from Curt at Flopping Aces

Nine soldiers were killed yesterday by a bomb set by Al-Qaeda, you know those guys right?  Our enemy:

Nine paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were killed and 20 were wounded when a truck bomb exploded next to their patrol base in Iraq, the division said today.

Maj. Tom Earnhardt, spokesman for the division at Fort Bragg, said it was the highest number of casualties for the division since the Iraq war began.

The soldiers were members of the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Earnhardt said. A civilian interpreter also was wounded in Monday’s explosion.

"Fifteen of the wounded were superficial and they were treated on the spot and returned to duty," Earnhardt said. "Five were evacuated to a military hospital, but none of the five have life-threatening injuries."

Earnhardt said the unit deployed in August to Iraq. It is one of three of the division’s four brigade combat teams now in Iraq or Afghanistan.

An insurgent group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militants that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, said in a posting on the Web that it was behind the attack.

You know those guys, the same ones who told the world yesterday that they were planning an attack to rival Hiroshima:

Here’s MNF-Iraq’s press release released yesterday prior to the attack, citing progress in Diyala. Locals cooperating with 5th Squadron, 73rd Cav, with payoff:

In Zaganiyah, Iraq, Saturday, citizens from the area approached members of the 5th Iraqi Army Division and Soldiers from the 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, to inform them of weapon caches and people responsible for placing improvised explosive devices.

The information provided by the citizens led to the discovery of two caches and the detention of two suspected terrorists who were still carrying the initiation systems for IEDs. Six anti-Iraqi forces were also killed in the area.

The caches included artillery rounds, an anti-tank mine, more than five rocketpropelled grenades and IED-making material.

Aside from the citizens providing information, the local tribal leaders have approached the patrol base in Zaganiyah to meet with the Iraqi army and Coalition leadership and discuss the way ahead.

“The willingness of these leaders to come to the patrol base demonstrates that the grip of al-Qaeda has loosened and the people no longer fear for their lives by talking with Americans,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Poppas, 5-73 Cav. commander.

In other areas of the Diyala River Valley, tribal leaders who previously lacked confidence in the Iraqi Security Forces are now reaching out to the IA and police.

According to Poppas, the local leader in As Sadah has “taken the mantle of his leadership seriously and is determined to strike out on a path of independence,” as he now regularly meets with the IA, IP and Shia leadership in surrounding areas to return Shia families to the area and fix essential services.

The leader in Had Maskar is also reaching out to the security forces to rid the area of terrorist activity.

No wonder al-Qaeda wanted these Americans to die.

I’m a little mystified this didn’t make the AP reports I’ve seen.  Usually in my business, when an event happens that you consider to be significant, you grab all the background you can on those involved. This was sitting in plain view at the MNF-I website. I’d consider it relevant … if only for AP’s snarking purposes, let alone for what it suggests about why al-Qaeda targeted this unit.

I would add that Al-Qaeda may have timed this attack to go along with the Dem’s getting both surrender bills in the House and Senate through both houses.  They pay attention to our politics, they pay attention to the anti-war left, they pay attention.

They understand that the more they kill the more the cowards will call for us to run from the fight.

Hell, even John Burns from the NYT’s recognizes this fact, Newsbusters has the scoop:

Burns was a guest on this morning’s "Today." In the set-up piece, NBC White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell rolled a clip of precisely the kind of politics to which Burns later alluded, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-NV] fumed: "No more will the Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush administration’s incompetence and dishonesty." When’s the last time Reid spoke with such vitriol about al-Qaeda? Just wondering.

Moments later, Matt Lauer asked Burns: "By its very nature a surge is a temporary dynamic. What is the biggest factor in your opinion as to whether they can have success in the near term and the longer term?"

NYT BAGHDAD BUREAU CHIEF JOHN BURNS: Well, the number of troops, that’s finite. The amount of time they can stay, we think that’s probably finite, too. And the calculations of the insurgents, who, as one military officer said to me, will always trade territory for time. That’s to say, they will move out, they will wait. Because they know the political dynamic in the United States is moving in a direction that is probably going to be favorable to them.

Moving in that direction thanks to the cowards on the left. 

These soldiers understand that to win a fight they need to STAY in the fight:

We’re not losing this war."

That’s how a Las Vegas Army Reserve sergeant and Iraq war veteran who is heading out again for Operation Iraqi Freedom reacted Friday to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s assessment that the war in Iraq is "lost."

"I don’t believe the war is lost," Sgt. George Turkovich, 24, said as he stood with other soldiers near a shipping container that had been packed for their deployment to Kuwait.

"Unfortunately, politics has taken a huge role in this war affecting our rules of engagement," said Turkovich, a 2001 Palo Verde High School graduate. "This is a guerrilla war that we’re fighting, and they’re going to tie our hands.

"So it does make it a lot harder for us to fight the enemy, but we’re not losing this war," he said.

[...]In the eyes of Turkovich, who served as an infantryman with the 82nd Airborne Division for seven months each in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mission is nearing completion but is not over yet.

"Our mission statement when we first went into Iraq was to get Saddam out of power and stand up a new government and a new army," Turkovich said.

"We’ve gone in there. Saddam is now out of power, and we’ve stood up a new army and we’ve stood up a new government," he said. "Now we’re just kind of the crutch, nursing it along for right now, and hopefully they’ll be able to get off those training wheels soon and they’ll be able to stand for themselves."

The 314th’s stateside commander, Lt. Col. Steven Cox, said the political controversy swirling around the war "does weigh upon us because the representatives are supposed to represent American sentiments."

"I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that the American people would leave their military dangling in the wind the way the good senator is doing," Cox said.

"Defeatism … from our elected officials does not serve us well in the field," he said. "They embolden the enemy, and they actually leave them with the feeling that they can defeat us and win this.

"All they have to do is wait us out because the American resolve is waning," he said.

Defeatism is not American.  We win, period.  If we had these people around in WWII imagine what the outcome would have been. 

We win…..period,

That is until a defeatist gets into the oval office and we will once again become the Paper Tiger the left loves us to be.