By Lance Thompson

If you get all your news information from the mainstream media, you may be excused for not knowing there’s a war on. After all, there has been scant space, what with the 24/7 speculation on Sarah Palin’s ability to balance motherhood and vice presidential duties.

But the war against Islamic jidahists goes on, and much of the news is good. Iraqi forces have taken over responsibility for Anbar province, once an extremely violent area in which the enemy could strike at will. General Petraeus has recommended the withdrawal of between 7500 and 8000 soldiers and Marines from Iraq before the end of the year. In a cross-border strike into a Taliban-controlled area of Pakistan, allied forces have killed five al Qaeda operatives. All this has occurred over the last week.

In previous strikes into Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan this year, three key al Qaeda leaders have been killed, including Abu Khabab al Masri, the al Qaeda bomb and WMD chief; Abut Sulayman Jaairi, the al Qaeda external operations chief; and Abu Laith al Libi, leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Anybody recall hearing this in the news?

Once, when events in Iraq seemed to be going badly for the American military, Democrat foreign policy experts (like Joe Biden) and neophytes (like Barack Obama) talked about President Bush taking his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and getting "bogged down" in Iraq. They ridiculed the troop surge and advocated conceding defeat in Iraq and pulling out.

Now, the troop surge so strongly supported by John McCain, even when it was unpopular, has been proven effective. Iraqi forces are taking over more and more regions of the country, including some of its most dangerous areas. We clearly have the upper hand in Iraq, so, naturally, you won’t be hearing about it on the network news.

Afghanistan is heating up. The pace of cross-border strikes into Taliban-controlled Waziristan may be a response to the increased number of terrorist training camps being established in the northwestern Pakistani province. It may also reflect the value of senior al Qaeda and Taliban leadership in the area. Either way, their concentration makes for irresistible targets. And the body count of most-wanted enemy leaders certainly indicates that the Bush administration have not taken their eyes off the ball.

During the last presidential election, Democrats pinned their hopes on blaming Bush for a failing war effort of which the public was growing weary. Reports of the rising number of casualties was a daily feature in news broadcasts. Now the war is clearly going our way, Iraq is emerging as a stable democracy increasingly able to defend itself against terrorist incursions, and our casualties have dropped significantly. Thus, you will not hear much news from Iraq. Nor will you hear of the victories our forces have won in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Barack Obama no longer boasts of his early opposition to the war in Iraq, now that we’re winning. He has finally admitted that the surge, which he also opposed, has been successful. He has, during his campaign, shifted from an immediate pullout of troops to a gradual drawdown over sixteen months. And even that proposal is no longer prominent in his campaign. He doesn’t talk about shifting the focus of the fighting to Afghanistan from Iraq, because that is what is happening already, and such a position would put him in line with the policies of the Bush administration.

During the last two months of the campaign, many issues will be debated. Let’s not forget the war against the Islamic jihadists that was so important to the Democrats while we were losing, and hardly worth mentioning now that we are prevailing.