Published since 2005. San Francisco is a city that belongs to the people of the world. Hence this blog has a global focus. The name "Sam Spade's San Francisco" refers to an exciting era in the City's history, the time of Dashiell Hammett's fictional gumshoe and San Francisco character, Sam Spade. My name is Tom Dunn and I edit the blog. I'm not as exciting as Sam Spade, but I am definitely a San Francisco character.Contact or on Twitter -- Search blog below.
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Iraqi Citizens Rise Up in Baghdad
Despite insane assignments from the Bush Administration, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces are managing - against high odds - to finally be restoring law and order in Iraq. They are once again proving a point known to every veteran, but seemingly missed by civilian authority - the best ambassadors and diplomats we have are our young men and women in uniform. They - not their leaders - are winning the minds and hearts of the Iraqi people.
In the photo: Iraqi citizens joining with U.S. soldiers to take back their country. DoD photo
More than 31,000 Iraqi citizens (mostly in Baghdad and the southern provinces) are providing security help by staffing more than 1,400 checkpoints. These 31,000 people are all concerned local citizens who want to take back their country from the crazy Islamic extremists.
An important milestone ...
When the citizens of a nation - any nation - begin to come up out their homes and rise-up it means the tipping point has arrived. The people are rising up.Right now those 31,000 Iraqi citizens are the best hope for their country and their future.
To date those concerned citizens have found more than 400 weapons caches, many of them containing IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device). In each case the citizens alerted and cooperated with the U.S. military. They are working with us in a way that parallels the way law enforcement agencies work in cooperation with one another. This too is a very promising development.
When Multinational Division Center (MDC) arrived in Iraq 10 months ago, there were on average 25 attacks per day in the division's area of responsibility, said Major General Rick Lynch, MDC Commander.
The Iraqis also have provided intelligence that has led to the capture of several high-priority targets the coalition had been seeking over the last 10 months, the general added.
Taking responsibility ...
Lynch said he believes this to be a result of the Iraqi citizens taking responsibility for their own country.
"I'm convinced that what happened was they just got tired of the violence, they got tired of the intimidation, they got tired of being told what they could and couldn't do," he added. "So now they've risen up."
"To keep from moving backwards and keep this window of opportunity open, we're spending a lot of time working with the Iraqi security forces to improve their capacity, and then do things like work on local governance and local economic development to maintain forward progress," General Lynch said.
On January 12th an Iraqi citizen's group from the Karkh district in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, turned over a large weapons cache. The cache held 21 mines, two anti-tank rockets, two 53 mm rockets with launchers, two 152 mm artillery rounds, fuses and three boxes of dynamite.
Also this past week, Iraqi citizens, alongside U.S. Special Forces soldiers, caught a suspected terrorist cell leader during a raid in Mosul. The suspect is believed to be responsible for several bomb attacks, kidnapping and murder.
An ill-advised adventure ...
The men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces are getting their job done despite the fact that the war was an ill-advised adventure. Against great odds and with the greatest of difficulty our military has been restoring law and order to the most lawless frontier on Earth. Their performance is distinguished and impressive.
As these men and women return home and hang their uniforms in the closet, I hope they consider careers in law enforcement. Those vets are a tremendous national asset and each city, county and state in America should be going all out to attract these fine candidates for public service.With these experienced veterans fully integrated into our government as peace officers, firefighters, medical responders - and city council members, boards of supervisors members, state legislators and U.S. Congress members - we will have a safer and better America.
The American military is the absolute best on Earth, not because they have great civilian leadership in Washington (in fact, quite the opposite is true - the Bush White House is astonishingly inept), but because the men and women who serve in our military are without comparison. They are a class of their own. They are Number One.
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