If we stop the AQI intimidation, we take a lot of wind out of the militia sails. The militia use the fear of AQI car bomb attacks to justify their reason for being. Without the threat of AQI, the militia is just a bunch of mobsters running extortion rackets and terrorizing the Sunni populace.

Which is why even talking about leaving is so harmful. If the populace even thinks there is some kind of likelihood that we’re pulling out, they’ll be very afraid they’ll have to face these clowns again–without our protection. No thanks.

Thanks for this good news update Bryan.

Please let LTC Steve Miska and his men know that we are all praying for them, their mission and their families.

Zorro on July 17, 2007 at 1:03 PM

Yes, please extend the same prayers and support from me and mine.

That is a side of this that I think the media misses. A lot of the stuff going on over there is really thuggery run by various clerics. We had our own experience with this kind of thing in the 1920′s and 1930′s with the criminal organizations and their machine gun toting private armies. That is basically what we are dealing with here. Imagine if we had various criminal organizations operating here with thugs carrying AK47′s visiting various shopkeepers demanding their “protection” money.

So we can look at some of these organizations (but not all of them) as a “syndicate” and what they are really after is money and influence. The Iraqi government really needs to go after some of these “clerics” as heads of criminal mobs and put some of them on trial. To date I have not really heard of many of the leaders of the neighborhood mosques being charged. Like Al Capone, these leaders don’t engage in the crimes directly, they have minions who carry them out. But if you follow the money trail, I would be willing to bet it leads right back to certain corrupt mosques of one “syndicate” or another.

I would approach JAM as more of an organized crime racket than I would a typical insurgency.

Please let LTC Steve Miska and his men know that we are all praying for them, their mission and their families.

Between the press conference with Vets For Freedom on the Capitol today and the release of the NIE report, today promises to be a busy blogging day, so keep checking back and I will bring them to you as they come out….

General Harry Reid

Now that’s funny.

As I’m writing this, my wife is flipping through the channels and came across the old 1970′s TV version of The Hulk. The first thing that came to my mind was “What if David Banner were a muslim? He’d be in Hulk mode all the time!”

General Harry Reid thinks progress is too little and too late there is absolutely NO progress whatsoever and that we should just give up now.

TunaTalon on July 17, 2007 at 10:49 AM

Fixed.

otherwise the @##$%^&s will simply move in and steal the lunch money at gunpoint.

This type of investements needs to be exploited more, using the model of the micro-loans fellow in India (a Muslim guy who might be consulted with to help).

Sometimes bullets are the most expensive and least effective solution.

From this story and Michael Yon’s reporting it looks like progress is finally being made on the “soft war”. None too soon. General Harry Reid thinks progress is too little and too late and that we should just give up now.

BTW Michael has a new post up, worth a read.