There are a lot of dry mouths, watery bowels and heads bowed in prayer in Iraq as 12,000 soldiers prepare to battle in Fallujah.

Men will die, women will weep and the left wing will still fail to get the message that a democracy in the Middle East is an answer to the question they can’t fathom.

The Australian quotes in full a Sunday Telegraph piece by Hala Jabah where Hala touches on the enemy Order of Battle (ORBAT) that includes

# 5000 rebel fightersTerrorists

# 300 foreign fighters terrorists volunteers for suicide bombings

# 118 vehicles already rigged with explosives, and

# Homes and narrow lanes booby trapped.

Another bad day at the office for the troops about to enter Fallujah but they know their stuff and have been through it before. They will prevail and the terrroists will weaken further

Over at Greenside a Marine pens an email home. It’s worth the time to read in it’s entirety but to quote just a paragraph..

If we build a school or clinic, they destroy it. They would rather deny medical care or education for the children of the citizens who live nearby than to have any symbol of the West in general and America specifically among them. It is hard to comprehend. Frankly, we are done trying.

For eight months, we have been on our chain.

The chain has been let loose.

Go for it guys.

Aussie Troops fire rounds in anger….

The man, whose nationality is not known, did not respond to signals to stop as he drove “in an erratic manner” towards an Australian patrol in Baghdad, a defence public affairs spokesman said last night.

The Australian troops opened fire on the vehicle, which they felt presented a threat to the patrol, injuring one of its occupants.

…and miss!

This person was later seen to be taken away in another vehicle by Iraqi civilians and the extent of his injury was not known to the Australian troops, the spokesman said.

Pictured is digger contemplating loss of Mil Skills portion of his pay for not killing a terrorist when he had the chance.

The spokesman said the troops had acted within their rules of engagement, but an investigation into the incident would be carried out. I trust the investigation looks into why the Iraqi was only wounded and why the killing zone wasn’t secured.

The war is the War against Terror with Iraq being the current theatre. Let’s not confuse the battle in Iraq with the much broader War against Terror.Most left wing commentators are confused on this issue, but I am buoyed to note that Tim Dunlop finally accepts pre-emptive strikes on foreign sovereign soil as a valid strategy, albeit his post is couched in anti-US terms.Having had some experience in war and being an avid reader of history I am possibly more aware than Tim that war is not all black and white and above all no plan survives contact with the enemy. Sure it would have been great to have captured and killed Bin Laden and Abu Massub al-Zarqawi, the current heavy in Iraq, but the head is not the only part of the body and daily killing of terrorists still serves the purpose and goes part way to meet the aim.Hitler was never captured and killed but never-the-less his war machine was defeated and so it can be the case in this war.One of Tim’s links under allowed to escape from Tora Bora does critisize US decisions and it certainly could be seen that they were mistakes. However, I have long held the view that if absent from the planning meetings and thus not aware of all of the considerations, then critics need to need to temper their criticisms with the rider. “It is my opinion only and I am not aware of all of the facts”. Todays Australian has an article by Scott McConnell: Betrayal of the Right and in the dead wood edition there is a highlighted quote.

Bush’s international policies have been based on the hopelessly naive (and unconservative) belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by the US armies

. Who is it I wonder that is so hopelessly naive? That statement is so radical that I have never heard it put forward before. Scott McConnell must have something going for him as he is the editor of a main stream conservative publication but I feel the only reason he has been quoted is to give a Bush bashing piece a run for balance.Bush’s policies have been based on nothing of the sort. They are based on a threat analysis that points a long finger at the middle East as a recruiting source for sadists who respond to TV recruiting ads run on Al Jazeera. You know, those ads depicting decapitation. The area is the source of insane religious zealots that, in blind and illiterate fury, live to rid the world of infidels.A democratic Iraq will give all but the looney left a warm inner glow and a feeling of increased security but it is not the ultimate aim of the war. It is only a subsidiary aim towards control of the Islamic terrorist hordes.It is clearly not a case of We are doing this for you but we are doing this for the free world and when it comes to fruition, you will be, coincidently, better offWell, at least we now have the anti-war mob insisting that attacking Iraq was the way to go. With that fact established maybe we can get on with defeating the terrorists there and elsewhere.In the absence of any historical evidence of a perfectly run war, I can assure you the winner is the guy who makes less mistakes. Perfect is for armchair warriors and 20:20 hindsight