Your key remark substantiated with additional comments is this:
Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy.
Why don't more people get this? It is spot-on, and was evidenced by several things. When the President said "bring it on" he meant what he said. He positioned our troops in Iraq so the terrorists would go there and we could kill them. The media, the dems (I know; same thing) simply cannot grasp this kind of strategy because they just don't understand the threat and that we are in a real war. Their incessent arguments that the terrorists weren't there before we got there is true in a some measure. There was evidence of terrorists training in Iraq, but they were not there in large numbers. We went there so they would follow us there, and that most people just don't get this is astonishing to me.
I work in the military industrial community and work with many troops who have been to war and back again, and I have the utmost respect for them. They are so smart, so innovative, and so committed to their mission that it is heartwarming. Their frustration by the lies of old media and the understanding of how the terrorists are using our media to turn our country against them is understood. In fact, at a recent gathering, CNN was bashed by a senior general for their outrageous reporting. Of course, those comments are never aired or reflected upon by the media, because they don't want the country to know they (media) are working to undermine the war by the incessent negative reporting.
A very good post by you, btw.
That not actually true. If you read Masters of Chaos you can read about the Terrorist base camp the SOF over ran in liberating northern Iraq. The terrorists had, or were in the process of, setting up camp in Iraq.