J's Cafe Nette

If you want to read the unfiltered truth about what is going on in Iraq you should be a regular reader of Michael Yon and Michael Totten, along with the other milbloggers.

These men are actually in Iraq and in the middle of the battles. They tell it the way it is and not what some newspaper wants you to think.

From Michael Totten’s Anbar Awakens Part I:

Some in the United States are unconvinced that Al Qaeda was really at the center of the conflict in Anbar. So I asked Colonel John Charlton how the Army knows Al Qaeda is really who they have been dealing with. He was supremely annoyed by the question.

“We know it’s Al Qaeda,” he said. There is no controversy whatsoever about this in Iraq. My question seemed to him as if it had come from another planet. “They self-identify as Al Qaeda. We didn’t give them that name. That’s what they call themselves. We have their propaganda CDs which have Al Qaeda written all over them.”

It’s not a dumb question, though, if a substantial number of Americans aren’t sure what’s going on in a bottomlessly complicated country eight or more times zones away. And not everyone who underestimated Al Qaeda’s presence is a fool.

I briefly met Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Eric Holmes from Dallas, Texas, while he was on his way home after volunteering to serve in Ramadi for six months. “I didn’t realize until I got here that the problem in Anbar Province was 100 percent Al Qaeda,” he said. “The old Baath Party insurgency here is completely finished. That war was won and Americans, including me, had no idea it even happened.”

Part II is here.

Here’s a quote from Part II which explains more than I can why I trust his dispatches more than the major newspapers’ or networks’ reporting:

Violence has declined so sharply in Ramadi that few journalists bother to visit these days. It’s “boring,” most say, and it’s hard to get a story out there – especially for daily news reporters who need fresh scoops every day. Unlike most journalists, I am not a slave to the daily news grind and took the time to embed with the Army and Marines in late summer.

I encourage you to read his dispatches, and if, as someone has said, they don’t care if all of them get killed then look at the photos of the beautiful children and tell me that.

If you want independent journalism about what’s going on in Iraq, including mistakes we have made in the past, you can’t go wrong reading either of these two bloggers or the milbloggers.

They have no political agenda the way the major news operations do and you get the honest truth.

Not only do I encourage you to read the dispatches, but if you are a skeptic I dare you to read them and come back and tell me it’s all sugar-coated.

Look at the photos and say you don’t care if these people die. If you can still say that after reading the dispatches and seeing the photos you must have a cold heart indeed.

Written by Jeanette

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