Please Check Updates Below

It will be one of those historically ironic moments if the Battle of Donkey Island outside Ramadi was one of the places where Iraq tipped from unending quagmire to hard fought success. It will be ironic because it might be the day the Donkey Party in America was forever tainted with their naive and premature efforts to give al-Qaeda a win in Iraq. As goes Donkey Island so went Democratic hopes of riding an American defeat to victory.

The story of the Battle of Donkey Island is captured in Der Spiegel: (H/T Gateway Pundit)

The Iraq war came within a hair of returning to Ramadi in early July. The attackers had already gathered four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) south of the city, on the banks of the Nasr canal. Between 40 and 50 men dressed in light uniforms were armed like soldiers and prepared to commit a series of suicide bombings. They had already strapped explosive vests to their bodies and loaded thousands of kilograms of explosives, missiles and grenades onto two old Mercedes trucks. But their plan was foiled when Iraqis intent on preserving peace in Ramadi betrayed them to the Americans.

I cannot over emphasize how the changes in Iraq we are seeing is due to the people of Iraq turning on al-Qeada and their murderous acts against innocent Muslims.

Army Units of the 1st Battalion of the 77th United States Armored Regiment — nicknamed the “Steel Tigers” and sent from an American base in Schweinfurt, Germany — approached from the north and south. But the enemy was strong and they quickly realized that in order to defeat it, they needed air support. Before long, Apache combat helicopters, F-18 Hornet and AV-8 Harrier jets approached, the explosions from their guns lighting up the night sky on June 30.

The “Battle of Donkey Island,” named after the wild donkeys native to the region, lasted 23 hours.

…

Three of the captured attackers, who claimed to be members of al-Qaida in Iraq, revealed their plan to plunge Ramadi into chaos once again by staging multiple attacks in broad daylight. By unleashing a devastating series of suicide attacks on the city, they hoped to destroy the delicate peace in Ramadi and bring the war back to its markets, squares, streets and residential neighborhoods.

al-Qaeda is fighting a PR war and the western liberal media and the Donkies in Congress are assisting them. Like Pavlov’s dog was trained to salivate at the sound of a bell, al-Qaeda has the Donkey’s running for the microphones every time they massacre Iraqis. Or is it the other way around? By playing politics with the Iraq war did the Donkies train the terrorist that massacring Muslims gets them attention and talks of surrender? Sadly I think it is more of the latter. By making the case it was possible to scare America into surrendering with massive bloodshed, the Donkies helped fuel the killing. If killing Muslims will win the war, it is reasonable to see how al-Qaeda might give it a shot.

But, as I said, as goes Donkey Island so went Democrats’ credibility on National Security:

The Turning Point

In October, 90 “incidents” were reported in Tameem, an area no larger than a few city blocks in Berlin. Twenty of those incidents involved attacks on US troops by gangs of insurgents. Wherever the Americans went they were shot at from apartment buildings, three times with rockets and four times with rocket-propelled grenades.

…

By March, however, the number of incidents reported in Tameem had dropped to 43, including only four direct attacks with rifles and pistols and one rocket attack. There were no bombings, snipers, rocket-propelled grenades or car bombs. And the leaders of the region’s 23 powerful clans were finally meeting with US commanders for “security conferences,” while the imams from the city’s mosques met with the military’s chaplains.

The Iraqis in Ramadi, almost all Sunnis, had been worn down by chronic violence. Many had been victims of kidnappings or blackmail at the hands of mafia-like terrorist groups. They had finally come to the realization that, in the long run, the Americans were less of a threat and offered more hope than the fanatical holy warriors from Iraq and abroad.

Not to be too facetious, but we all look good in comparison to Nazis and their Islamo Fascist copycats. That is why I have emphasized the fascist nature of al-Qaeda, its use of brutality, torture and murder to ‘govern’. Because in the end, the more brutal al-Qaeda was, the more likely Iraqis would turn to our vision of the future and reject al-Qaeda. And once that started to spread, borders and other artificial boundaries to humanity’s collective conscience would be no barrier to the new reality: al-Qaeda would be finished because it was spurned by the Muslim community.

At some point al-Qaeda will have as little hope of injecting their views into Muslim society as Hugh Hefner has of injecting his ‘visions’. It simply becomes a bridge too far for the average Muslim to go. Here is the reality of Iraq, as shown in Anbar:

Since June, Ramadi residents have only known the war from televison. Indeed, US military officials at the Baghdad headquarters of Operation Iraqi Freedom often have trouble believing their eyes when they read the reports coming in from their units in Ramadi these days. Exploded car bombs: zero. Detonated roadside bombs: zero. Rocket fire: zero. Grenade fire: zero. Shots from rifles and pistols: zero. Weapons caches discovered: dozens. Terrorists arrested: many.

Der Spiegel has good summary of what this all means:

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq — it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq — not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers — are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn’t hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious “Sunni Triangle,” is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

The American Donkies better listen up and pay attention. It will not be long when much of Iraq will be like this – because no Islamic Extremist can survive by taking the peace away from these devastated Muslims. It will soon enough dawn on al-Qaeda they dare not continue to attack Muslims if they wish to survive themselves. And when that happens it will presage a stunning change in the world. Politics will change in a way no one can even imagine right now.

Addendum: some more snippets worth noting and relishing:

In many cities and villages in Iraq’s 18 provinces, terrorist networks are either weaker or have been destroyed entirely. The number of attacks is declining, as is the number of racially or religiously motivated killings.

…

Something is happening in Iraq that is consistently concealed behind images of bombings. The situation that the White House and its deceptive advisors had erroneously predicted before their invasion — that the troops would be greeted with candy and flowers — could in fact still come true. That’s already the case in many places. It’s as if the terrorists have lost popular support, as if their acts of violence have driven the Iraqi people into the arms of the enemy, the Americans.

But there is little talk of these developments outside of Iraq.

The truth of Iraq cannot be hidden forever. And it is starting to seep out. I was predicting this would be the case back in March – with a lot of doubts coming back in response. What is going to hurt the Donkies is they have made it clear all was lost in Iraq. When they are proven wrong, they will pay a huge price in credibility. More snippets of I see any of interest – the article is very long.

Addendum: Who are the heroes in Iraq? Who do the people look to as their role models? al-Qaeda? Clearly not:

Every child in the city knows the story of how, on May 16, 2007, terrorists attempted to stage a massive attack. Using four car bombs, they first blew up two bridges across the Tigris River in the city’s northwest. A short time later, three other car bombs exploded in front of the headquarters of the district police. They, too, were packed with explosives, ripping craters into the ground the size of swimming pools. An eighth bomb struck a police station in the southeast. The attackers followed each of the bombings with an assault with rockets, machine guns and Kalashnikovs. It was clear, on that May 15, that the terrorists were intent on scoring a major coup. But they failed, and in doing so they lost their war.

The Iraqi police officers and soldiers, who until then had not been expected to perform well in combat, threw themselves into battle. Even the wounded refused to be carried off the battlefield, continuing to fight as best they could. Heroes were born on that day in May, the kind of heroes that the entire country sorely needs — not Sunni, not Shiite, not Kurdish or Assyrian or Turkmen heroes, but Iraqi heroes.

The dominoes are falling and there is little al-Qaeda or the Donkies in DC to do to stop the coming wave of change. Who are the people looking to as their heroes? Those who fought and killed al-Qaeda. That is a momentous change in al-Qaeda’s fortunes. There may be a time, very soon, where Muslims view ‘al-Qaeda’ like Germans and Europeans view ‘Nazis’. In many areas of Iraq this time has already come. A glimpse of a possible future for Iraq is seen in the North:

As Welsh makes his rounds, he meets with many other commanders of the same caliber, men of the new Iraq who want to pacify and develop their country, and who are grateful to the Americans for their sacrifices, for their commitment and for their help. They still need America’s support for a while longer — possibly years — but the number of US troops has been steadily declining for some time now. In early 2004 there were 23,000 US troops here in northern Iraq. Their number has since dipped to about 3,000, but that, too. is evidence of progress. “In Mosul,” says Eric Welsh, the quixotic battalion commander, “we’ve arrived at a point where we can say: We can do it.”

Yes we can do it. Look at all the examples we have were it has bee done!