The latest from Iraq:

BAGHDAD, May 29 — The U.S. military said Monday it was deploying the main reserve fighting force for Iraq, a full 3,500-member armored brigade, as emergency reinforcements for the embattled western province of Anbar, where a surge of violence linked to the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq has severely damaged efforts to turn Sunni Arab tribal leaders against the insurgency. The insurgents have assassinated 11 tribal leaders in the Ramadi area since the end of last year, when Sunni sheiks in the city began open cooperation with the U.S. military. That alliance was heralded by U.S. commanders as a sign of a major split between Sunni insurgents and the larger Sunni community of western Iraq. The insurgent attacks since then have all but frozen the cooperation between Sunni tribal leaders and U.S. forces in Ramadi, local leaders say. Disclosure of the plan came on a day when insurgent bombings and other attacks killed more than 40 people around the country, including two members of a CBS News team. The team’s correspondent, Iraq veteran Kimberly Dozier, was wounded and listed in critical condition.

The attack on the CBS News team reminded me of something Michael Yon wrote a few months back:

… insurgents have specifically targeted members of the media.
Apparently the terrorists like it better when fewer reporters are around to peel back the layers of their insurgent press machine and reveal its rotten core. The Americans may think they get bad press, but apparently the terrorists think they get worse. Everybody, it seems, is a victim of bad press, including (ironically) the professionals who print it, because they get shot by everybody, with words and bullets.

The terrorists murder journalists to prevent them from doing their job – which, when done right, is to report on both the brutality of the insurgents and the heroism of the Americans and Iraqis who are rebuilding the country. When journalists in Iraq tell this story, they can do great damage to the terrorists’ attempts to undermine support for the Iraqi government and make the country a haven from which to wage their global holy war.

The attack on the CBS crew killed one soldier and wounded six others. The men and women of the U.S. military are fighting every day to make sure that the terrorists do not succeed in imposing their despotic vision on the world. It is a vision that, as this Memorial Day reminded us, does not include freedom of the press.