WAR ON THE SURGE. And no, not the Democrats this time. This time it was the insurgents who staged a rare frontal assault on a U.S. base north of Baghdad. The insurgents attempted to breach the entrance to the base with a suicide bomber and followed up with an attack by gunmen. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 17 injured. The base was apparently of company size -- a little more then 100 men. We do not know how many of the insurgents were killed or captured. As ominous as the attacks is the NYT take on it.

As American troops move into small combat outposts throughout Baghdad for the first time since the early months after the invasion in 2003, today’s attack underscored the inherent risks in the Bush administration’s new security strategy.

The insurgents in Iraq, of whatever stripe, have a fairly sophisticated grasp of our news media, politics, and history. It seems clear that what they desire more then anything at this time is a TET style offensive. TET was the 1968 offensive undertaken by the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese regulars that doomed American involvment in Vietnam. It was a fight that we clearly won militarily, but it was played up as a huge win by the North Vietnamese in American press, leading shortly thereafter to our withdrawal from South Vietnam.

While not on TET's scale, I have no doubt that the assault that occurred today on a U.S. base was aimed directly at MSM. One of the truths of our military is that we have, in fact, because of our training, professionalism and equipment, a force far superior to anything that can be fielded by anyone else in the world today. In Iraq, we have never lost an engagement occurring at the platoon level or higher. Strip us of that mystique just once and I have no doubt that the calls for withdrawal from Democrats and a few White Flag Republicans, hand in glove with wall to wall coverage by MSM, would reach deafening levels.

Look for more attacks like these in the coming months -- and ask yourself, just how much of a disservice are Murtha, Pelosi, Reid, and their ideological companions in the MSM doing to our soldiers in the field?