Choppers on the roof

Before I left for my Iraq deployment, I started a strange sort of dialogue with a local blogger. Strange, because he was extremely left wing and I am very conservative on most issues. Our introduction was made courtesy of the StarTrib, who had printed a letter to the editor of mine, although highly redacted.

I opined that I was getting ready to spend a year in Iraq fighting for what I believe, and I challenged liberals to spend 12 months in Iraq saying they were sorry for bringing the Iraqis freedom. The letter as printed simply said I challenged liberals to go to Iraq.

Anyways, the blogger, whose real name shall remain anonymous, posts under the nickname Spotty at The Cucking Stool. He commiserated with me on what he thought was an impending death sentence and predicted that US troops, probably during my time in Iraq, would be evacuated from the rooftops ala Saigon 1972.

Instead, it is Bin Laden who is arranging for evacuation of his minions.

Local citizens find and remove IED's.

Coalition, Iraqi forces find cache

Weapons caches found by concerned local citizens

Children turn in caches

The insurgency in Iraq, whether it was by Al Qaeda, Sunni extremists, or Shia extremists, has depended on local support, whether by actual belief or by intimidation. The tide has so completely turned in Iraq, that the terrorists have no safe haven to hide, no docile population to let them operate.

Iraq may continue to be a place of death and destruction for many years to come. But one thing is clear. It is Osama's boys that are riding the choppers in disgrace this time, not America.