Success in Iraq Continues (Shh! But don't tell anyone.)

First, please pause, if even for a minute, to remember our Veterans on this Veterans Day.

Next, my town’s public school calendar does not recognize Veterans Day.

Finally, buried on page A14 of the Boston Sunday Globe was this report from Ms. Lauren Frayer of the Associated Press, “ . . . at Baghdad's most revered Sunni shrine, the Abu Hanifa mosque, voices blasted from loudspeakers yesterday urging residents to turn against Qaeda: 'We are your sons, the sons of the awakening, and we want to end the operations of Al Qaeda.'

"The backlash against Al Qaeda among Iraq's Sunni Arab community began in Iraq's western Anbar Province last year. Americans recruited Sunni sheiks to help oust Al Qaeda from their home turf, and the movement spread to former militants who once fought US and Iraqi soldiers."

"Along with a US force buildup of 30,000 troops, the Sunni fighters are credited with wresting neighborhoods back from the terror network, yielding a sharp drop in violence here in recent months (Al Qaeda fighters, ex-insurgents clash, November 11).” (End of AP excerpt.)

The rest of the AP story recounted how former Iraqi insurgents captured and killed scores of al Qaeda terrorists. A key component of the story was that the Iraqis requested that the U.S. military stand aside while the Iraqis took care of business themselves.

Again, the story was buried on page A14.