Just one of those days where time seems to be at a premium so just a quick update on a few sites that you might find worth a read.

Omar from Iraq The Model has one of his first hand accounts on various issues taking place in his country. I suppose the following may be the reason we have not heard much from him as of late:

These months have been the worst in electricity supplies ever. We’re getting an average of one hour per day of electricity from the grid. The last time we had such hour was three days ago!

Second Chances is the latest dispatch from Michael Yon. I usually find a favorite line or paragraph in each of his pieces and this particular one was the easiest yet.

Yet street by street, house by house, step by step, the infantry soldiers cleared most of Baqubah, working under intensely stressful conditions. They cleared block by block, no place to sleep but the ground, no showers to wash away the sweaty grit of war. This combat-experienced brigade outsmarted the enemy. I’d like to say more, but the enemy will get no help from these pages.

Also included in Michael’s latest piece are two audio interviews and as usual his terrific photography.

Last, but certainly not least a Letter to America from a site I have recently discovered, Jack Army.

I asked an Iraqi I know to write a letter to Americans. I told him he should write whatever he wants. Specifically, I said, “if you could say anything you wanted to the American people, what would it be?”

This is what he wrote:

To my brothers and sisters all over the world,

Hi, I am in individual Iraqi, I can only express my own ideas about what is going on in this whole situation and I am very sure that the majority of Iraqis have the same idea.

First, before Coalition Forces came to Iraq, we were under a tyrant regime. Saddam and his followers, no doubt most of them were from Arab Sunni, those people were from Iraq too but they tortured, abused and offended the Iraqi people a lot, like mass graves, genocide, and so on. I cannot talk to you about the details of all what they did against us because it is unbelievable to someone to understand that.

Part one continues here. Part two of the same letter may be accessed here.

I strongly urge our readers and bloggers to read each of the posts listed in this post of Sue’s, and to listen to or read the information provided to you in Ayschlay’s post “Soldiers as Voters”. Each post has valuable information in it. ~J~