Yesterday I was told about one of the best blogs I have seen by someone on the ground in Iraq. It is called Acute Politics. Blogger “Badger 6” is the one who told me about it; Badger 6 knows the blogger personally. I have put it in my Bloglines subscriptions and blogrolled it. You should visit it right now.

The most recent post is titled The First Bone. It begins:

Last night I sat alone on the porch and studied the pieces of a puzzle. It had come in a care package from home, and consisted of six small pieces of wood, of equal dimensions, with differing types of slots cut across them. I have no idea what the puzzle is supposed to look like, but I’m still trying to assemble the wooden bones into some coherent whole. As the parts move in my hands, they occasionally form into larger shapes, only to collapse because I’ve failed to incorporate all the parts at my disposal. In some ways, I see the puzzle as an analogy to Iraq. Many pieces must grow and fit together, or the nation that grows on them will eventually tumble and fall. I continue to stare at the bones of the puzzle, and begin to associate them with the forces that strive together attempting to form Iraq. The Military, The Media, Government, Religion. Other pieces lie on the table unnamed, representing forces I remain unaware of.

The writer, who calls himself “Teflon Don,” is living proof that Charlie Rangel doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he claims that only uneducated people with no other options join the military. Teflon Don is a better writer than most of the bloggers you see nowadays. He is contemptuous of the idea that we should simply bring the boys back home:

One of my biggest pet peeves is the attitude that says “Support the troops: Bring them home!”. Last time I checked, the troops are all volunteers. Of course, that might change if Rep. Rangel gets his way and reinstates the draft, but for now, we’ve all chosen this life. If you claim to support the troops, listen to me: we do not want to be used as a political weapon. If we pull military forces out of Iraq before the Iraqis are fully capable of managing their own affairs, if we go home and leave Iraq in a downward spiral, if we fail in this task of nation building that we find ourselves at, then we doom the American military to a long period of even greater risks. It’s your choice not to support the war; just don’t pretend to support the troops while using them as a political tool.

He has no magic solution, but believes that more engagement will give us the best chance of success:

Various talking heads stateside have been repeating the view that there is no military solution to the conflict in Iraq. In large part I agree: we can’t simply kill all the insurgents, because in the process we create more insurgents. Even if we managed to kill them all, there are many factions who do not desire the same ends for Iraq. However, without some sort of partial military solution and a stable, violence-free environment, we cannot expect any lasting political solution. Iraqi forces are not ready to assume sole control of the country- the military is getting better, and in some areas operates outside of US control, but the police are plagued by widespread corruption. Something like 70% of police across the country have militia ties, according to the AP- not something you want if you’re trying to enforce justice equally across all factions. Even the professionals in the military have reliability problems: in case you were wondering just how the best soldiers in the Iraqi army feel about the current political climate, The Times is there.

Obviously, “Stay the course” will lead us nowhere. Small wonder. It’s a basic principle of counterinsurgency that no operation will succeed without the troops involved getting out among the local population, giving them a chance to associate and identify with their protectors. The current strategy tends more towards limiting “face time” with the locals because of the danger involved, preferring to spend more time behind berms and barb wire. Units that engage the local populace have enjoyed greater success in fighting the insurgency, as the British in the south have shown. If “Stay the course” isn’t the answer, neither is “Set your course across the Atlantic”. My chief fear now is that the military will not be allowed to pursue a course beneficial to Iraq, and will eventually be brought home with the job undone.

But there is no obvious answer — a fact reflected in the last line of this very thoughtful post:

I never figured out how the puzzle went together.

The blog is an undiscovered gem. In another post, he describes looking at the sky through night-vision goggles — and the language is poetry:

The raid is still going on. A voice came on the radio and informed us that the Marines have grabbed a couple bad guys, and are on the trail of a couple more. I grab a Coke, for the instant burst of caffeine and sugar that tastes like a liquid sleep substitute, and allow myself a view of the stars. The moon has set now, leaving behind a panorama of the heavens in detail I rarely see at home. The greenish haze of my night vision reveals an incredible depth to the void. Stars formerly too small to see twinkle green pinpoints of fire, and as I look, a meteor falls through my vision. I tear myself away and back into the present, feeling as if the seconds I spent were too long.

There are many other posts I could recommend, such as this one, which describes the military’s cooperation with a local sheik who wanted to help fight insurgents, as well as his unit’s discovery of a large IED (he is a Combat Engineer charged with the dangerous job of finding and disabling IEDs). There is the post with a poem he wrote.

But mostly, I recommend that you do what I did: go to the blog’s main page, and browse through the whole blog. If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself going to the archives and reading every post. (There are only 18 so far in total.) Between this blog, Badgers Forward, and Bill Roggio, you’re likely to get a good picture of what is happening on the ground in Anbar province from the military perspective. And (as Michael Fumento notes) the view from the ground tends to be more positive than the one expressed by people who aren’t actually there.

Go visit Acute Politics, now. Click here to access the blog’s main page.