Liberals and other anti-warriors hate when pro-warriors like myself say that Iraq is a part of the greater War on Terror. If they admit that, then they have no feet to stand on when protesting the war. The simple fact is that it is a major part and Bush said as much in his infamous "bring 'em on" speech. The liberal line has always been that invading Iraq took our forces away from fighting al-Qaida. I've always been a proponent of the fight them there, not here philosophy and al-Qaida obliged by setting up operations in al-Anbar province.

We've been fighting and defeating them in the province for three years and we're now at the point that the Iraqi's see what a destructive force -- particularly to civilians -- al-Qaida is. They bring nothing but sharia law and misery wherever they go and the Iraqi's have had more than enough:

There is good news from Iraq, believe it or not. It comes from the most unlikely place: Anbar province, home of the Sunni insurgency. The level of violence has plummeted in recent weeks. An alliance of U.S. troops and local tribes has been very effective in moving against the al-Qaeda foreign fighters. A senior U.S. military official told me-confirming reports from several other sources-that there have been "a couple of days recently during which there were zero effective attacks and less than 10 attacks overall in the province (keep in mind that an attack can be as little as one round fired). This is a result of sheiks stepping up and opposing AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] and volunteering their young men to serve in the police and army units there." The success in Anbar has led sheiks in at least two other Sunni-dominated provinces, Nineveh and Salahaddin, to ask for similar alliances against the foreign fighters.

Aside from the "believe it or not" comment (this is the left-wing Time I'm quoting), this is a pretty straight-forward story in which the media is forced to recognize that some good has come from the "surge". We will win hearts and minds and, thanks to Osama's butchers, the rest of Iraq may well fall into line. They've had enough and want to rebuild a once-great nation into the most-educated country in the gulf region. The local leaders know that an insurgency will lead nowhere except to the deaths of thousands. They are, in effect, leading their people to a better place. That place does not include Islamofascists who couldn't care less about Iraqi civilians. All they want is a state ruled by Sharia law where individualism and women's rights are frowned upon.

In other news, the simmering cold war on ABC's The View heated up big time as Elisabeth Hasselbeck finally smacked down Rosie (who played the victim card so common to liberals) in epic fashion: