Fish or Cut Bait

You may have already seen or heard the rather amazing piece of reporting out of Iraq this week by Michael Yon called "Gates of Fire." In it, he relates how the unit he was accompanying, the Deuce-Four came under attack. The photos and first person account (Yon even picked up a gun at one point) are gripping, stirring, inspiring, and uplifting. As a note of caution, there is a little bit of "soldier language", but nothing really extreme.

The thing that concerned me in reading his report is that the terrorist who shot Lt. Col. Kurilla had just recently been released by the Americans! In fact, according to news reports, we just let around 1000 prisoners go, apparently as part of an effort to pacify the Sunnis to approve the Consitution. This is wrong on so many levels.

We are not going to win this war unless we take it seriously. I am extremely disturbed to find out that we're letting the bad guys go. This "catch and release" stuff must stop. I think we must stay in Iraq until we win...but if we're going to just keep letting the same guys shoot and blow up our guys over and over again...if we're not in it to win, we may as well pack up today and bring 'em all home.

UPDATE: As always, Captain Ed does an outstanding job digging behind the scenes and into the details in a brilliant post called "Releasing the Terrorists and Killing their Travel Agent." He further points out the absurdity of taking the word of these guys that they'll play nice from now on.