Is it better to listen to the pronunciations of those who have never left the comfort of their homes, or Congressional Offices, as to the current state of affairs and progress of the in Iraq, or a person who has risked life and limb to find and report what is happening?

I’ll pick the person with boots on the ground and eyes on the scene in every case. In this case, it’s Michael Yon in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

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Let’s ‘Surge’ Some More
By MICHAEL YON
April 11, 2008

It is said that generals always fight the last war. But when David Petraeus came to town it was senators – on both sides of the aisle – who battled over the Iraq war of 2004-2006. That war has little in common with the war we are fighting today.

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.

The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about “GoArmy.com.”

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda’s brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.
[…]

Don’t miss the rest of the words of a man who has lived the war, not just been a “commuter” in and out of the war zone.

Even if you did ride a corkscrewing landing into an airfield with a sniper trying to take you out, it cannot possibly produce the understanding and analysis of the person who was there before you ducked and ran for the cars, and after you left, with months and months and months being the measurement scale.

History, when complied and sorted through, I’ll wager, will report a very different war from what our newspapers and “national news” organizations have. Funny, I’m not sure why they are betting to be connected to a business model that would paint them as completely off base in their reporting of the present, unless, of course, there was much more gain in supporting our enemies and the cowards who will not speak the truth.