Quick hit #1

No long dissertations tonight, just a series of relatively quick hits. Here's the first.

This is from the Sun Journal of Lewiston, Maine, for July 21. The link comes via Information Clearinghouse.

Ramadi, Iraq - After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area. ...

While American officials in Ramadi wouldn't provide exact figures for the change in numbers of patrols, there's obviously been a significant drop.

After losing dozens of men to a "voiceless, faceless mass of people" with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Army Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.

While I expect most will refer to this in terms of the US losing to the insurgents and certainly there is some of that here, I suspect that there will be more examples of pulling back or limiting patrols, even in areas where the resistance isn't so strong. Why?

Since the hand-over of sovereignty June 28, 25 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Fifteen of them were in Anbar.

Unless there is a reduction in US military activities, hitting the psychologically-important figure of 1,000 Americans killed in Iraq in the heat of the election campaign is a real possibility. There is no way in hell Shrub & Co. want that.