General James T. Conway

Blackfive has a great, albeit long, post up on a recent speech by General James T. Comway to Marines’ Memorial Association and World Affairs Council in San Francisco on July 10th. It's Blackfive so scroll back up to the top...

He gives you more background on the Anbar Awakening and the aspects of it (economic and political) that we need to know to judge if this model is workable going forward.

There's a whole lot more though:

Another reason that Marines and Sailors feel good about their mission and themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan is that they are certain that they are defending this Nation against terrorism. They feel that the reason the country has not been attacked since 9/11 is because they are killing the same terrorists in both places that might otherwise be attempting to find their way to the U.S. Most would agree that a direct attack on terrorism was not the initial reason for going into Iraq in 2003, but it took a little less than three weeks for us to see religious extremists there.

It's a long read, sorry about that, but I think you need to take the time to read the whole thing.