Overwatch

Belmont Club analyses a terrific post from Chester where he compares a Time Magazine article with some DoD briefings.

The Time article uses phrases like these:

"elusive and inexhaustible enemy"
"success" is "elusive"
"inexhaustible enemy emboldened by the US presence"
"gradual . . . erosion" in public support
"millions of Iraqis will vote on a constitution that threatens to further split the country"
"beleaguered US mission in Iraq"

Col McMaster used phrases like these:

"The enemy . . . is the worst of the worst in terms of people in the world."
"no better enemy for our soldiers and Iraqi army soldiers to pursue and defeat"
"our troopers were very aggressive"
"we pursued them very effectively"
"gain access here by a very good relationship with the people"
"they can't hide in plain sight anymore"
"there's a permanent security presence here"
"the enemy is denied that area"

Col. Brown used phrases like these:

"desperate situation for al Qaeda and the insurgents in Mosul"
"sources we have inside the al Qaeda network . . . have . . . informed us of that"
"population clearly understands they want freedom . . . they are sick and tired of
the terrorists"
"the government has really improved their legitimacy"
"the Iraqi forces are getting better"
"the situation improving on a daily basis in Mosul"
"normalcy has come back to the city"

Sigh. Read all of Chester's piece, it's terrific.

Belmont Club adds this:

It's possible that the author, Michael Ware, has a certain point of view and he is certainly entitled to it. The problem I had, reading it, was with the who, what, where, when of the narrative. What really happened at Tal-Afar? Let's consider the battlefield metric of casualties. How many enemy troops died? Ware's answer is found in two places, suggestive, atmospheric and devoid of particulars.
...
The only thing that will matter in the long run is not which opinion was better expressed, but which of these two stories was true.

The mainstream media has not done enough to tell the complete story of the progress being made in Iraq. It is left to terrific bloggers like Belmont Club, Chester, and Bill Roggio to try and piece the story together from their living rooms.

To that end, Chester refers to a flash presentation put together by Bill Roggio, Marvin Hutchens, and Steve Schippert. It can be found here.

It points out the various operations conducted recently in northern Iraq as part of the larger campaign to put pressure on the terrorists, as I wrote about earlier.

There is so much the media could be doing here. These operations can be a confusing string of names and places, but there is an opportunity to tell the story to the American public, to inform us of the plan US and Iraqi forces have, of the skill they show in carrying out these operations, of the success we are seeing.