Troops Build Community in Iraq

This is a very interesting and hopeful story from the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. soldiers, automatic rifles buckled to their body armor, filed into a community center in a dangerous Shiite neighborhood of north Baghdad Saturday and for a few hours became social workers, cops on the beat and referees between feuding tribesmen.
Tea was passed around, notes were taken, local sheiks spoke in wise tones, heads nodded vigorously in agreement and mundane problems such as garbage collection and distributing electricity generators were tackled.

Maj. Michael Fazio, 36, from Warwick, N.Y., pulled out a cheat sheet - photocopied snapshots labeled with long tribal names that he tried to match with faces in the room.
"This is the battlefield of today," Fazio said, gesturing at the 200 or assembled - half of them civilians, the rest U.S. and Iraqi military. "At certain levels we didn't know what we were in for, but we have adapted in our goal of trying to hand over Iraq."

Adapting is the key to the new warfare, where our troops have proven very resilient. The press and Democrats, not so much.