Hunting Al Qaeda Parts II and III

Please visit Michael Yon's page to read his latest post.

And Part III is HERE.

PS I've changed the template in order to fix the posting issue. Hopefully, it worked. Do you think anyone will notice? Hee Hee.

Support Our Troops...

...at the Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb on Saturday, 20 October, 2007. This event is held every year to raise money to preserve the many stair cases in historic Bisbee, AZ. and promote physical fitness among today's youth. Since Ft. Huachuca is near by, many Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors participate and many of them do it in uniform. As a matter of fact, for two years in a row now the winner of the race has been an Army CPT.

To show our military that we care, I will be hosting a gathering at my house where you can see the start and finish of the race from my new, big deck! :-) We will post signs supporting our troops, hang our American Flag, and cheer them on as they pass by my house. Details of the race and event schedule for the day can be retrieved from the link above. If you'd like to attend and help support our military, then please email me, airbornevet, at jen.k.germain@us.army.mil for details. As long as everyone sends an RSVP no later than Thursday, 18 October, I will provide coffee and juice. Please bring your own food in case you get hungry.

If you wish to stay in town for the weekend, I recommend the following places:
The Hotel San Ramon (Owned by a former Air Force Officer and proud Republican.)

Old Bisbee Bed and Breakfast (Also owned by a conservative and former professional marathoner.)

Copper City Inn (I don't know this owner's political affiliation, but he's a Navy vet and went to the same high school as my Dad.)

I look forward to hearing from all of you military supporters!

Update from Michael Yon

This letter is republished from an email I was sent and includes a link to his latest dispatch.

Greetings:

Successes are occurring, and accruing, in Iraq. Al Qaeda is still a powerful enemy, but they cannot be happy with their Iraqi franchise this summer.

Readers of my dispatches have gotten first hand reports of the kinds of positive indicators that General David Petraeus described in his progress report.

The atmosphere is changing in Iraq and I've been posting dispatches and videos that illustrate just how profound this change is in some cases.

I was the first to say Iraq was in civil war, and many readers were angry to hear me say it. Well, I'll be the first to say that I predict some sort of milestone for the war in Iraq will occur early in the next year. It's dangerous to predict like this, but something fundamental has changed in Iraq.

There is one important qualifier: this will only happen if General David Petraeus is supported by our elected officials to implement his proposed plan, without meddling from those same elected officials. Oversight and accountability are not the same thing as backseat driving after siphoning out half of the gas tank.

Please read: Hunting Al Qaeda

v/r
Michael

What Does it Take??

I should have expected no less from the leftist wackos this week. Before General Petraeus even spoke there was a full page ad in the NY Times by Moveon.org calling him names and saying he was a liar. They didn't even know what he was going to say yet! And while he was trying to speak, more leftist wacko no-war-no-matter-what protesters kept interrupting him. What does it take for you people to understand what is really going on in Iraq?

As far as I am concerned only the people with boots on the ground every day know what is truly going on. They are the only ones who can see the before and after pictures of their efforts. It is nice that certain politicians have made some effort to visit there, but if they even leave the green zone- or Baghdad for that matter- they are given a full politicized security tour and brief, which lasts about 1-2 hours. You can't get everything in that amount of time.

Here's my advice. Get the politics out of war. Let the military do their jobs as they see fit and support their requests and suggestions 100%. If you do that, we'll be out of there a whole lot quicker and get a whole lot more done.

All of you protesters out there need to shut up because you truly have no earthly concept of the situation there or anywhere else. You live in a fantasy land where everything can be accomplished through tea parties and small talk. Well let me tell you, IT CAN'T! That never has been able to happen and never will happen. Fighting is human nature. There will always be somebody who doesn't like you. It doesn't matter why, so go ahead and forget that 3,000 plus Americans were killed in 2001. Forget that Bin Laden declared open war on us in 1996 and forget that Saddam murdered many of his own people for fun. Just forget all of that. Shut your ears and eyes and live in your fantasy land.

Here's a link to what Gateway Pundit had to say.