My Aisling

One of our boys writes home

Joe Roche, serving in the U.S. Army's 16th Combat Engineer Battalion in Baghdad (rank unknown), writes of his observations.

The article is a needed balance to the constant reporting of problems from the BLIMP (biased liberal mainstream press), that slow, big, fat, thin-membraned, outrageously redundant and obsolete rigid-structured monolith filled with explosive gas that has a name written on its side in fonts oddly reminiscent of ancient Germanic texts.

Sorry ... got sidetracked.

Enlisted Man/Officer Roche writes cogently of his observations and fears. It is a short article steeped in reality - it has the fullness and balance of a conversation held over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer with a friend.

We are accomplishing wonderful things for and with the Iraqi people. The ability of the terrorists to continue operating there is greatly compromised - and now they are lashing out as a mortally wounded animal does when it tries to hold off the predators.

Why the BLIMP always ignores stories like these is of no interest to me anymore. I seek my own news. I know every story has two sides (except ones that describe the sheer duplicity of Kerry, of course). It will be a few years but books will be published - Iraq - A Society Transformed, From Terror to Triumph, or Democratic Iraq - How I Saved Our Great Country from my Newsstand on the Corner of Maghreb and Imam al-Adham Streets. Then a balanced picture will emerge.