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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The word from Iraq

Since Harry Reid plans to ignore what they have to say, read it for yourself here and here and here.

Did you know? Do you care?

DID YOU KNOW (from another Soldiers' Angel)

  • Did you know that 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq?
  • Did you know that the Iraqi government employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?
  • Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?
  • Did you know that Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers?
  • Did you know that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2004 for the re-established Fulbright program?
  • Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational? They have 5- 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a naval infantry regiment.
  • Did you know that Iraq's Air Force consists of three operational squadrons, 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 bell jet rangers?
  • Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?
  • Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?
  • Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?
  • Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities?.
  • Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?
  • Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?
  • Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?
  • Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?
  • Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?
  • Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a recent televised debate recently? (all information is verifiable on the DoD website...)

All this, and then there's this. Stupefying is right.

He doesn't care what's happening in Iraq and plans to ignore what General Petraeus tells him - will you?

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Let's learn about our strategy for Iraq, and stop playing to Al Qaeda's

Political maneuvering tends to boil things down to sound bites, while facts and data get overlooked or brushed over.

At the very least, let's all STOP, LEARN, and THINK about General Petraeus' NEW strategy in Iraq...

...and stop reacting to Al Qaeda's strategy for defeating the US in Iraq.

It's the very least we can do from the homefront, particularly since we're the target audience for so much of this.

I encourage you to visit Bill Roggio's the The Fourth Rail and the blog at Small Wars Journal if you're interested in more than sound bites.