Can We See This Thing Clearly or Not?

Take it from me, nothing so focuses the mind on the realities of the war as having your children on the battlefield. Which is one of many good reasons to read Captains Journal. It is written, elegantly and passionately, by the father of a US Marine about to deploy to Iraq. Herschel has been one of the best bloggers on covering the infuriating details of our troops’ rules of engagement, and it does my heart good to see him constantly rethinking his understanding of the war. That’s what happens when your kids are in harm’s way.

I don’t know where Herschel’s boy is going, but most Marines are fighting in Anbar Province, which helps explain why he’s devoted his latest to that savage region. He thinks we are slowly winning, but he worries a lot about our tendency to start the “hearts and minds” and “electricity and water” part of the mission before we’ve got the region pacified. Have a look.

Michael Yon, well known to most serious blogosphere readers as perhaps the greatest of our wartime correspondents, has a similar piece on his webzine: Michael is brilliant both at finding crucial audio and at taking extraordinary photos to show us the hard truths about Iraq, and he pitilessly exposes the failure of so many establishment journalists to get out in the field and check out the myths about the war. Keep reminding yourself that, last time I checked—a few weeks back—there were more than twice as many military correspondents out in the field with our troops as civilian embeds. Yet most Americans get their “news” from people who are not eyewitnesses to the events they “report” and whose “significance” they are so eager to describe. For the most part, that means deploring actions by us, and explaining (sometimes even justifying) the disgusting actions of our enemies.

Finally, and inevitably, there is no information about Iranian actions against Israel. From Friday’s Jerusalem Post:

Fatah-affiliated Palestinian security forces arrested seven Iranian
weapons experts – including an Iranian Army general – during a raid
Thursday night at the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold in Gaza
City, a security official said.

According to Palestinian reports, another Iranian committed suicide
during the raid.

Six killed in Fatah-Hamas street battles in Gaza
Hamas official Islam Shahwan denied the claim and said there were no
Iranian citizens at the university.

After Shahwan warned Fatah to end its assault or face “very serious
consequences,” the Fatah gunmen left the compound.

In the university compound, the Fatah gunmen also found 1,400
Kalachnikov rifles, rockets, as well as several RPG and LAU missiles.

Iran has supplied Hamas with funds, but there have been no previous
claims of Iranians working with Hamas in Gaza.

Can we put this in simple English? It means that Hamas is under considerable control from Iranian military officials. One will get you ten that the Iranian Army general is hand-in-glove with Hizbollah, which, as I have said for years, is the real spinal column of the terror war against us and our allies throughout the region. The reports of Hizbollah “work” with Hamas in Gaza are legion, and to say, as the JPost does, that “there have been no previous claims of Iranians working with Hamas in Gaza,” is misleading at best. To say that Hizbollah does not equal “Iranians” is one of those distinctions without a meaningful difference at which the intelligence agencies of overcautious countries excel. It’s the sort of sophistry that the lawyers use when they argue against fighting back against the mullahs.