If you’re wondering what the conditions are like I’ll paint a picture. This is the house of a self proclaimed doctor. There are pills and needles everywhere and rotten food all over the house. We consolidate as much of the crap as we can and move it into an area where we set up a “portable-crapper” – a collapsible toilet seat and a bunch of trash bags. That’s the same place we store all our “piss bottles.” You see, we don’t go outside unless we need to, and we’re in full gear ready for a fight. We keep cans of Lysol around and lots of hand sanitizer to keep disease down, but it’s hard when you’re sleeping on the floor of an Iraqi house and you’re dragging in animal feces on your boots, etc. No telling what kinds of diseases the occupants had when you kicked them out either. ( I guess that’s why we get so many shots all the time.) The Iraqis have electricity off and on for a few hours a day, so we shut off the breakers (if we can find them) to prevent lights from coming on, etc. Of course, there is no A/C, etc. This place where we live, once we’ve hardened it, is called our “firm base.”

Life in the “Firm Base” – once again, without getting into the details that I don’t want the bad guys knowing, I’ll fill you in on a common day. My platoon rotates Marines through guarding the firm base, conducting patrols, and being ready as part of the “QRF – quick reaction force.” As you can see, rest is not in the schedule. For a very small platoon (can’t talk numbers over email) to accomplish all of this, is pretty difficult. Rest occurs when you’re on QRF….if you don’t have to react to something. I spend most of my time in my ROC, receiving and passing on information, analyzing information, and planning offensive and defensive actions. At times I will get out to visit local sheiks or people to gather information from, usually in the middle of the night. My Marines usually get about 4-6 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period, but it’s usually 2 to 3 hours at a time. Depending on how much offensive or defensive action is taking place, I may get between one hour and 6 hours of sleep per 24 hours, never at more than 2 to 3 hour lengths. It can get tiring, but you get used to it.

So far, I’ve been impressed with my platoon and their level of motivation and competence. Already they have been tested under fire and have performed well. I literally have to reel them in when we’re engaged in a firefight, which is much better than having to tell someone to stop ducking and shoot back. The enemy has taken notice to my boys’ aggression as well, and have lately scaled back on their overt action against us. The first time they hit us it was with multiple machine guns at close range and they were quickly overwhelmed. Fortunately for us, after their first few inaccurate bursts, they had to fight the rest of the time by sticking the barrels around the corner and firing – which is generally inaccurate. Unfortunately for us, that makes them hard to hit. I was mad when we couldn’t find any blood, but understood that we did the best we could.

The people we’re fighting here are truly evil people. Many of them have lost every bit of humanity that a normal person possesses. They habitually kidnap and execute Iraqis for reasons varying from religious differences, to robbery, to vicious retribution for helping give us information, etc. This makes it very difficult to find these bad guys because they have such a grip on the people. (Although one platoon did recently rescue a hostage who was surely about to be killed – talk about a good feeling…KNOWING you saved someone’s life!) As for the bad guys, imagine the MOB operating without the threat of any law enforcement and with every weapon and explosive they want at their disposal and the financial and moral assistance of fundamentalists and probably even other governments from around the globe. It’s a tough fight, but we’re winning. It’s just slow. As tired as I am of living the dirty life of an infantryman and having to constantly worry about the safety of my Marines, I still know that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing in ridding the world of these evil people. If these people weren’t here trying to kill us, they’d be figuring out a way to get over to American and kill us there. The proliferation of the ideals that these people dedicate themselves to, present as great a threat to the world as those of Hitler. It’s too bad many people don’t realize that and the same Marines have to return time and again to the same places to kill these people instead of an entire generation standing up to fight evil. I can’t complain though, because even if there aren’t lines at the recruiting stations, at least we’re getting all the stuff we need out here and we know we have the support of the majority of the population back home. That makes all the difference in the world!

Perhaps the thing that makes the most difference is the prayers of everyone back home. I thank you for your prayers and I know that’s why my Marines have been kept safe so far. This past Easter weekend has been a time of lots of little miracles, and I’m sure that they’re do to all of the prayers from all of you back home. Personally, I look forward to future Easter weekends when I can watch kids running around hunting for Easter eggs instead of big kids running around hunting bad guys and looking for IEDs! In the meantime, I appreciate all your prayers, so that we can bring all these big kids home safe!

If you’re wondering what kinds of stuff we’d like to have out here, I’ll tell you that it’s different than the last two deployments. In the past we needed socks and batteries, and razors, and stuff that we couldn’t get out in Afghanistan or in the city of Fallujah. Well, because we’re stationed in a large camp this time (for the short periods of time that we’re actually in it) we have access to pretty much everything we need. Things that are great to have though, are those types of snacks from back home that you don’t get in your supply system and that don’t come in MREs. Some of these are: beef jerky (any kind), packs of tuna (esp. the different flavored kind!), sunflower seeds (There’s a really good “Jim Beam / BBQ” flavored variety out there!), protein bars or protein powder, multi-vitamins, cashews, dried fruit / trail mix, etc. You can see that this list is pretty healthy – we’re all out here trying not to let our bodies get too skinny and nasty while we’re out running around in the heat. We’ve got a set of 25 lb dumbbells my guys stole from the base gym – that’s our platoon’s workout equipment….that and a deck of cards (you do the amount of pushups for the numeric value of each card, for ½ a deck or a whole deck each day). It’s kind of funny how when you go to war, it’s all the non-infantry people who come home looking like studs (or completely fat) and all the infantry guys and Recon guys who come home like skinny little weaklings.

There’s a certain amount of jealousy that we who leave the wire have for those people, every now and then….only every now and then. You see, the big fancy bases around Iraq and Afghanistan are referred to as a “Forward Operating Bases” or “FOBs” and throughout this theater of operations, the infantry have come to name the two types of people who occupy these FOBs – “FOBBITS” and “FOB GOBLINS.”

You see, a FOBBIT is a person who is a happy little being, who is completely content, knowing that every day he’ll get up, take a hot shower, go to the chow hall where he’ll request eggs over easy, or maybe an omelet with whatever he wants, or maybe anything from a wide array of donuts, pancakes, waffles, fruit, yogurt, and pretty much anything he could ever hope for in a chow hall. He’ll eat that food with a grin, knowing that if he wants, he can have any variety of Baskin Robins ice cream for dessert after every meal! Then he’ll go to work in an air conditioned trailer for however many hours his schedule says, and then go back to the nice chow hall, the nice hot shower, and the tidy little air conditioned FOBBIT-den that is his home, where he’ll get his scheduled FOBBIT beauty rest. His gut will never churn with fear nor very rarely from diarrhea. Yes, the FOBBIT lives the good life, and almost always, he lives. Perhaps he is the smartest of us all!

Now, the FOB GOBLIN is a different being. He is the guy who might be an infantryman, might be a “meat eater” of sorts, but for some reason, his current billet puts him in a position where he must endure all of the luxuries of the FOBBIT, when all he wants to do is get outside the wire and bring death to his nation’s enemies. For this sad state of existence, he is forever frustrated and jealous of both the FOBBIT and the guys who live outside the wire. This is perhaps the worst condition one might face….yes, the FOB GOBLIN gets a certain amount of sympathy from his brother meat eaters who get outside the wire.

So, as I close this email, I thank the Lord to have placed me in the privileged position of being one who lives outside the wire, letting me live the life of the FOBBIT for maybe a day or two every few weeks, and never relegating me to the frustration of the FOB GOBLIN. I thank you for the daily support and prayers you provide that give us our daily miracles and make our lives outside the wire as safe as they can be. I hope that you enjoy an email update every now and then and I hope to have a few more opportunities to write in the coming weeks and months.

NOTE:

About 8 hours after I typed this message, we got attacked again and were fortunate enough to get one of the bad guys. He (or someone else helped him) got into a car and got away, but probably didn’t live too long judging by the blood trail. We were blessed again, as one of my Marines (one of my very few Catholic Marines) was actually praying while standing guard and had the first round of the firefight pass 8 inches from his head and lodge in the wall behind him. Those guardian angels have been working hard for us. We appreciate all your prayers that have been keeping us safe. I miss everyone and hope to be able to write to you all again next time I get back “inside the wire.” If you would like to write back, please do so, eventually I will be able to read it and hopefully have a chance to write back.

Semper Fi,

(name withheld)

Holy Mackerel! The Washington Post defends George W. Bush’s declassifying information in order to defend policy, and comes pretty darn close to calling Joe Wilson a liar. I certainly wish this one was a signed editorial; I’d like to keep an eye out for the author.

Rick Moran starts by commenting on the above piece, but turns to noting the absence of coverage by the Press in connection with L’Affaire Plame of the highly newsworthy story of the Pouting Spooks war on George W. Bush. Much of the MSM has for many months studiously failed to notice:

the knife sticking out of the back of the Bush Administration; a knife planted by a group of leakers — organized or not — at the CIA who, unelected though they were, took it upon themselves to first try and prevent the execution of United States policy they were sworn to carry out, and failing that, trying to destroy in the most blatantly partisan manner an Administration with which they had a policy disagreement…

..by failing to illuminate this story by placing all the revelations in the context of the continuing war by the CIA against the Bush Administration, an enormous disservice is done to the American people. Because in the end, in order to find the truth of the matter, you have to understand the motivating factors of both sides. And the way writers are approaching the story now, that just isn’t happening.

Edward Morrissey has published three different translations of a captured Iraqi document, all of which indicate the same thing: a branch of the Iraqi miitary issued a call for volunteers to carry out suicide attacks “to liberate Palestine and strike US interests” six months prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Captain Ed received from one of his readers a tip pointing to one of the so-far-untranslated captured Iraqi documents which bears the following notes:

Please see Iraqi map to locate Al-Rasheed area

on this page important information that the Iraqi regime has Transported the chemical and biological weapons to al-Rashad area, and pronounced a Military Prohibited area

this area is completely covered with trees & bushes

Published in the Philadelhia Daily News, from John A. Lucas, a lawyer in Knoxville, Tenn., who is a West Point graduate and was an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam, where he earned four Bronze Stars.

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Hat tip to Brylun at YARGB.