[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Thank you Lexington Green for sharing this amazing letter. 

[Radix]

Thank you for this RC!

I have already passed it on, and later I will read the entire thread.

[PogySailor]

Thank you for this post!

[steve in DC]

bump

[R. Scott]

…since we are back being criticized by them same RolandHeadly types that used to hang around the Palestine Hotel drinking Baghdad Bob's whiskey and parroting his ridiculous B.S.

I guess things haven’t changed much since the days of the Cavalier (?) Hotel in Saigon.

The civilians who have figured it out faster than anyone are the local teenagers.

They watch the GIs and try to talk to them and ask questions about America and Now wear wrap-around sunglasses, GAP T- shirts, Dockers (or even better Levis with the red tags) and Nikes (or Egyptian knock-offs, but with the "swoosh") and love to listen to AFN when the GIs play it on their radios.

AH! Isn’t adolescent rebellion great? I’ll bet this drives the parents up the wall.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Thanks a million for this letter, I am emailing it far and wide, as the message MUST get out to overwhelm the negative press.

Great, great work.

[plsjr]

BUMP to keep the real news (truth)active and to counter the Treasonous media/demoncrats.

[Rummyfan]

Bump for later read.....

[Eagle Eye]

BTTT

Good post

[ladtx]

It is similar to a letter I recently got from my son who is a Civil Affairs NCO in Mosul.

hey Dad...it's me again

...well, things are really busy up here in the north...we have a newly(well, 5-6 wks ago)elected mayor of Mosul...we are working closely with him and his administration to help rebuild this city and the surrounding province

...the health system is coming along pretty well, we still have a lot to do but the basic infrastructure of the health care system is closing in on pre-war standards...the school system is doing very well also as well as the public safety areas....I don't have much info on some of the other areas, but I can say that they too are up to pre-war standards, which is not bad work for only being 10 weeks after the war

....these people here are slowly seeing the fruits of OUR labor in helping them out....within the coming months it should be very noticeable what we have done here... the way I understand it, we(all the units along with the 101st working in this area) are further ahead then anyone else in Iraq....not to toot our own horn, but we're doing really well here....it has come with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears though

....the dangers here are not as bad as in Baghdad or other areas, but nonetheless it is very dangerous here...we have attacks against us almost every other day, as opposed to everyday like in the Baghdad area

....it's too bad all the media can focus on back home is all the negativity of us being here....we have come a long way in a very short amount of time...it almost seems as though the people back home are more impatient then the Iraqi people, who by the way are living in this shit everyday

....why can't the damn media focus on the great things we are doing over here as opposed to why they still think we don't need to be here....these people can now live a life without the threat of being raped or killed....trust me, they are very happy that we have given them hope again....Dad, I hope this helps a little....I will try to explain in more detail later on.....sorry this was so short

Later....take care...
Love ya'll
Jeff

[atomic conspiracy]

To understand the BBC, you have to understand its closed shop union, the trotskyite National Union of Journalists.

Note that the NUJ essentially demands government censorship and prior restraint, via the Press Complaints Commission, against editors and publications who do not conform to NUJ's politically tailored code of practice:

[NUJ recommends] that the PCC should take a more proactive role. This could allow it to deal with major news issues and complaints by third parties, dealing for instance [with} racism in the press, something it has failed to do.

....that compensation be paid in some circumstances and that adjudications be published with front-page teasers; also that a league table of offenders be published.

The NUJ's efforts to assure journalistic safety and freedom are remarkably selective and almost embarrassingly agenda-driven. One would think from reading their complaints that only the United States and Israel, represent a serious threat to freedom of the press.

NUJ organizers and officials are the driving force behind Media Workers Against War. The membership lists include a large number of prominent BBC personalities and most of the staff from Al Guardian and Al Independent. These propagandists are insulting our intelligence; and promulgating a Big Lie that would shame their predecessor, Joseph Goebbels; when they and their disciples claim to be objective, fair, and free of bias. They are probably right about not having a hidden agenda, since their agenda could not be more public or obvious.

[countrydummy]

ping! Great to hear this real report!

[gridlock]

This piece was just linked over at AndrewSullivan.com. Everybody be on their best behavior, we're about to get company!

[Rebelbase]

Bump. I hope its a legit story, a very good read.

[Jessamine]

Phenomenal. Thank you for posting this. Bump!

[MattAMiller]

This matches what I'm hearing from the guy I know over there. And he's actually a bit of natural born griper.

[AFPhys]

Thanks for the PING on this great news DAY!

You have often been in my thoughts, RCgirl... I'll be bakk here a bit more often soon.

[clamboat]

This letter may be the real deal, but I gotta say it has a certain odor of hoax, or at least of a convenient PR stunt constructed by centcom staff. I mane, it is just too perfect.

The same letter was posted on oldguns.com on July 20th, two days before being posted on FreeRepublic. That does not mean much, except to note that the text does not match what was posted here. The one posted on oldguns.net is shorter and has some text rewritten.

I also think it incredibly convenient that the writer mentions Japan and Germany as examples, amazingly just like some freerepublic posters have done. This thing looks like it was lifted directly from some FR posts.

And lastly, the writer mentions joint patrols with Iraqi police. Every report I have heard or read said that the Iraqi police are a surly, ill-disciplined force that will not stick their necks out for anybody. One radio report of a roadblock the other day had the voice of one ID3 member expressing subdued rage at the cowardly local police who would not even man a checkpoint for more than half and hour, leaving our guys out there to do it alone in punishing heat.

I don't know, anyone else feel uneasy with how perfectly this letter seems to have a counter-point for every hot Iraqi issue discussed on this forum? Mybe I'm just too cynical, so I'll slip on my absetos long-johns now.

[Mr. K]

why doesn't fox news have a "letter from the front" feature every day?
This would be a great letter to start

[lainde]

bttt

[finnman69]

this has been posted at polipundit.com AND andrewsullivan.com


http://www.polipundit.com/
Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Iraq - The Truth

Yesterday, there was an e-mail posted on Free Republic, purportedly from someone in Special Operations serving in Iraq. I was skeptical about the accuracy of the e-mail, but today there's some indirect confirmation of its authenticity and accuracy.

Here's an excerpt from the e-mail:
Our search and destroy missions are largely at night, free of reporters and generally terrifying to those brave warriors of Allah. The only thing that frightens them more is hearing the word "Gitmo". The word is out that a trip to Guantanimo Bay is not a Caribbean vacation and they usually start squealing like the little mice they are, when an interrogator mentions "Gitmo".
From the Washington Post tonight:
Threats to ship the recalcitrant captives to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay on the eastern end of Cuba were especially helpful in encouraging them to talk, officials said.
I think that the e-mail is the real thing. Go read it to see what the lying socialist treasonous liberal media isn't telling you.


http://andrewsullivan.com
Tuesday, July 22, 2003

WHAT THE PRESS WON'T TELL YOU: I keep hearing - anecdotally and from forwarded emails, that things are going far better in Iraq than the anti-war media wants you to believe. Here's an extract from a letter from a soldier out there doing God's work in putting back together a ravaged country. It was posted on Free Republic, but it seems genuine to me. Here's a small extract:
The only reason the GIs are pissed (not demoralized) is that they cannot touch, must less waste, those taunting bags of gas that scream in their faces and riot on cue when they spot a camera man from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN or NBC. If they did, then they know the next nightly news will be about how chaotic things are and how much the Iraqi people hate us.
Some do. But the vast majority don't and more and more see that the GIs don't start anything, are by-and-large friendly, and very compassionate, especially to kids and old people. I saw a bunch of 19 year-olds fromthe 82nd Airborne not return fire coming from a mosque until they got a group of elderly civilians out of harm's way. So did the Iraqis.
A bunch of bad guys used a group of women and children as human shields.The GIs surrounded them and negotiated their surrender fifteen hours later and when they discovered a three year-old girl had been injured by the big tough guys throwing her down a flight of stairs, the GIs called in a MedVac helicopter to take her and her mother to the nearest field hospital. The Iraqis watched it all, and there hasn't been a problem inthat neighborhood since. How many such stories, and there are hundreds of them, never get reported in the fair and balanced press? You know, nada.
The civilians who have figured it out faster than anyone are the local teenagers.
They watch the GIs and try to talk to them and ask questions about America and Now wear wrap-around sunglasses, GAP T- shirts, Dockers (or even better Levis with the red tags) and Nikes (or Egyptian knock-offs, but with the "swoosh") and love to listen to AFN when the GIs play it on their radios.
They participate less and less in the demonstrations and help keep us informed when a wannabe bad-ass shows up in the neighborhood.
The younger kids are going back to school again, don't have to listen to some mullah rant about the Koran ten hours a day, and they get a hot meal.
They see the same GIs who man the corner checkpoint, helping clear the playground, install new swingsets and create soccer fields. I watched a bunch of kids playing baseball in one playground, under the supervision of a couple of GIs from Oklahoma. They weren't very good but were having fun, probably more than most Little Leaguers
The place is still a mess but most of it has been for years. But the Hospitals are open and are in the process of being brought into the 21stCentury. The MOs and visiting surgeons from home are teaching their docs new techniques and One American pharmaceutical company (you know, the kind that all the hippies like to scream about as greedy) donated enough medicine to stock 45 hospital pharmacies for a year.
Read the whole thing. Why do very, very few of these stories appear in the press? I think we know the answer. My sympathies lie with these men and women doing a difficult job extremely well. We are making progress. Don't let the BBC or Dick "Chicken Little" Morris get you down.
- 12:58:22 PM