A brief note on the basic fraudulence of American political discourse. You'll recall that Dubya's "surge" was designed to pacify the major cities, particularly Baghdad --- so it was only natural that when the time came to evaluate it, and nothing much had changed in Baghdad, they trumpeted success in the hinterlands of Anbar province. That success was the "Anbar awakening", in which locals were cooperating with our troops to root out foreign fighters.

So, they like us now, right?

Funny how you never heard much about what the locals were telling us on the joint patrols of our troops and the "1920 brigade", named for the year that an earlier generation took up arms against the Brits. Stuff that was presumably known to the Pentagon, at some level. Stuff like this:

For now, our relationship with 1920 is one of mutual distrust and hatred, a sign of the times. A conversation between a member of my platoon and a 1920 source is ripe with foreboding on the future of this partnership, and of the war to come.
“Do you want to kill me?” asked the soldier.
“Yes,” replied the source, coldly and without emotion. “But not today.”