Salute to Mudville Gazette's daily Dawn Patrol roundup by Mrs Greyhawk for including many such exceptionally public-serving, newsworthy items:


ne of our heroes is returning home from a very successful twelve-month deployment in Iraq. This assessment (excerpted below) from someone who is there and sees firsthand what's happening on the ground is much more useful and informative than any of the backbiting drivel the TSM currently slushes out as "news."

Excerpt of "Last night in Iraq" at A Redleg's Perspective by James B. Brown COLONEL, MILITARY POLICE COMMANDING 18th Military Police Brigade CAMP VICTORY APO AE 09342

STRATEGY

Who ever designed the plan for the transitional government here is a genius. The employment of three elections in one year, while frenetic, has first taught the value of voting and then has allowed those who didn't previously vote to step forward and join in the process. When the first election occurred in the end of January, I had been here two months. Up to the 30th, I had seen very few women in public. On the 30th of January, I was in Najaf, Karbala, Hillah and Diwaniya and I saw thousands of excited citizens streaming to the polls to vote. Many of the voters were women. It was so exciting to see them finally have a voice in their future. The Iraqis did a great job of securing their country that day and it was the first true democratic election in Iraq. The election resulted in an Iraqi Transitional Government that had the charter of drafting a proposed Constitution for the Iraqi people. The government achieved this and the second election on 15 October was a referendum to see if the people would approve the document. Participation in the second election now included large numbers of Sunnis-many who would oppose it, but they were voting to let their voice be heard. Two days before the nationwide referendum, we conducted the referendum actually in our major detention centers at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca where half of our detainees chose to vote on the referendum as well! The vote was observed by UN workers and went extremely well. The election throughout Iraq was more successful than the first as it included a growing number of participants. People like to be heard. They like to vote and we are seeing democracy move forward here in Iraq. The evening before the election, I stopped in a village just South of Scania near Najaf. I had the opportunity to speak with a village elder who told me with great pride about the fact that he now had a cell phone, red car and TV with satellite. He showed all off to me and told me that "without the American Army, none of this would ever have been possible, Sadam never allowed us to have these things." He was so excited about the vote the next day and he insisted that we join him for his Ramadan supper as the sun was just setting. I thanked him, but told him I had to be heading on---the reason I had stopped is that the temperature in my vehicle had been over 140 degrees for several hours and we needed a break! I also was fascinated to see his village as it looked like it came out of the pages of the Bible, the only differences being electricity, satellite dishes and cars!

The third election this year is now coming and it will be to elect the first true Iraqi Parliament-I expect that due to the trend with the past two elections that the turnout for the next one will be the highest yet. It is too costly not to vote and to risk going under represented. This is why I think the framers of this process were geniuses. They have educated the populace as to the value of participating in democracy all prior to actually electing the first government. The momentum of democracy is gathering steam and people want their voices to be heard.

More, including Colonel Brown's assessment of our foreign enemies and our media seditiously traitorous fifth columnists domestic ones.

Also more good news from another Colonel Brown — Colonel Robert Brown, Commander 1st Brigade (a Stryker brigade), 25th Infantry Division:

One of the great pieces of information we got recently is 80 percent of the al Qaeda network in the north has been devastated. And those are not our figures, those came from the last six leaders in Mosul, al Qaeda leaders that we captured; they informed us of that. We also had a letter that was captured from Abu Zaid (sp) going to Zarqawi. We recently killed Zaid (sp) and we had that letter, and it also talked about the desperate situation for the al Qaeda and the insurgents in Mosul and in the north. And then also, sources we have inside the al Qaeda network up here have also informed us of that.

No doubt you remember reading about this on the front page of the Spew Pork Rinds (the one in that parallel universe where it isn't a backstabbing, anti-America, terrorist propagandist's tool).

	9:56 AM

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