2Slick's Forum: What's Next For Fallujah?: "What's Next For Fallujah?
This simple answer to this question can be found by looking at the current state of affairs in Samarra, Najaf, and Sadr City. Oh, I'm sorry- the press isn't telling you anything about that. Well, the short story is that our forces are steadily working on financing and supervising reconstruction projects- employing a substantial Iraqi work force and getting the towns back on their feet. Newly trained Iraqi cops provide security and protection, and US forces just sort of monitor the situation and help where they're needed. This is what we in the business call an 'exit strategy.'
While this is a relatively new concept for insurgent strongholds, it's old hat for long-time areas of relative stability like Mosul and Basra. When I was in Mosul last year, we didn't have a substantial insurgent threat to prevent us from moving the city forward. There's a guy named Eric T. Holmes (here's your plug, Eric) who's writing a book about this sort of thing. He asked me to contribute and I gladly obliged. I didn't realize that he was simply going to paste my email into his book- otherwise I probably would have spent more than 10 minutes writing it- but what's done is done. So here's an excerpt for your weekend reading enjoyment:"
I enjoy blogs written by vets. This one is by a man who just returned from Iraq and talks about what he saw and what's going on now. He is trying to combat the incomplete and false picture our media paints. Mainstream media looks worse and worse each day. They really are losing their grip on things. Why read their lefty interpretations when you can have the truth straight from the horse's mouth?
This simple answer to this question can be found by looking at the current state of affairs in Samarra, Najaf, and Sadr City. Oh, I'm sorry- the press isn't telling you anything about that. Well, the short story is that our forces are steadily working on financing and supervising reconstruction projects- employing a substantial Iraqi work force and getting the towns back on their feet. Newly trained Iraqi cops provide security and protection, and US forces just sort of monitor the situation and help where they're needed. This is what we in the business call an 'exit strategy.'
While this is a relatively new concept for insurgent strongholds, it's old hat for long-time areas of relative stability like Mosul and Basra. When I was in Mosul last year, we didn't have a substantial insurgent threat to prevent us from moving the city forward. There's a guy named Eric T. Holmes (here's your plug, Eric) who's writing a book about this sort of thing. He asked me to contribute and I gladly obliged. I didn't realize that he was simply going to paste my email into his book- otherwise I probably would have spent more than 10 minutes writing it- but what's done is done. So here's an excerpt for your weekend reading enjoyment:"
I enjoy blogs written by vets. This one is by a man who just returned from Iraq and talks about what he saw and what's going on now. He is trying to combat the incomplete and false picture our media paints. Mainstream media looks worse and worse each day. They really are losing their grip on things. Why read their lefty interpretations when you can have the truth straight from the horse's mouth?
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