Iraq Turnaround

Fire of Liberty
After watching "Scarborough Country" on MSNBC, I decieded to watch some of the 11:00 p.m. repeat of "Hardball." As always, Chris Matthews beats his "all is lost in Iraq" drum and brings his general assortment of guests out to agree with his defeatist arguments about Iraq being another Vietnam. Though Matthews and his chums in the MSM seem to purvey to the American public that Iraq has gone to hell in a handbasket, there are individuals like syndicated columnist Michael Fumento who has just recently returned from Fallujah and paints a different story of Iraq. According to his piece from National Review Online, Fumento witnessed an amazing transformation in a city that was a war-zone between the US and al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda allies last November. Just read what Fumento saw in Fallujah:

As I traveled through the slowly repopulating city — about half of the original 250,000 are believed to have returned — I saw awesome scenes of destruction. But I also saw thriving markets, stores selling candy and ice cream, and scores of children delighted to see Americans. I did more waving than the beauty queen in the 4th of July parade and the kids squealed with delight when I took their picture.

"We're mostly known for killing the bad guys" says Lt. Col. Harvey Williams, a reserve officer with the Marine 5th Civil Affairs Group. But killing alone can'’t defeat the insurgency. Win over the populace or lose the war.

Williams and the 5th CAG is in charge of rebuilding the city in conjunction with the Army Corps of Engineers. He shows the value of drawing on a rich pool of reservists in that prior to be being called up he worked for General Electric, installing new power plants throughout the U.S.

Restoring and expanding access to electricity is top priority here, more so than access to running water because Iraqis pump water up from the mains to tanks on their roof. No electricity, no working pumps.

It's amazing what a bunch Marines and Army grunts can achieve when they put their nose to the grindstone. I just wish Matthews and crew would look beyond their "If it bleeds, it leads" mantra they could find more diamonds in the rough in Iraq. Maybe if they got out of their D.C. or New York studio and become embeds to front-line units or ones outside of the Green-Zone they'd get a better picture but 115 or 120 degrees is too hot for them.