Many press agencies tried to spin and dilute this news story by introducing it as nondescript "violence," but the significance of its details remains:

Iraqi National Guard and police forces killed at least 13 insurgents yesterday after they were ambushed while providing security for U.S. troops conducting raids [in Baquba,] north of Baghdad.

...In the ambush by insurgents north of Baghdad, the Iraqi forces were targeted by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. They then pursued the insurgents into Buhriz, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. No Iraqi forces or U.S. soldiers were hurt in the clash with the insurgents.

If not for the familiar game being played by politicized journalism — presenting any war news as unexpected and thus deleterious — more of the public would learn of victory documented by Newsday. Who was attacked? Iraqi soldiers and policemen, working in concert with American GIs. What were they doing? Conducting tactically successful raids. How did the ambush end? With a dozen-plus terrorists — clad in funny little jihad jumpsuits — lying in awkward positions, staring at something indeterminate. Five months ago, the protagonists of this story would have been American troops; the only mention of Iraqi counterparts, perhaps, the five or ten who fell or ran when the first bullets flew. Hidden beneath morbid and alarmist headlines is another milestone in the strengthening cooperation of Iraqis and the Allies, and their slow destruction of authoritarian gangs operating in the country.

Whether terrorism can be extinguished without staunching the flow of men, arms and money from places like Syria and Iran remains to be seen. But Iraqis, ever-closer to the action than Western journalists, see progress. Three days before the Baquba crackdown, an Iraqi-American force in Ramadi cut down two dozen terrorists and confiscated hundreds of weapons. Blogger Omar made a note of that operation to add to the wider perspective his brother Mohammed offered the day before:

The last operations carried out by the IP and the National Guard with support from the American army had directed strong blows to these gangs, minimizing their capability to move and carry attacks, as they have found themselves in a defense now; a position that is highly unfavorable for guerilla fighters who find themselves more comfortable with the ‘[hit] and run’ tactics.

However the remaining members of these gangs and as a result of the death and arrest of many of their leaders and symbols and feeling being almost besieged and with hostility everywhere, have started to show more aggressive attitude, as they know that their neighbors and probably relatives must have a role in detecting their moves and supplying Iraqi and American intelligence with the necessary information to transfer into the aggression.

...It seems that the vast majority of Iraqis have agreed to become "spies" and offer help to the IP, national guard and the Americans, and maybe the last series of operations carried in this area as well as other places with similar demography prove that such change in people’s attitude is real. There’s a high coordination between the people and the IP, new army and the Americans, and it has become a regular thing to read in the newspapers about locals giving information about land mines or foreigners in their neighborhood with suspicious behavior and several successful arrests were made and many lives were saved as a result of this cooperation.

Making the ridiculous societal comparison of Iraq to Vietnam is a failure to realize the difference between knowing a totalitarian state by its rhetorical preface and by its physical implementation. If the majority of Iraqis were going to work with Yanks by day and do the dirty work by night in their black pajamas, the time for that was forty-six years ago, when the Hashemites came down. Iraqis know what non-democratic "great revolutions" bring. They know the Ba'athists and, after just a few car bombings, came to understand Islamists just as clearly. 2004's Bloody April was the referendum on Iraqi resolve: they chose to be free. For now, Iraqis will be the mortar to the Allies' pestle until the work can be assumed by them wholly. But that time will come. As Mohammed put it, "Every day passes make me surer than before that Iraqis have made up their minds and that there will be no turning back."