Report This/Dumb Question
Strategy Page reports:
Between mid-March and mid-April, al Qaeda suffered major losses in Iraq. American and Iraqi troops killed or captured 53 al Qaeda leaders. These include men in charge of entire cities (or portions of large cities like Mosul or Baghdad), as well as men in charge of various aspects of terror operations (making bombs, placing them or minding the bombers). Most important, nine of the ten most senior men involved, were captured, and interrogated. This led to locating more al Qaeda staff, and assets. Hundreds of weapons and explosives caches have been discovered this year, as a result of interrogating captured terrorists. The result has been a sharp fall in suicide bomber attacks, and the ones still carried out are against soft targets (civilians), including the recent funeral of two men earlier killed by terrorists.
Why is it only blogs report these stories?
It’s not reported because it’s not particularly news. I’m an Army captain and I hope not particularly negative, but if you or StrategyPage think this is a big deal, I think you really have to reconsider how you follow this war: more papers, fewer blogs?
I mean, firstly, polls indicate that people are getting it that violence is down in Iraq because of military successes against insurgents. So, good. The media are doing their job at least on that score. But the stuff you just posted? Pfft.
For one, al Qaeda in Iraq isn’t — as Petraeus points out — our big foe in Iraq right now nor particularly (we think) strong. Even if they were, the details of that post aren’t particularly thrilling, given that probably more important than arresting those guys is that opinion in the country has swung against al Qaeda (and, I can point you to WaPo/NYT articles underscoring that point). Problem is my difficulties ain’t with Qaeda, they’re with a potential civil war.
And the failure to understand that point gives that laughable final sentence. Damn, it’d be SUPER if they were attacking “hard” targets. But the civilian-directed terrorism is what could blow the whole place up. So nothing in that article tells me we’re closer to seeing a stable Iraq.
And this is the thing: you know all that. C’mon!
Captain, with all due respect, I don’t think Steve or Strategypage were asking for the media to report this as a celebration of victory over al-Qaeda and the War in Iraq. But, this is a very important story nonetheless.
While you are correct that the real story is the Iraqi people’s rejection of al-Qaeda, it is also very important that we continue to make strides in improving the security situation and, while the long-term focus should be towards succeeding against the Iranian backed militias trying to forment civil war, it is also important that we continue to reduce al-Qaeda capabilities in anyway possible (although marginalized, they’re still a bunch of deadly bastards.)